Two phase semi-supervised clustering using background knowledge

Abstract

Using background knowledge in clustering, called semi-clustering, is one of the actively researched areas in data mining. In this paper, we illustrate how to use background knowledge related to a domain more efficiently. For a given data, the number of classes is investigated by using the must-link constraints before clustering and these must-link data are assigned to the corresponding classes. When the clustering algorithm is applied, we make use of the cannot-link constraints for assignment. The proposed clustering approach improves the result of COP k-means by about 10%. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.