Attribute weighted mercer kernel based fuzzy clustering algorithm for general non-spherical datasets

Clustering analysis is an important topic in artificial intelligence, data mining and pattern recognition research. Conventional clustering algorithms, for instance, the famous Fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm (FCM), assume that all the attributes are equally relevant to all the clusters. However in most domains, especially for high-dimensional dataset, some attributes are irrelevant, and some relevant ones are less important than others with respect to a specific class. In this paper, such imbalances between the attributes are considered and a new weighted fuzzy kernel-clustering algorithm (WFKCA) is presented. WFKCA performs clustering in a kernel feature space mapped by mercer kernels. Compared with the conventional hard kernel-clustering algorithm, WFKCA can yield the meaningful prototypes (cluster centers) of the clusters. Numerical convergence properties of WFKCA are also discussed. For in-depth studies, WFKCA is extended to WFKCA2, which has been demonstrated as a useful tool for clustering incomplete data. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the new WFKCA algorithm