Median evidential c-means algorithm and its application to community detection

Median clustering is of great value for partitioning relational data. In this paper, a new prototype-based clustering method, called Median Evidential C-Means (MECM), which is an extension of median c-means and median fuzzy c-means on the theoretical framework of belief functions is proposed. The median variant relaxes the restriction of a metric space embedding for the objects but constrains the prototypes to be in the original data set. Due to these properties, MECM could be applied to graph clustering problems. A community detection scheme for social networks based on MECM is investigated and the obtained credal partitions of graphs, which are more refined than crisp and fuzzy ones, enable us to have a better understanding of the graph structures. An initial prototype-selection scheme based on evidential semi-centrality is presented to avoid local premature convergence and an evidential modularity function is defined to choose the optimal number of communities. Finally, experiments in synthetic and real data sets illustrate the performance of MECM and show its difference to other methods

Dealing with non-metric dissimilarities in fuzzy central clustering algorithms

Clustering is the problem of grouping objects on the basis of a similarity measure among them. Relational clustering methods can be employed when a feature-based representation of the objects is not available, and their description is given in terms of pairwise (dis)similarities. This paper focuses on the relational duals of fuzzy central clustering algorithms, and their application in situations when patterns are represented by means of non-metric pairwise dissimilarities. Symmetrization and shift operations have been proposed to transform the dissimilarities among patterns from non-metric to metric. In this paper, we analyze how four popular fuzzy central clustering algorithms are affected by such transformations. The main contributions include the lack of invariance to shift operations, as well as the invariance to symmetrization. Moreover, we highlight the connections between relational duals of central clustering algorithms and central clustering algorithms in kernel-induced spaces. One among the presented algorithms has never been proposed for non-metric relational clustering, and turns out to be very robust to shift operations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Relational visual cluster validity

The assessment of cluster validity plays a very important role in cluster analysis. Most commonly used cluster validity methods are based on statistical hypothesis testing or finding the best clustering scheme by computing a number of different cluster validity indices. A number of visual methods of cluster validity have been produced to display directly the validity of clusters by mapping data into two- or three-dimensional space. However, these methods may lose too much information to correctly estimate the results of clustering algorithms. Although the visual cluster validity (VCV) method of Hathaway and Bezdek can successfully solve this problem, it can only be applied for object data, i.e. feature measurements. There are very few validity methods that can be used to analyze the validity of data where only a similarity or dissimilarity relation exists – relational data. To tackle this problem, this paper presents a relational visual cluster validity (RVCV) method to assess the validity of clustering relational data. This is done by combining the results of the non-Euclidean relational fuzzy c-means (NERFCM) algorithm with a modification of the VCV method to produce a visual representation of cluster validity. RVCV can cluster complete and incomplete relational data and adds to the visual cluster validity theory. Numeric examples using synthetic and real data are presente

Evidential relational clustering using medoids

In real clustering applications, proximity data, in which only pairwise similarities or dissimilarities are known, is more general than object data, in which each pattern is described explicitly by a list of attributes. Medoid-based clustering algorithms, which assume the prototypes of classes are objects, are of great value for partitioning relational data sets. In this paper a new prototype-based clustering method, named Evidential C-Medoids (ECMdd), which is an extension of Fuzzy C-Medoids (FCMdd) on the theoretical framework of belief functions is proposed. In ECMdd, medoids are utilized as the prototypes to represent the detected classes, including specific classes and imprecise classes. Specific classes are for the data which are distinctly far from the prototypes of other classes, while imprecise classes accept the objects that may be close to the prototypes of more than one class. This soft decision mechanism could make the clustering results more cautious and reduce the misclassification rates. Experiments in synthetic and real data sets are used to illustrate the performance of ECMdd. The results show that ECMdd could capture well the uncertainty in the internal data structure. Moreover, it is more robust to the initializations compared with FCMdd.Comment: in The 18th International Conference on Information Fusion, July 2015, Washington, DC, USA , Jul 2015, Washington, United State

A Concurrent Fuzzy-Neural Network Approach for Decision Support Systems

Decision-making is a process of choosing among alternative courses of action for solving complicated problems where multi-criteria objectives are involved. The past few years have witnessed a growing recognition of Soft Computing technologies that underlie the conception, design and utilization of intelligent systems. Several works have been done where engineers and scientists have applied intelligent techniques and heuristics to obtain optimal decisions from imprecise information. In this paper, we present a concurrent fuzzy-neural network approach combining unsupervised and supervised learning techniques to develop the Tactical Air Combat Decision Support System (TACDSS). Experiment results clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed technique

Fuzzy image segmentation using location and intensity information

The segmentation results of any clustering algorithm are very sensitive to the features used in the similarity measure and the object types, which reduce the generalization capability of the algorithm. The previously developed algorithm called image segmentation using fuzzy clustering incorporating spatial information (FCSI) merged the independently segmented results generated by fuzzy clustering-based on pixel intensity and pixel location. The main disadvantages of this algorithm are that a perceptually selected threshold does not consider any semantic information and also produces unpredictable segmentation results for objects (regions) covering the entire image. This paper directly addresses these issues by introducing a new algorithm called fuzzy image segmentation using location and intensity (FSLI) by modifying the original FCSI algorithm. It considers the topological feature namely, connectivity and the similarity based on pixel intensity and surface variation. Qualitative and quantitative results confirm the considerable improvements achieved using the FSLI algorithm compared with FCSI and the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm for all three alternatives, namely clustering using only pixel intensity, pixel location and a combination of the two, for a range of sample of images