Title: Comparison between compactness and connectedness criteria in data clustering

Authors: Abdelaziz I. Hammouri; Salwani Abdullah

Addresses: Data Mining and Optimisation Research Group, Centre for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan, Bangi, 43600, Selangor, Malaysia; Department of Computer Information System, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, 19117, Jordan ' Data Mining and Optimisation Research Group, Centre for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan, Bangi, 43600, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: Data clustering is the first step in data mining. It aims at finding homogeneous groups of objects based on the degree of similarity and dissimilarity of their attributes. Most of the existing clustering methods are based on a single criterion to measure the goodness of clusters. In most cases, these methods are not suitable for different types of datasets with different characteristics. In this study, biogeography-based optimisation (BBO) and great deluge (GD) algorithms are combined to address the data clustering as single objective optimisation problem; two versions of the proposed approach that employed two different clustering criteria as the objective function have been investigated using fourteen 2D synthetic benchmark datasets. The quality of the obtained clusters of both versions of the proposed approach is insufficient with respect to the external evaluation function (i.e. F-measure). Thus, the data-clustering problem preferred to be tackled as multi-objective clustering algorithms.

Keywords: data mining; data clustering; unsupervised learning; metaheuristics; biogeography-based optimisation; BBO; great deluge algorithm; hybrid approach; single-objective optimisation; multi-objective optimisation; F-measure; compactness clustering; connectedness clustering; data analysis; multi-objective clustering.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDATS.2016.081363

International Journal of Data Analysis Techniques and Strategies, 2016 Vol.8 No.4, pp.281 - 295

Received: 23 Mar 2015
Accepted: 13 Apr 2015

Published online: 06 Jan 2017 *

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