A Generalized Multivariate Approach for Possibilistic Fuzzy C-Means Clustering

Abstract

Fuzzy c-Means (FCM) and Possibilistic c-Means (PCM) are the most popular algorithms of the fuzzy and possibilistic clustering approaches, respectively. A hybridization of these methods, called Possibilistic Fuzzy c-Means (PFCM), solves noise sensitivity defect of FCM and overcomes the coincident clusters problem of PCM. Although PFCM have shown good performance in cluster detection, it does not consider that different variables can produce different membership and possibility degrees and this can improve the clustering quality as it has been performed with the Multivariate Fuzzy c-Means (MFCM). Here, this work presents a generalized multivariate approach for possibilistic fuzzy c-means clustering. This approach gives a general form for the clustering criterion of the possibilistic fuzzy clustering with membership and possibility degrees different by cluster and variable and a weighted squared Euclidean distance in order to take into account the shape of clusters. Six multivariate clustering models (special cases) can be derivative from this general form and their properties are presented. Experiments with real and synthetic data sets validate the usefulness of the approach introduced in this paper using the special cases.