Abstract not found

A general nonparametric technique is proposed for the analysis of a complex multimodal feature space and to delineate arbitrarily shaped clusters in it. The basic computational module of the technique is an old pattern recognition procedure, the mean shift. We prove for discrete data the convergence of a recursive mean shift procedure to the nearest stationary point of the underlying density function and thus its utility in detecting the modes of the density. The equivalence of the mean shift procedure to the Nadaraya–Watson estimator from kernel regression and the robust M-estimators of location is also established. Algorithms for two low-level vision tasks, discontinuity preserving smoothing and image segmentation are described as applications. In these algorithms the only user set parameter is the resolution of the analysis, and either gray level or color images are accepted as input. Extensive experimental results illustrate their excellent performance.

Clustering is the unsupervised classification of patterns (observations, data items, or feature vectors) into groups (clusters). The clustering problem has been addressed in many contexts and by researchers in many disciplines; this reflects its broad appeal and usefulness as one of the steps in exploratory data analysis. However, clustering is a difficult problem combinatorially, and differences in assumptions and contexts in different communities has made the transfer of useful generic concepts and methodologies slow to occur. This paper presents an overview of pattern clustering methods from a statistical pattern recognition perspective, with a goal of providing useful advice and references to fundamental concepts accessible to the broad community of clustering practitioners. We present a taxonomy of clustering techniques, and identify cross-cutting themes and recent advances. We also describe some important applications of clustering algorithms such as image segmentation, object recognition, and information retrieval.

Document clustering has not been well received as an information retrieval tool. Objections to its use fall into two main categories: first, that clustering is too slow for large corpora (with running time often quadratic in the number of documents); and second, that clustering does not appreciably improve retrieval. We argue that these problems arise only when clustering is used in an attempt to improve conventional search techniques. However, looking at clustering as an information access tool in its own right obviates these objections, and provides a powerful new access paradigm. We present a document browsing technique that employs document clustering as its primary operation. We also present fast (linear time) clustering algorithms which support this interactive browsing paradigm. 1 Introduction Document clustering has been extensively investigated as a methodology for improving document search and retrieval (see [15] for an excellent review). The general assumption is that mutua...

The primary goal of pattern recognition is supervised or unsupervised classification. Among the various frameworks in which pattern recognition has been traditionally formulated, the statistical approach has been most intensively studied and used in practice. More recently, neural network techniques and methods imported from statistical learning theory have bean receiving increasing attention. The design of a recognition system requires careful attention to the following issues: definition of pattern classes, sensing environment, pattern representation, feature extraction and selection, cluster analysis, classifier design and learning, selection of training and test samples, and performance evaluation. In spite of almost 50 years of research and development in this field, the general problem of recognizing complex patterns with arbitrary orientation, location, and scale remains unsolved. New and emerging applications, such as data mining, web searching, retrieval of multimedia data, face recognition, and cursive handwriting recognition, require robust and efficient pattern recognition techniques. The objective of this review paper is to summarize and compare some of the well-known methods used in various stages of a pattern recognition system and identify research topics and applications which are at the forefront of this exciting and challenging field.

Data mining applications place special requirements on clustering algorithms including: the ability to find clusters embedded in subspaces of high dimensional data, scalability, end-user comprehensibility of the results, non-presumption of any canonical data distribution, and insensitivity to the order of input records. We present CLIQUE, a clustering algorithm that satisfies each of these requirements. CLIQUE identifies dense clusters in subspaces of maximum dimensionality. It generates cluster descriptions in the form of DNF expressions that are minimized for ease of comprehension. It produces identical results irrespective of the order in which input records are presented and does not presume any specific mathematical form for data distribution. Through experiments, we show that CLIQUE efficiently finds accurate clusters in large high dimensional datasets.

A new access meth d, called M-tree, is proposed to organize and search large data sets from a generic "metric space", i.e. whE4 object proximity is only defined by a distance function satisfyingth positivity, symmetry, and triangle inequality postulates. We detail algorith[ for insertion of objects and split management, whF h keep th M-tree always balanced - severalheralvFV split alternatives are considered and experimentally evaluated. Algorithd for similarity (range and k-nearest neigh bors) queries are also described. Results from extensive experimentationwith a prototype system are reported, considering as th performance criteria th number of page I/O's and th number of distance computations. Th results demonstratethm th Mtree indeed extendsth domain of applicability beyond th traditional vector spaces, performs reasonably well inhE[94Kv#E44V[vh data spaces, and scales well in case of growing files. 1

Mining information and knowledge from large databases has been recognized by many researchers as a key research topic in database systems and machine learning, and by many industrial companies as an important area with an opportunity of major revenues. Researchers in many different fields have shown great interest in data mining. Several emerging applications in information providing services, such as data warehousing and on-line services over the Internet, also call for various data mining techniques to better understand user behavior, to improve the service provided, and to increase the business opportunities. In response to such a demand, this article is to provide a survey, from a database researcher's point of view, on the data mining techniques developed recently. A classification of the available data mining techniques is provided and a comparative study of such techniques is presented.

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of some common document clustering techniques: agglomerative hierarchical clustering and K-means. (We used both a “standard” K-means algorithm and a “bisecting ” K-means algorithm.) Our results indicate that the bisecting K-means technique is better than the standard K-means approach and (somewhat surprisingly) as good or better than the hierarchical approaches that we tested.

We introduce the problem of mining association rules in large relational tables containing both quantitative and categorical attributes. An example of such an association might be "10% of married people between age 50 and 60 have at least 2 cars". We deal with quantitative attributes by finepartitioning the values of the attribute and then combining adjacent partitions as necessary. We introduce measures of partial completeness which quantify the information lost due to partitioning. A direct application of this technique can generate too many similar rules. We tackle this problem by using a "greater-than-expected-value" interest measure to identify the interesting rules in the output. We give an algorithm for mining such quantitative association rules. Finally, we describe the results of using this approach on a real-life dataset. 1 Introduction Data mining, also known as knowledge discovery in databases, has been recognized as a new area for database research. The problem of discove...