Text clustering with string kernels in R

Abstract

We present a package which provides a general framework, including tools and algorithms, for text mining in R using the S4 class system. Using this package and the kernlab R package we explore the use of kernel methods for clustering (e.g., kernel k-means and spectral clustering) on a set of text documents, using string kernels. We compare these methods to a more traditional clustering technique like k-means on a bag of word representation of the text and evaluate the viability of kernel-based methods as a text clustering technique.