Comparison of Semi-Supervised Hierarchical Clustering Using Clusterwise Tolerance

Abstract

This paper presents a new semi-supervised agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithm with the ward method using clusterwise tolerance. Semi-supervised clustering has recently been noted and studied in many research fields. Must-link and cannot-link, called pairwise constraints, are frequently used in order to improve clustering properties in semi-supervised clustering. First, clusterwise tolerance based pairwise constraints are introduced in order to handle mustlink and cannot-link constraints. Next, a new semisupervised hierarchical clustering algorithm with the ward method is constructed based on the above discussions. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is, moreover, verified through numerical examples.