Clustering by pattern similarity in large data sets

Abstract

Clustering is the process of grouping a set of objects into classes of similar objects. Although definitions of similarity vary from one clustering model to another, in most of these models the concept of similarity is based on distances, e.g., Euclidean distance or cosine distance. In other words, similar objects are required to have close values on at least a set of dimensions. In this paper, we explore a more general type of similarity. Under the pCluster model we proposed, two objects are similar if they exhibit a coherent pattern on a subset of dimensions. For instance, in DNA microarray analysis, the expression levels of two genes may rise and fall synchronously in response to a set of environmental stimuli. Although the magnitude of their expression levels may not be close, the patterns they exhibit can be very much alike. Discovery of such clusters of genes is essential in revealing significant connections in gene regulatory networks. E-commerce applications, such as collaborative filtering, can also benefit from the new model, which captures not only the closeness of values of certain leading indicators but also the closeness of (purchasing, browsing, etc.) patterns exhibited by the customers. Our paper introduces an effective algorithm to detect such clusters, and we perform tests on several real and synthetic data sets to show its effectiveness.