Spectral methods for growth curve clustering

Abstract

The growth curve clustering problem is analyzed and its connection with the spectral relaxation method is described. For a given set of growth curves and similarity function, a similarity matrix is defined, from which the corresponding similarity graph is constructed. It is shown that a nearly optimal growth curve partition can be obtained from the eigendecomposition of a specific matrix associated with a similarity graph. The results are illustrated and analyzed on the set of synthetically generated growth curves. One real-world problem is also given.