24,178 research outputs found
Interpretable Clustering using Unsupervised Binary Trees
We herein introduce a new method of interpretable clustering that uses
unsupervised binary trees. It is a three-stage procedure, the first stage of
which entails a series of recursive binary splits to reduce the heterogeneity
of the data within the new subsamples. During the second stage (pruning),
consideration is given to whether adjacent nodes can be aggregated. Finally,
during the third stage (joining), similar clusters are joined together, even if
they do not descend from the same node originally. Consistency results are
obtained, and the procedure is used on simulated and real data sets.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
Mapping Topographic Structure in White Matter Pathways with Level Set Trees
Fiber tractography on diffusion imaging data offers rich potential for
describing white matter pathways in the human brain, but characterizing the
spatial organization in these large and complex data sets remains a challenge.
We show that level set trees---which provide a concise representation of the
hierarchical mode structure of probability density functions---offer a
statistically-principled framework for visualizing and analyzing topography in
fiber streamlines. Using diffusion spectrum imaging data collected on
neurologically healthy controls (N=30), we mapped white matter pathways from
the cortex into the striatum using a deterministic tractography algorithm that
estimates fiber bundles as dimensionless streamlines. Level set trees were used
for interactive exploration of patterns in the endpoint distributions of the
mapped fiber tracks and an efficient segmentation of the tracks that has
empirical accuracy comparable to standard nonparametric clustering methods. We
show that level set trees can also be generalized to model pseudo-density
functions in order to analyze a broader array of data types, including entire
fiber streamlines. Finally, resampling methods show the reliability of the
level set tree as a descriptive measure of topographic structure, illustrating
its potential as a statistical descriptor in brain imaging analysis. These
results highlight the broad applicability of level set trees for visualizing
and analyzing high-dimensional data like fiber tractography output
Analysis of approximate nearest neighbor searching with clustered point sets
We present an empirical analysis of data structures for approximate nearest
neighbor searching. We compare the well-known optimized kd-tree splitting
method against two alternative splitting methods. The first, called the
sliding-midpoint method, which attempts to balance the goals of producing
subdivision cells of bounded aspect ratio, while not producing any empty cells.
The second, called the minimum-ambiguity method is a query-based approach. In
addition to the data points, it is also given a training set of query points
for preprocessing. It employs a simple greedy algorithm to select the splitting
plane that minimizes the average amount of ambiguity in the choice of the
nearest neighbor for the training points. We provide an empirical analysis
comparing these two methods against the optimized kd-tree construction for a
number of synthetically generated data and query sets. We demonstrate that for
clustered data and query sets, these algorithms can provide significant
improvements over the standard kd-tree construction for approximate nearest
neighbor searching.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. Presented at ALENEX '99, Baltimore, MD, Jan
15-16, 199
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