clustering.sc.dp: Optimal Clustering with Sequential Constraint by Using Dynamic Programming
Tibor Szkaliczki
, The R Journal (2016) 8:1, pages 318-327.
Abstract The general clustering algorithms do not guarantee optimality because of the hardness of the problem. Polynomial-time methods can find the clustering corresponding to the exact optimum only in special cases. For example, the dynamic programming algorithm can solve the one-dimensional clustering problem, i.e., when the items to be clustered can be characterised by only one scalar number. Optimal one-dimensional clustering is provided by package Ckmeans.1d.dp in R. The paper shows a possible generalisation of the method implemented in this package to multidimensional data: the dynamic programming method can be applied to find the optimum clustering of vectors when only subsequent items may form a cluster. Sequential data are common in various fields including telecommunication, bioinformatics, marketing, transportation etc. The proposed algorithm can determine the optima for a range of cluster numbers in order to support the case when the number of clusters is not known in advance.
Received: 2015-12-09; online 2016-05-01@article{RJ-2016-022, author = {Tibor Szkaliczki}, title = {{clustering.sc.dp: Optimal Clustering with Sequential Constraint by Using Dynamic Programming}}, year = {2016}, journal = {{The R Journal}}, doi = {10.32614/RJ-2016-022}, url = {https://doi.org/10.32614/RJ-2016-022}, pages = {318--327}, volume = {8}, number = {1} }