Generic Itemset Mining Based on Reinforcement Learning

One of the biggest problems in itemset mining is the requirement of developing a data structure or algorithm, every time a user wants to extract a different type of itemsets. To overcome this, we propose a method, called Generic Itemset Mining based on Reinforcement Learning (GIM-RL), that offers a unified framework to train an agent for extracting any type of itemsets. In GIM-RL, the environment formulates iterative steps of extracting a target type of itemsets from a dataset. At each step, an agent performs an action to add or remove an item to or from the current itemset, and then obtains from the environment a reward that represents how relevant the itemset resulting from the action is to the target type. Through numerous trial-and-error steps where various rewards are obtained by diverse actions, the agent is trained to maximise cumulative rewards so that it acquires the optimal action policy for forming as many itemsets of the target type as possible. In this framework, an agent for extracting any type of itemsets can be trained as long as a reward suitable for the type can be defined. The extensive experiments on mining high utility itemsets, frequent itemsets and association rules show the general effectiveness and one remarkable potential (agent transfer) of GIM-RL. We hope that GIM-RL opens a new research direction towards learning-based itemset mining.