An efficient algorithm for mining periodic high-utility sequential patterns

A periodic high-utility sequential pattern (PHUSP) is a pattern that not only yields a high-utility (e.g. high profit) but also appears regularly in a sequence database. Finding PHUSPs is useful for several applications such as market basket analysis, where it can reveal recurring and profitable customer behavior. Although discovering PHUSPs is desirable, it is computationally difficult. To discover PHUSPs efficiently, this paper proposes a structure for periodic high-utility sequential pattern mining (PHUSPM) named PUSP. Furthermore, to reduce the search space and speed up PHUSPM, a pruning strategy is developed. This results in an efficient algorithm called periodic high-utility sequential pattern optimal miner (PUSOM). An experimental evaluation was performed on both synthetic and real-life datasets to compare the performance of PUSOM with state-of-the-art PHUSPM algorithms in terms of execution time, memory usage and scalability. Experimental results show that the PUSOM algorithm can efficiently discover the complete set of PHUSPs. Moreover, it outperforms the other four algorithms as the former can prune many unpromising patterns using its designed structure and pruning strategy.