A toolbox for fuzzy clustering using the R programming language

Abstract

Fuzzy clustering is used extensively in several domains of research. In the literature, starting from the well-known fuzzy k-means (fkm) clustering algorithm, an increasing number of papers devoted to fkm and its extensions can be found. Nevertheless, a lack of the related software for implementing these algorithms can be observed preventing their use in practice. Even the standard fkm is not necessarily available in the most common software. For this purpose, a new toolbox for fuzzy clustering using the R programming language is presented by examples. The toolbox, called fclust, contains a suit of fuzzy clustering algorithms, fuzzy cluster validity indices and visualization tools for fuzzy clustering results