Wolf search algorithm for numeric association rule mining

Big data has become one of the key sources for valuable information and as information becomes larger it poses some computational challenge in finding a best possible solution for mining association rules and discovering patterns in data. Meta-heuristic algorithm when applied to mining association rules aims to find best possible rules from data without being stuck in local optimal. Example of meta-heuristics algorithm includes genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm. Finding appropriate representation of various types of patterns using rough numerical values attributes is still a challenge because most association rules cannot be applied to numerical data without discretization which may lead to information loss. Mining numeric association rules is a hard optimization problem rather than being a discretization, thus, this paper proposes a new meta-heuristic algorithm which uses wolf search algorithm (WSA) for numeric association rule mining from rough values within tolerable ranges.