On detecting differences between groups
Geoffrey I. Webb, Shane M. Butler, Douglas Newlands · 2003
Understanding the differences between contrasting groups is a fundamental task in data analysis. This realization has led to the development of a new special purpose data mining technique, contrast-set mining. We undertook a study with a retail collaborator to compare contrast-set mining with existing rule-discovery techniques. To our surprise we ob-served that straightforward application of an existing com-mercial rule-discovery system, Magnum Opus, could suc-cessfully perform the contrast-set-mining task. This led to the realization that contrast-set mining is a special case of the more general rule-discovery task. We present the results of our study together with a proof of this conclusion. Categories and Subject Descriptors