A New Clustering Ensemble Framework

Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 2020

During the last decade, ensemble clustering has been the subject of many researches in data mining. In ensemble clustering, several basic partitions are first generated and then a function is used for the clustering aggregation in order to create a final partition that is similar to all of the basic partitions as much as possible. Ensemble clustering has been proposed to enhance efficiency, strength, reliability, and stability of the clustering. A common slogan concerning the ensemble clustering techniques is that "the model combining several poorer models is better than a stronger model". Here at this paper, an ensemble clustering method is proposed using the basic k-means clustering method as its base clustering algorithm. Also, this study could raise the diversity of consensus by adopting some measures. Although our clustering ensemble approach has the strengths of kmeans, such as its efficacy and low complexity, it lacks the drawbacks which the kmeans suffers from; such as its problem in detection of clusters that are not uniformly distributed or in the circular shape. In the empirical studies, we test the proposed ensemble clustering algorithm as well as the other up-to-date cluster ensembles on different data-sets. Based on the experimental results, our cluster ensemble method is stronger than the recent competitor cluster ensemble algorithms and is the most up-to-date clustering method available.

Artificial Intelligence Review, 2018

Information clustering means classifying information or partitioning some samples in clusters such that samples inside each cluster have maximum similarity to each other and maximum distance from other clusters. As clustering is unsupervised, selecting a specific algorithm for clustering of an unknown set may fail. As a consequence of problem complexity and deficiencies in basic clustering methods, most of studies have focused on ensemble clustering methods in recent years. Diversity in initial results is one of the most important factors which may affect final quality of the results. Moreover, the quality of primary results affects the quality of final results. Both factors have been investigated in recent studies on clustering. Here, a new framework is proposed which is used for improving clustering efficiency and it is based on use of a subset of initial clusters. Selection of this subset plays a significant role in performance of the scheme. The subset is selected using two intelligent methods. The main idea in these methods is utilizing stable clusters through intelligent search algorithms. Two stability factors are utilized for cluster evaluation. One of these two stability factors is based on mutual information and the other one is based on Fisher measure. Finally, the selected clusters are added using several final combining methods. Practical results of several standard data sets demonstrate that the proposed method may improve combination clustering method significantly.

International Journal of …, 2010

y jshulcloper@cenatav.co.cu

International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE), 2024

Ensemble learning stands out as a widely embraced technique in machine learning. This research explores the application of ensemble learning, including ensemble clustering, to enhance the precision of cluster analysis for datasets with multiple attributes and unclear correlations. Employing a majority voting-based ensemble clustering approach, specific techniques such as k-means clustering, affinity propagation, mean shift, BIRCH clustering, and others are applied to defined datasets, leading to improved clustering results. The study involves a comprehensive comparative analysis, contrasting ensemble clustering outcomes with those of individual techniques. The process of improving cluster identification accuracy encompasses data collection, pre-processing to exclude irrelevant elements, and the application of standard clustering algorithms. The task includes defining the optimal number of groups before comparing clustering models. Additionally, a combined model is constructed by merging BIRCH clustering and mean shift clustering, leveraging their advantages to enhance overall clustering strength and accuracy. This research contributes to advancing ensemble learning and ensemble clustering methodologies, offering improved accuracy, and uncovering hidden patterns in complex datasets.

2011

In this paper a new criterion for clusters validation is proposed. This new cluster validation criterion is used to approximate the goodness of a cluster. The clusters which satisfy a threshold of this measure are selected to participate in clustering ensemble. For combining the chosen clusters, a co-association based consensus function is applied. Since the Evidence Accumulation Clustering method cannot derive the co-association matrix from a subset of clusters, a new EAC based method which is called Extended EAC, EEAC, is applied for constructing the co-association matrix from the subset of clusters. Employing this new cluster validation criterion, the obtained ensemble is evaluated on some well-known and standard data sets. The empirical studies show promising results for the ensemble obtained using the proposed criterion comparing with the ensemble obtained using the standard clusters validation criterion.

The clustering ensembles contains multiple partitions are divided by different clustering algorithms into a single clustering solutions. Clustering ensembles used for improving robustness, stability, and accuracy of unsupervised classification solutions. The major problem of clustering ensemble is the consensus function. Consensus functions in clustering ensembles including hyperactive graph partition, mutual information, co-association based functions, voting approach and finite machine. The characteristics of clustering ensembles algorithm are computational complexity, robustness, simplicity and accuracy on different datasets in previous techniques.

2007

Previous clustering ensemble algorithms usually use a consensus function to obtain a final partition from the outputs of the initial clustering. In this paper, we propose a new clustering ensemble method, which generates a new feature space from initial clustering outputs. Multiple runs of an initial clustering algorithm like k-means generate a new feature space, which is significantly better than pure or normalized feature space. Therefore, running a simple clustering algorithm on generated feature space can obtain the final partition significantly better than pure data. In this method, we use a modification of k-means for initial clustering runs named as “Intelligent k-means”, which is especially defined for clustering ensembles. The results of the proposed method are presented using both simple k-means and intelligent k-means. Fast convergence and appropriate behavior are the most interesting points of the proposed method. Experimental results on real data sets show effectiveness of the proposed method.

2009

The clustering ensembles combine multiple partitions generated by different clustering algorithms into a single clustering solution. Clustering ensembles have emerged as a prominent method for improving robustness, stability and accuracy of unsupervised classification solutions. So far, many contributions have been done to find consensus clustering. One of the major problems in clustering ensembles is the consensus function. In this paper, firstly, we introduce clustering ensembles, representation of multiple partitions, its challenges and present taxonomy of combination algorithms. Secondly, we describe consensus functions in clustering ensembles including Hypergraph partitioning, Voting approach, Mutual information, Co-association based functions and Finite mixture model, and next explain their advantages, disadvantages and computational complexity. Finally, we compare the characteristics of clustering ensembles algorithms such as computational complexity, robustness, simplicity and accuracy on different datasets in previous techniques.

Applied Intelligence, 2018

International Conference on Information Fusion, 2006

Cluster ensembles are deemed to be a robust and accurate alternative to single clustering runs. 24 methods for designing cluster ensembles are compared here using 24 data sets, both artificial and real. Adjusted rand index and classification accuracy are used as accuracy criteria with respect to a known partition assumed to be the "true" one. The data sets are randomly