Stability analysis in K-means clustering

Br J Math Stat Psychol. 2008 Nov;61(Pt 2):255-73. doi: 10.1348/000711007X184849. Epub 2007 Feb 22.

Abstract

This paper develops a new procedure, called stability analysis, for K-means clustering. Instead of ignoring local optima and only considering the best solution found, this procedure takes advantage of additional information from a K-means cluster analysis. The information from the locally optimal solutions is collected in an object by object co-occurrence matrix. The co-occurrence matrix is clustered and subsequently reordered by a steepest ascent quadratic assignment procedure to aid visual interpretation of the multidimensional cluster structure. Subsequently, measures are developed to determine the overall structure of a data set, the number of clusters and the multidimensional relationships between the clusters.

MeSH terms

  • Cluster Analysis
  • Humans
  • Models, Psychological*
  • Psychology / statistics & numerical data