Efficient Apriori Algorithm using Enhanced
Transaction Reduction Approach
Jeanie R. Delos Arcos
Graduate Programs
Technological Institute of the Philippines
Quezon City, Philippines
jeanie.delosarcos@gmail.com
Abstract—Apriori algorithm has fundamentally identified
algorithm in association rule mining. The principle key concept
of this algorithm is to discover interesting recurrent patterns
between different groups of data. It is a straight forward, and
an original algorithm, which employs a high iterative approach
viewed as level-wise search. Nevertheless, this kind of
algorithm has loads of downsides. Source on this algorithm,
this research denotes the constraint of the classical Apriori
algorithm in terms of computational cost in mapping the entire
database for discovering frequent itemsets and signifies an
enhancement of Apriori by minimizing the algorithm
generation cost through enhancing transaction reduction
approach. The enhanced Apriori when compared with the
Apriori algorithm, the length of database scanning time
reduces to 58 percent, and the generation time reduces
approximately 89 percent of the original Apriori.
Keywords—Association rule mining, apriori algorithm, frequent
item set mining, transaction reduction, hashing.
I. INTRODUCTION
Nearly all well-established businesses aggregated a
multitude of decades of data collated from customers’
information[1]. In the advent of e-commerce applications
proliferation, companies significantly accumulate data in
months, not in years[2]. In the last ten years, Data Mining
domain is otherwise known as knowledge Discovery,
designs and framework crafted from the performance
information of social insects datasets like ants constitute
Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD), which focuses
on finding correlations, trends, correlations, patterns,
anomalies that gained promising popularity[3]. Comparison
to robust essential multi-databases help company’s makes
accurate future decisions. Most widely used data mining
applications in the understanding of item set associativity is
association rule mining [4].
Association rule mining (ARM) gained a remarkably
extensive and adequately researched techniques in data
mining and fundamentally popularized by Agrawal et al. in
1993 [5]. The purpose of the technique intent to fragment
frequent itemsets, compelling rules, associations, or rare data
organization among sets of items in a data repositories or
other transaction databases. Market basket analysis serves as
an example of ARM [6]. ARM processes determine
association rules that return the weighted minimum support
and confidence from a defined transaction data [7]. Aside
from market basket analysis, ARM is immensely noticeable
in a diverse field like web search, process mining, medical
assimilation, marketing advancement, and productively on
the market dispensing [8]. Over time, several algorithms for
generating association rules are introduced [9]. Popularly
978-1-5386-6940-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Alexander A. Hernandez
College of Information Technology Education
Technological Institute of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
alexander.hernandez@tip.edu.ph
known algorithms under ARM are Apriori, Eclat, and FP-
Growth applied to extract frequent itemsets [10].
Apriori Algorithm (AA) recognized as a level-wise
algorithm designed to perform and search design to
commend frequent itemsets [11]. This algorithm also earned
popularity and a commonly used algorithm for ARM [12].
However, in the current trends, the datasets collated from
transactions have become gigantic, comparing its
accumulated data sets 10’years ago [13]. The immense data
creates the Apriori Algorithm a dilemma involving large
datasets. Initially, it expects successive mapping of the
transactional database, agitating a computational generation
cost [14]. Also, it propagates innumerable candidate sets
consumed by a considerable amount of memory resource
[15].
Thus, a need to enhance the Apriori algorithm keeps on
attracting researchers for years using different techniques.
Numerous studies conducted and most modern approach
have been recommended to cope with this dilemma, each
with its advantages and drawbacks, but no ultimate strategy
attained for years [6]. For more significant application in this
element, new algorithms that can enhance further the
scalability and interpretability are nonetheless in high
demand [16]. This led to the main contribution of the study
that gears on improving Apriori Algorithm to improve the
efficiency of the algorithm by minimizing the number of
database scans and limiting the input and output cost.
The structure of this paper is arranged in a manner
defined as follows. Section II discusses the Association Rule
Mining and related works. Section III gives an overview of
the design and process of Enhanced Apriori Algorithm.
Section IV presents the experimental results of the
comparative analysis of enhanced Apriori and the classic
Apriori. Section V concludes this paper. Finally,
acknowledgment expresses gratitude to all who contributed
to the success of this work.
II. RELATED WORKS
A. Association Rule Mining
In knowledge discovery domain, Association Rule
Mining determines the relationship or the association rule
between the data. The association rule expression is
characterized as M form, where M is the antecedent
and N is the consequent. The expression shows that the
number of times N occurred if M transpired base on the
support and confidence set in every process. Countless
algorithms in producing association rules were designed
over time [17]. Few leading algorithms are Apriori known
as level-wise search, and FP-Growth. The issue of ARM
expressed as: considering a transaction dataset, a support
threshold and a confidence
threshold that process every relationships with
support higher than or equal to with confidence
higher than or equal to from the dataset.
Association Rules looks for rules where M and N can be
particular items, composed of two item sets:
1. The left-hand side also identified as antecedent
2. The right-hand side also identified as consequent
The two significant primary interestingness measures
for Association Rule or the relationships of items are
support(S) and confidence(C). The relationship of M⇒ N
characterize in the records set Z with Support (S), defined as
the percentage of records in Z defining M∪N. This
important point leads to the definition of the likelihood of, P
(M∪ N). While, Confidence(C) in the records set Z if C is
the percentage of records in Z comprising X that also
comprise Y. Thus, defines the conditional likelihood,
P(M|N), which further explains, Support (M⇒ N)=P(M∪ N)
Confidence (M⇒N) = P(M|N). Common terms used in
defining association rule mining listed as [18]:
1. Itemset which describe a group of items. A k-
itemset can be an itemset which includes k
occurrences of items.
2. Frequent itemset that refers to an itemset which has
a nominal support.
3. Candidate set that describe a label directed at a
group of itemsets that need testing to determine if
the sets match a particular requirement [19].
4. Strong rule and Weak rule that describe a
description of the support rule if it is greater or
equal than nominal support and if the confidence
rule is higher or equal than nominal confidence
then the relationship would be mark as strong rule,
otherwise identified as a weak rule.
In general, association rules mining algorithm entails
the enumerated steps:
1. Candidate set–itemsets f-itemsets is a result from
1-extensions of the sizeable (f-1)-itemsets
produced in the earlier iteration.
2. Support S for the candidate f-itemsets are resulted
by thorough scanning of the database.
3. Itemsets with support that is less than nominal
support are reduced and the outstanding itemsets
formed the gigantic f-itemsets.
All of the recognized association rules can be broken
down into two relative factors [5]:
1. Finds the frequent item sets.
2. Frequent itemsets are accustomed to propagate the
desired rules[20].
B. Apriori Algorithm
Exploring frequent itemsets is among the many
investigated domains of data mining. Association rule and
frequent itemset mining developed into the enormously
researched area, and therefore more efficient algorithms,
modified or enhance have been presented. Distinct is Apriori
based algorithms or Apriori improvements. Algorithms
based on Apriori as a basic search strategy helped to modify
the whole series of procedures and data structures. Apriori
algorithm is user-friendly to implement and easy to
understand, making it popular to use to mine all frequent
itemsets in a transaction database.
The algorithm generates multiple scanning in a database
to discover itemsets frequently in occurrences where f-
itemsets are accustomed to propagate i+1-itemsets. Every
instance of items as i-itemset needs to be higher than or equal
to a nominal support threshold to become frequent.
Contrarily, the item will be identified as candidate itemsets.
Initially, the algorithm scan databases to learn the frequency
of 1-itemsets consisting only of one item in the process of
enumerating each item in the database. The rate of
occurrences of 1-itemsets is used to determine the itemset in
2-itemsets, which often used to find 3-itemsets and so forth
until there are no additional f-itemsets. If an itemset is
undoubtedly not frequent, any significant subset from it is
also non-frequent; this circumstance is susceptible to search
space in a database [21]. This algorithm follows three steps:
ALGORITHM 1: APRIORI ALGORITHM
1. F1 = {frequent 1-itemsets };
2. for (f=2; Ff-1≠ 0 ;f++) {
3. Cf = aprori_gen (Ff-1)
4. for all transactions t ϵ T {
5. Subset Cf, t
6. }
7. F= {c ϵ C f | c.count ≥ minsup }
8. return ∪ Ff
In this algorithm, most of its time is spent in scanning
the database until it output into one frequent itemset. In this
work, the model designed base on the probability of its
efficiency measured with two qualities:
1. The probability of the set is a success referred as
success rate
2. The probability of the set is a failure referred as
failure rate.
C. Enhancements of Apriori Algorithm
In 2017, an implementation of a tree based algorithmic
approach successfully finds frequent items sets that geared
towards a lesser table to generates in order to minimize the
amount of space needed consumed by tables size. The
research reduces the time complexity of accessing the
database through the utilization of tree base approach [22].
In 2017, an implementation of a tree-based algorithmic
approach successfully found frequent items sets that geared
towards a lesser table to generates in order to minimize the
amount of space needed consumed by tables size. The
research reduces the time complexity of accessing the
database through the utilization of a tree-based approach
[22].
Furthermore, in 2018 researchers on Apriori
enhancement algorithm, the study of an improved Apriori
algorithm using Bi-Phase algorithm utilizes an ensemble
algorithm that can find items sets using a high utility to the
user while also implicitly making use of the metrics of
minimum support and minimum confidence recommended
by traditional Association rule mining algorithm [24]. The
study suggests a bi-phase algorithm that recognizes high
utility itemsets more effective. However, it scrapes out the
generation of rules with a high utility that commonly
integrates the traditional concepts of minimum support and
confidence.
D. Hash Based Apriori Algorithm
In 2016, a study on a hash-based technique of size eight
table that highlights on 2-itemsets mining, wherein the
evaluation of the modified algorithm geared on 2-itemsets
mining memory consumption [25].
In 2018, a study proposed an array hash table base
Apriori algorithm that maps an array table through one-
dimensional array structure [26]. The comparison of time
taken over several client requests. Also, a dynamic hash
algorithm [27] based on data attributes, improved association
rules mining.
E. Transaction Reduction Apriori Algorithm
An improved Apriori algorithm using transaction
reduction approached successfully reduces the searching
time through scaling down the unnecessary transaction
items which at the same time lessen the duplicate items
during the candidate itemsets generation, which can create
the recurrent itemsets directly and discard candidate itemset
with a subset categorized as not frequent [28]. A similar
concept was also applied in the study of cache database
transaction reduction [29], yet the study did not show a
performance result evaluation of the algorithm.
III. PROPOSED ARCHITECHTURE AND METHODS
A. Proposed Enhanced Apriori Architecture
In the proposed enhanced Apriori Algorithm, there are
four modules added from the original Apriori Algorithm.
These modules are Parse Token, Map Token, Hash Frequent
Item Set, and Non-Frequent Item Set Reduction.
Transaction reduction approach was enhanced through the
integration of the memorization approach [30] implemented
through the use of hashing. Fig. 1 shows the integration of
these modules in the original Apriori as an enhancement of
the algorithm.
Fig. 1. Enhanced Apriori Algorithm Architecture
B. Performance Measures
The theoretical evaluation of overall performance of the
algorithm is shown in this section. The full total running
period for classic Apriori algorithm[31] can be defined in
equation (1)
(1)
where, be the cost of time incurred in a single scan
from a transaction database, be the cost of time of
producing Ck+1 from Lk, mk defines the number of item sets
in Ck without nk, the variable lk+1 refers to the item sets in
Ck+1 while nk defines the number of item sets in Lk. A
expresses the number of records in the transactional database
and n expresses the length of data.
The full total running period of the proposed improved
version of Apriori algorithm is
• Time needed to search the transaction database on
initial run time is: ts * mk where ts defines the time
needed for searching the transaction database and
mk defines the number of item instances in the
transaction database
• Time needed to search for items with examination
of support count: tk * nk where nk describe the
amount of items and tk is the period consumed in
searching for items compared with nominal support
• Time appropriated in scanning for items with
maximum length : tl * nl where tl describe the
reduced transaction database search time
• Time appropriated to produced association rules :
Where p is the length of maximum pattern, ti is the
period consumed in searching a relationship of length i and
ni where ni denotes the number of relationships of length i.
The total time appropriated for the prospective method
defined as follows in equation (2)
(2)
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The enhanced algorithm is implemented using Java
programming language. The entire experiments are all
performed on an Intel(R) core i5 - 8250u CPU @ 1.60 GHz
with an 8 GB RAM, in a Microsoft Windows 10 running
operating system.
In the efficiency comparability, this analysis makes
certain of the comparability of the system state in all
evaluation functions and offers related outcome when
repeated. Several datasets utilized in the efficiency analysis
of this proposed function.
A. Properties of Datasets
The proposed approach is analyzed on four datasets to be
able to gauge the levels of performance on the datasets
having distinct attributes. Four original datasets (D1 to D4)
are found in the experimentations. Table 1 features the
details defining the properties of the datasets, the quantity of
the transaction, and how large is a dataset. The four genuine
and distinct dataset (D1 to D4) is extracted from the Kaggle
repository [32]. Table 1 also displays the various properties
of the dataset utilized and its origin.
 TABLE I. DATASET PROPERTIES Fig. 3 shows that the enhanced Apriori at a minimum
Number of support of 0.20, marks as the highest time reduction rate of
Dataset Type Size
Transaction 62%. The average reduction rate of mall customer data is
D1 (e-commerce) Real 541910 44949KB 29%.
D2 (Mall Customer) Real 210 4Kb
D3 (Convenience) Real 787 48Kb
D4 (Suicide) Real 27821 2662Kb

B. Performance Analysis
The scanned time of the four datasets is presented in
Table II. Average scanned time of 58% for the four datasets
derived where D4 dataset has the highest scanned time
difference, and D3 resulted in the lowest time consumed in
scanning the database compared with the original Apriori
Algorithm.

TABLE II. DATASET SCANNING TIME

Enhanced
Apriori Time
Apriori Fig. 4. Comparison of Apriori and Enhanced Apriori on convenience data
Dataset Scanned Reducing
Scanned
Time (s) Rate
Time (s) With Fig. 4, at a minimum rate of 0.02, the reducing
D1 (e-commerce) 79 1.20 98% rate of the enhance Apriori is 40% compared it with the
D2 (Mall Customer) 0.06 0.04 28%
D3 (Convenience) 0.18 0.17 8%
original Apriori. The average reduction time of the
D4 (Suicide) 509 1 100% enhanced Apriori is 14%.

Fig. 2 to Fig. 5 shows the comparison of the original

Apriori and the enhanced Apriori algorithm by
implementing it with the different datasets on Table 1
through the different minimum support rate.

Fig. 5. Comparison of Apriori and Enhanced Apriori on suicide data

In Fig. 5, the enhance Apriori average reduction time is

Fig. 2. Comparison of Apriori and Enhanced Apriori on e-commerce data
The average reduction time rate of enhance Apriori on
E-commerce data is 89% with a highest time reducing rate
of 99% at minimum support of 0.35 compared it from the
original Apriori. Fig. 2 shows comparison of the enhanced
Apriori and the original Apriori with the different minimum
support.
99% compared with the original Apriori. The time reduction
rate of the minimum support of 0.20 is 100%.
Using the equations (1) and (2) of Section III, the
difference in the runtime between the two algorithms
depends on the number of items, and the dimension of the
data. It is observed that the enhanced algorithm efficiently
works on large datasets, as shown in Fig. 2 to 5.
V. CONCLUSION
From this paper, trimming the transaction data size
serves as the essential point to further improve the Apriori
algorithm efficiency. The applied method not only optimizes
the algorithm by minimizing the candidate sets generation,
but it also enhances the input-output cost by minimizing
database transaction or known as transaction reduction
scheme. The efficiency of the algorithm improves, and the
common problem of Apriori regarding overhead
maintenance was managed through the integration of
hashing approach.

Fig. 3. Comparison of Apriori and Enhanced Apriori on mall customer data

 Future work could be geared towards overhead database
maintenance, which commonly handled using multiple
processors integration.
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