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

An Incremental Construction of Deep Neuro Fuzzy System for Continual Learning of Non-stationary Data Streams

Existing FNNs are mostly developed under a shallow network configuration having lower generalization power than those of deep structures. This paper proposes a novel self-organizing deep FNN, namely DEVFNN. Fuzzy rules can be automatically extracted from data streams or removed if they play limited role during their lifespan. The structure of the network can be deepened on demand by stacking additional layers using a drift detection method which not only detects the covariate drift, variations of input space, but also accurately identifies the real drift, dynamic changes of both feature space and target space. DEVFNN is developed under the stacked generalization principle via the feature augmentation concept where a recently developed algorithm, namely gClass, drives the hidden layer. It is equipped by an automatic feature selection method which controls activation and deactivation of input attributes to induce varying subsets of input features. A deep network simplification procedure is put forward using the concept of hidden layer merging to prevent uncontrollable growth of dimensionality of input space due to the nature of feature augmentation approach in building a deep network structure. DEVFNN works in the sample-wise fashion and is compatible for data stream applications. The efficacy of DEVFNN has been thoroughly evaluated using seven datasets with non-stationary properties under the prequential test-then-train protocol. It has been compared with four popular continual learning algorithms and its shallow counterpart where DEVFNN demonstrates improvement of classification accuracy. Moreover, it is also shown that the concept drift detection method is an effective tool to control the depth of network structure while the hidden layer merging scenario is capable of simplifying the network complexity of a deep network with negligible compromise of generalization performance.Comment: This paper has been published in IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System