An Introduction To Clustering With R

The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for applied research in clustering. Cluster analysis comprises a class of statistical techniques for classifying multivariate data into groups or clusters based on their similar features. Clustering is nowadays widely used in several domains of research, such as social sciences, psychology, and marketing, highlighting its multidisciplinary nature. This book provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to clustering and offers practical guidelines for applying clustering tools by carefully chosen real-life datasets and extensive data analyses. The procedures addressed in this book include traditional hard clustering methods and up-to-date developments in soft clustering. Attention is paid to practical examples and applications through the open source statistical software R. Commented R code and output for conducting, step by step, complete cluster analyses are available. The book is intended for researchers interested in applying clustering methods. Basic notions on theoretical issues and on R are provided so that professionals as well as novices with little or no background in the subject will benefit from the book.

Although there are several good books on unsupervised machine learning, we felt that many of them are too theoretical. This book provides practical guide to cluster analysis, elegant visualization and interpretation. It contains 5 parts. Part I provides a quick introduction to R and presents required R packages, as well as, data formats and dissimilarity measures for cluster analysis and visualization. Part II covers partitioning clustering methods, which subdivide the data sets into a set of k groups, where k is the number of groups pre-specified by the analyst. Partitioning clustering approaches include: K-means, K-Medoids (PAM) and CLARA algorithms. In Part III, we consider hierarchical clustering method, which is an alternative approach to partitioning clustering. The result of hierarchical clustering is a tree-based representation of the objects called dendrogram. In this part, we describe how to compute, visualize, interpret and compare dendrograms. Part IV describes clustering validation and evaluation strategies, which consists of measuring the goodness of clustering results. Among the chapters covered here, there are: Assessing clustering tendency, Determining the optimal number of clusters, Cluster validation statistics, Choosing the best clustering algorithms and Computing p-value for hierarchical clustering. Part V presents advanced clustering methods, including: Hierarchical k-means clustering, Fuzzy clustering, Model-based clustering and Density-based clustering.

Colorful example-rich introduction to the state-of-the-art for students in data science, as well as researchers and practitioners.

Partitioning around medoids (Program PAM). Clustering large applications (Program CLARA). Fuzzy analysis (Program FANNY). Agglomerative Nesting (Program AGNES). Divisive analysis (Program DIANA). Monothetic analysis (Program MONA). Appendix.

This is the first book to take a truly comprehensive look at clustering. It begins with an introduction to cluster analysis and goes on to explore: proximity measures; hierarchical clustering; partition clustering; neural network-based clustering; kernel-based clustering; sequential data clustering; large-scale data clustering; data visualization and high-dimensional data clustering; and cluster validation. The authors assume no previous background in clustering and their generous inclusion of examples and references help make the subject matter comprehensible for readers of varying levels and backgrounds.

Summary R in Action, Second Edition presents both the R language and the examples that make it so useful for business developers. Focusing on practical solutions, the book offers a crash course in statistics and covers elegant methods for dealing with messy and incomplete data that are difficult to analyze using traditional methods. You'll also master R's extensive graphical capabilities for exploring and presenting data visually. And this expanded second edition includes new chapters on time series analysis, cluster analysis, and classification methodologies, including decision trees, random forests, and support vector machines. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Business pros and researchers thrive on data, and R speaks the language of data analysis. R is a powerful programming language for statistical computing. Unlike general-purpose tools, R provides thousands of modules for solving just about any data-crunching or presentation challenge you're likely to face. R runs on all important platforms and is used by thousands of major corporations and institutions worldwide. About the Book R in Action, Second Edition teaches you how to use the R language by presenting examples relevant to scientific, technical, and business developers. Focusing on practical solutions, the book offers a crash course in statistics, including elegant methods for dealing with messy and incomplete data. You'll also master R's extensive graphical capabilities for exploring and presenting data visually. And this expanded second edition includes new chapters on forecasting, data mining, and dynamic report writing. What's Inside Complete R language tutorial Using R to manage, analyze, and visualize data Techniques for debugging programs and creating packages OOP in R Over 160 graphs About the Author Dr. Rob Kabacoff is a seasoned researcher and teacher who specializes in data analysis. He also maintains the popular Quick-R website at statmethods.net. Table of Contents PART 1 GETTING STARTED Introduction to R Creating a dataset Getting started with graphs Basic data management Advanced data management PART 2 BASIC METHODS Basic graphs Basic statistics PART 3 INTERMEDIATE METHODS Regression Analysis of variance Power analysis Intermediate graphs Resampling statistics and bootstrapping PART 4 ADVANCED METHODS Generalized linear models Principal components and factor analysis Time series Cluster analysis Classification Advanced methods for missing data PART 5 EXPANDING YOUR SKILLS Advanced graphics with ggplot2 Advanced programming Creating a package Creating dynamic reports Advanced graphics with the lattice package available online only from manning.com/kabacoff2

Data clustering, also known as cluster analysis, is an unsupervised process that divides a set of objects into homogeneous groups. Since the publication of the first edition of this monograph in 2007, development in the area has exploded, especially in clustering algorithms for big data and open-source software for cluster analysis. This second edition reflects these new developments, covers the basics of data clustering, includes a list of popular clustering algorithms, and provides program code that helps users implement clustering algorithms. Data Clustering: Theory, Algorithms and Applications, Second Edition will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and data scientists as well as undergraduate and graduate students.