Two density-based k-means initialization algorithms for non-metric data clustering

Filippo Maria Bianchi, Lorenzo Livi, Antonello Rizzi

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a density-based clusters’ representatives selection algorithm that identifies the most central patterns from the dense regions in the dataset. The method, which has been implemented using two different strategies, is applicable to input spaces with no trivial geometry. Our approach exploits a probability density function built through the Parzen estimator, which relies on a (not necessarily metric) dissimilarity measure. Being a representatives extractor a general-purpose algorithm, our method is obviously applicable in different contexts. However, to test the proposed procedure, we specifically consider the problem of initializing the k-means algorithm. We face problems defined on standard real-valued vectors, labeled graphs, and finally sequences of real-valued vectors and sequences of characters. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed representative selection method with respect to other state-of-the-art solutions.