Optimal Interval Clustering: Application to Bregman Clustering and Statistical Mixture Learning

Frank Nielsen, Richard Nock

Abstract: We present a generic dynamic programming method to compute the optimal clustering of n scalar elements into k pairwise disjoint intervals. This case includes 1D Euclidean k-means, k-medoids, k-medians, k-centers, etc. We extend the method to incorporate cluster size constraints and show how to choose the appropriate k by model selection. Finally, we illustrate and refine the method on two case studies: Bregman clustering and statistical mixture learning maximizing the complete likelihood.