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Therefore, most research in clustering analysis has been focused on the automation of the process. Automated selection of k in a K-means clustering algorithm, one of the most used centroid-based clustering algorithms, is still a major problem in machine learning. The most accepted solution to this problem is the elbow method.
Cluster analysis or clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some specific sense defined by the analyst) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters).
Similar to other clustering evaluation metrics such as Silhouette score, the CH index can be used to find the optimal number of clusters k in algorithms like k-means, where the value of k is not known a priori. This can be done by following these steps: Perform clustering for different values of k. Compute the CH index for each clustering result.
The average silhouette of the data is another useful criterion for assessing the natural number of clusters. The silhouette of a data instance is a measure of how closely it is matched to data within its cluster and how loosely it is matched to data of the neighboring cluster, i.e., the cluster whose average distance from the datum is lowest. [8]
Several of these models correspond to well-known heuristic clustering methods. For example, k-means clustering is equivalent to estimation of the EII clustering model using the classification EM algorithm. [8] The Bayesian information criterion (BIC) can be used to choose the best clustering model as well as the number of clusters. It can also ...
The Dunn index (DI) (introduced by J. C. Dunn in 1974) is a metric for evaluating clustering algorithms. [1] [2] This is part of a group of validity indices including the Davies–Bouldin index or Silhouette index, in that it is an internal evaluation scheme, where the result is based on the clustered data itself.
Group concept mapping is a structured methodology for organizing the ideas of a group on any topic of interest and representing those ideas visually in a series of interrelated maps. [1] [2] It is a type of integrative mixed method, [3] [4] combining qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection and analysis.
In the theory of cluster analysis, the nearest-neighbor chain algorithm is an algorithm that can speed up several methods for agglomerative hierarchical clustering.These are methods that take a collection of points as input, and create a hierarchy of clusters of points by repeatedly merging pairs of smaller clusters to form larger clusters.