Identifying “true” clusters in a dataset is inherently challenging. Clustering models and algorithms may fail to produce compact, well-separated groups or to correctly determine the optimal number of clusters. Cluster validity indices are often applied to find such clusters. However, most existing indices are relative measures, designed primarily for comparing clustering algorithms or tuning their parameters. In this paper, we introduce new absolute cluster validity indices that assess both cluster compactness and separability. For each cluster, we define a compactness function, and for each pair of clusters, we define an associated set of neighboring points. The compactness function measures the cohesion of individual clusters as well as the entire clustering distribution, while the neighboring-point sets are used to define the margin between cluster pairs and the overall distribution margin. These compactness and separability indices are then employed to estimate the true number of clusters. We evaluate the proposed indices on a variety of synthetic and real-world datasets and compare their performance with several widely used cluster validity measures.

Malware is malicious software that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the infected devices,which is developed by skilled software engineers and is sold in a specialised black market economy. Internet security companies perform analysis of daily malware feeds and one of the challenges in this analysis is the identification of the family of the malware samples. Yara rules using regular expressions are widely applied in the industry to identify malware families, but may fail when malware families are updated. Malware clustering provides an alternative method to discriminate malware families that are not disrupted by minor updates. In this paper, we present Discriminating Malware Families using Partitional Clustering (DMFPC) approach and provide its comparison against previously used malware clustering algorithms, including K-means, Hierarchical, Spectral, and Density Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN). The results of this evaluation provide valuable input into the continuing design of the partitional clustering algorithms for malware detection.

The presence of noise or outliers in data sets may heavily affect the performance of clustering algorithms and lead to unsatisfactory results. The majority of conventional clustering algorithms are sensitive to noise and outliers. Robust clustering algorithms often overcome difficulties associated with noise and outliers and find true cluster structures. We introduce a soft trimming approach for the hard clustering problem where its objective is modeled as a sum of the cluster function and a function represented as a composition of the algebraic and distance functions. We utilize the composite function to estimate the degree of the significance of each data point in clustering. A robust clustering algorithm based on the new model and a procedure for generating starting cluster centers is developed. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm using some synthetic and real-world data sets containing noise and outliers. We also compare its performance with that of some well-known clustering techniques. Results show that the new algorithm is robust to noise and outliers and finds true cluster structures.

Extracting latent disease patterns from electronic health records (EHRs) is a crucial solution for disease analysis, significantly facilitating healthcare decision-making. Multiview learning presents itself as a promising approach that offers a comprehensive exploration of both structured and unstructured EHRs. However, the intrinsic uncertainty among disease features presents a significant challenge for multiview feature alignment. Besides, the sparsity of real-world EHRs also exacerbates the difficulty of feature alignment. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel fuzzy multiview graph learning framework named FuzzyMVG, which is designed for mitigating the impacts of uncertainty in disease features derived from sparse EHRs. First, we utilize auxiliary information from sparse EHRs to construct a multiview EHR graph using the structured and unstructured records. Then, for efficient feature alignment, we specially design the fuzzy logic-enhanced graph convolutional networks to obtain the fuzzy representations of time-invariant node features. Thereby, we implement a random walk strategy and long short-term memory networks to capture the distinct features of static and dynamic nodes, respectively. Extensive experiments have been conducted on the real-world MIMIC III dataset to validate the effectiveness of FuzzyMVG. Results in the diagnosis prediction task demonstrate that FuzzyMVG outperforms other state-of-the-art baselines.

Clusterwise linear regression (CLR) is a well-known technique for approximating a data using more than one linear function. It is based on the combination of clustering and multiple linear regression methods. This article provides a comprehensive survey and comparative assessments of CLR including model formulations, description of algorithms, and their performance on small to large-scale synthetic and real-world datasets. Some applications of the CLR algorithms and possible future research directions are also discussed.

Using a nonconvex nonsmooth optimization approach, we introduce a model for semisupervised clustering (SSC) with pairwise constraints. In this model, the objective function is represented as a sum of three terms: the first term reflects the clustering error for unlabeled data points, the second term expresses the error for data points with must-link (ML) constraints, and the third term represents the error for data points with cannot-link (CL) constraints. This function is nonconvex and nonsmooth. To find its optimal solutions, we introduce an adaptive SSC (A-SSC) algorithm. This algorithm is based on the combination of the nonsmooth optimization method and an incremental approach, which involves the auxiliary SSC problem. The algorithm constructs clusters incrementally starting from one cluster and gradually adding one cluster center at each iteration. The solutions to the auxiliary SSC problem are utilized as starting points for solving the nonconvex SSC problem. The discrete gradient method (DGM) of nonsmooth optimization is applied to solve the underlying nonsmooth optimization problems. This method does not require subgradient evaluations and uses only function values. The performance of the A-SSC algorithm is evaluated and compared with four benchmarking SSC algorithms on one synthetic and 12 real-world datasets. Results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the other four algorithms in identifying compact and well-separated clusters while satisfying most constraints.

In this paper a new method of preprocessing incomplete data is introduced. The method is based on clusterwise linear regression and it combines two well-known approaches for missing value imputation: linear regression and clustering. The idea is to approximate missing values using only those data points that are somewhat similar to the incomplete data point. A similar idea is used also in clustering based imputation methods. Nevertheless, here the linear regression approach is used within each cluster to accurately predict the missing values, and this is done simultaneously to clustering. The proposed method is tested using some synthetic and real-world data sets and compared with other algorithms for missing value imputations. Numerical results demonstrate that this method produces the most accurate imputations in MCAR and MAR data sets with a clear structure and the percentages of missing data no more than 25 percent.

Abstract Maximum‐margin clustering is an extension of the support vector machine (SVM) to clustering. It partitions a set of unlabeled data into multiple groups by finding hyperplanes with the largest margins. Although existing algorithms have shown promising results, there is no guarantee of convergence of these algorithms to global solutions due to the nonconvexity of the optimization problem. In this paper, we propose a simulated annealing‐based algorithm that is able to mitigate the issue of local minima in the maximum‐margin clustering problem. The novelty of our algorithm is twofold, ie, (i) it comprises a comprehensive cluster modification scheme based on simulated annealing, and (ii) it introduces a new approach based on the combination of k‐means++ and SVM at each step of the annealing process. More precisely, k‐means++ is initially applied to extract subsets of the data points. Then, an unsupervised SVM is applied to improve the clustering results. Experimental results on various benchmark data sets (of up to over a million points) give evidence that the proposed algorithm is more effective at solving the clustering problem than a number of popular clustering algorithms.

Cluster analysis deals with the problem of organization of a collection of objects into clusters based on a similarity measure, which can be defined using various distance functions. The use of different similarity measures allows one to find different cluster structures in a data set. In this article, an algorithm is developed to solve clustering problems where the similarity measure is defined using the L1‐norm. The algorithm is designed using the nonsmooth optimization approach to the clustering problem. Smoothing techniques are applied to smooth both the clustering function and the L1‐norm. The algorithm computes clusters sequentially and finds global or near global solutions to the clustering problem. Results of numerical experiments using 12 real‐world data sets are reported, and the proposed algorithm is compared with two other clustering algorithms.

Mapping quality of the self-organising maps (SOMs) is sensitive to the map topology and initialisation of neurons. In this article, in order to improve the convergence of the SOM, an algorithm based on split and merge of clusters to initialise neurons is introduced. The initialisation algorithm speeds up the learning process in large high-dimensional data sets. We also develop a topology based on this initialisation to optimise the vector quantisation error and topology preservation of the SOMs. Such an approach allows to find more accurate data visualisation and consequently clustering problem. The numerical results on eight small-to-large real-world data sets are reported to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm in the sense of vector quantisation, topology preservation and CPU time requirement.

AnL2-boosting algorithm for estimation of a regression function from random design is presented, which consists of fitting repeatedly a function from a fixed nonlinear function space to the residuals of the data by least squares and by defining the estimate as a linear combination of the resulting least squares estimates. Splitting of the sample is used to decide after how many iterations of smoothing of the residuals the algorithm terminates. The rate of convergence of the algorithm is analyzed in case of an unbounded response variable. The method is used to fit a sum of maxima of minima of linear functions to a given data set, and is compared with other nonparametric regression estimates using simulated data.

In this paper, estimation of a regression function from independent and identically distributed random variables is considered. Estimates are defined by minimization of the empirical L2risk over a class of functions, which are defined as maxima of minima of linear functions. Results concerning the rate of convergence of the estimates are derived. In particular, it is shown that for smooth regression functions satisfying the assumption of single index models, the estimate is able to achieve (up to some logarithmic factor) the corresponding optimal one-dimensional rate of convergence. Hence, under these assumptions, the estimate is able to circumvent the so-called curse of dimensionality. The small sample behavior of the estimates is illustrated by applying them to simulated data.

In this paper we investigate a hybrid model based on the Discrete Gradient method and an evolutionary strategy for determining the weights in a feed forward artificial neural network. Also we discuss different variants for hybrid models using the Discrete Gradient method and an evolutionary strategy for determining the weights in a feed forward artificial neural network. The Discrete Gradient method has the advantage of being able to jump over many local minima and find very deep local minima. However, earlier research has shown that a good starting point for the discrete gradient method can improve the quality of the solution point. Evolutionary algorithms are best suited for global optimisation problems. Nevertheless they are cursed with longer training times and often unsuitable for real world application. For optimisation problems such as weight optimisation for ANNs in real world applications the dimensions are large and time complexity is critical. Hence the idea of a hybrid model can be a suitable option. In this paper we propose different fusion strategies for hybrid models combining the evolutionary strategy with the discrete gradient method to obtain an optimal solution much quicker. Three different fusion strategies are discussed: a linear hybrid model, an iterative hybrid model and a restricted local search hybrid model. Comparative results on a range of standard datasets are provided for different fusion hybrid models.

Global optimization problems continue to be a challenge in computational mathematics. The field is progressing in two streams: deterministic and heuristic approaches. In this paper, we present a hybrid method that uses the discrete gradient method, which is a derivative free local search method, and evolutionary strategies. We show that the hybridization of the two methods is better than each of them in isolation.

MOTIVATION: The increasing use of DNA microarray-based tumor gene expression profiles for cancer diagnosis requires mathematical methods with high accuracy for solving clustering, feature selection and classification problems of gene expression data. RESULTS: New algorithms are developed for solving clustering, feature selection and classification problems of gene expression data. The clustering algorithm is based on optimization techniques and allows the calculation of clusters step-by-step. This approach allows us to find as many clusters as a data set contains with respect to some tolerance. Feature selection is crucial for a gene expression database. Our feature selection algorithm is based on calculating overlaps of different genes. The database used, contains over 16 000 genes and this number is considerably reduced by feature selection. We propose a classification algorithm where each tissue sample is considered as the center of a cluster which is a ball. The results of numerical experiments confirm that the classification algorithm in combination with the feature selection algorithm perform slightly better than the published results for multi-class classifiers based on support vector machines for this data set. AVAILABILITY: Available on request from the authors.