Tensor-Based Semi-Supervised Multiview Subspace Clustering With Pairwise Constraint Propagation

Zhiwen Yu, Chenchen Yu, Kaixiang Yang, Xu Chen, Yifan Shi, C. L. Philip Chen

Abstract: Semi-supervised multiview clustering has garnered considerable attention for its ability to integrate multiview data with limited labeled information. However, existing methods predominantly focus on labeled samples, neglecting abundant unlabeled data, which leads to suboptimal utilization of available prior knowledge. Moreover, existing pairwise constraint propagation-based methods typically follow a two-stage procedure, resulting in unstable clustering outcomes. To address these limitations, we introduce a unified framework that integrates multiview subspace clustering with pairwise constraint propagation, proposing a tensor-based semi-supervised multiview subspace clustering (TSMSC) method with pairwise constraint propagation. Specifically, each view’s subspace representation is decomposed into a consensus part and private parts, enabling the consensus representation to better approximate the low-rank structure. Then, a pairwise constraint propagation method is developed for multiview data, which propagates the initial pairwise constraint through a low-rank matrix completion approach. Finally, observing that the ideal multiview consensus representation and the propagated pairwise constraint matrix share the same low-rank structure, we naturally construct them into a third-order tensor to capture high-order correlations via tensor low-rank representation, allowing for joint optimization within a unified framework. Extensive experiments on eight real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of our method over state-of-the-art approaches.

External IDs:doi:10.1109/tcyb.2025.3607287