G. Hanumantha Rao* et al.
/ (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Representative Based Method of Categorical
Data Clustering
G.Hanumantha Rao*, G. Narender+, T.Balaji*, Y.Anitha*
* Assistant Professor, Department of CSE, Vasavi College of Engineering, Hyderabad-500 031, INDIA
+ Associate Professor, Department of CSE, Murthy Institute of Tech. & Science, Ranga Reddy-501301, INDIA
hanu.abc@gmail.com, guggillanarender@gmail.com, balaji_075@yahoo.co.in, anitha_yella@yahoo.co.in
Abstract— Categorical data (unordered data) using Clustering is
one of the data mining techniques, which helps in identifying
clusters within the domain space. . The objective of clustering is
grouping of most similar objects. Here we are grouping the
objects with minimum dissimilarity. Thus more similar objects
are grouped in this paper; we present the proposed method
which is experimented with the well known data sets from UCI
data repository, taking example as a soybean, dataset. The data
set consists of 47 records and each record contains 35 attributes
describing the feature of plants with four classes of disease. There
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are three phases in this method. The dissimilarity matrix,
neighbor matrix and the initial clusters are formed in first phase.
Clusters are merged in the second phase by relocating the objects
using the neighborhood concept. In the third phase, mode of
attributes of clusters is computed, and phase I and Phase II are
applied for the tuples formed from these Representatives.
Keywords- Data Mining, Clustering, Categorical data,
Dissimilarity, Mode.
I. INTRODUCTION
Data mining [1] involves the use of sophisticated data
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analysis tools to discover previously unknown, valid patterns
and relationships in large data sets [6]. Data Mining is a
technique to extract valid novel, potential patterns and useful
information from complex and huge amount of data set [2].
Two fundamental Goals of Data Mining are prediction and
description otherwise known as verification model and
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discovery model. Some important data mining tasks are
association rules, classification rules, clustering.
There are two major types of predictions: one can
either try to predict some unavailable data values or pending
trends, or predict a class label for some data. Prediction is
however more often referred to the forecast of missing
numerical values, or increase/ decrease trends in time related
data. The major idea is to use a large number of past values to
consider probable future values. Description in terms
of(human-interpretable) patterns. Association rules discovers
the relations between variables in large databases [7]. Data
classification is the categorization of data for its most effective
and efficient use[8]. A data set (or dataset) is a collection of
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Vol No. 2, Issue No. 2, 152 - 156
data, usually presented in tabular form. Each column
represents a particular variable. Each row corresponds to a
given member of the data set in question.[13] Its values for
each of the variables, such as height and weight of an object or
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values of random numbers. Each value is known as a datum.
The data set may comprise data for one or more members,
corresponding to the number of rows.
II. OVERVIEW OF CLUSTERING
A cluster is a collection of data objects that are more
similar to one another within the same cluster and are
dissimilar to the objects in other clusters. Unsupervised
learning deals with in stances which have not been pre-
classified in any way and so they do not have a class attributes
associated with them. Clustering is a process of grouping data
into groups based on similarity measure and it is used to
describe the preprocessing step for other algorithms such as
characterization and classification.
Clustering in Data Mining is a discovery process that
groups a set of data in which the intra cluster similarity is
maximized and the inter cluster similarity is minimized. In
general, clustering is divided into two broad categories viz.,
hierarchical and partitional. The partitional clustering
technique partitions the database into pre-defined number of
clusters based on some criteria. Hierarchical clustering
technique is divided into agglomerative and divisive. The
agglomerative Clustering [3] follows the bottom up strategy
whereas the divisive approach follows the top down strategy.
The basic principle of clustering hinges on the Concept of
distance metric. Since the data are invariably real numbers for
statistical applications and Pattern recognitions, a large class
of metrics exists and one can define one‘s own metric
according to the specific requirements.
Data Mining primarily works with large data bases.
The objects in the data base contain the attributes of various
data types. These values may be of either numeric or non
numeric type. Clustering can be performed for both Numerical
and categorical data. For clustering numerical data, geometric
properties like distance function are used as a criterion. As
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data clustering is mostly related to real time or transactional
data sets, the attributes are of both numerical and categorical
type.
Data objects are clustered based on similarity
measurement. The most common similarity measurement is
the distance function. The similarity between two objects Oi
and OJ is measured using Euclidean distance or Manhattan
distance. Clustering categorical data are very different from
those of numerical data in terms of the definition of similarity
measure. The distance based Metric cannot be used to cluster
the categorical data. Numerical clustering methods are applied
to categorical data through data preprocessing [4]. But these
preprocessing techniques do not produce Quality clusters
always. So it is widely accepted to apply the clustering on raw
categorical data. Here we have used the similarity concept as a
measurement. To maximize the intra cluster similarity, the
minimum dissimilarity concept is used.
III. RELATED WORKS
The basic idea of clustering is grouping together
similar objects[15]. A few existing categorical clustering
algorithms are discussed here. The k-means problem[14] is
based on a simple iterative scheme for finding a locally
minimal solution. In the K-Means problem, a set of N points
X(I) in M-dimensions is given. The goal is to arrange these
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points into K clusters, with each cluster having a
representative point Z(J), usually chosen as the centroid of the
points in the cluster. This algorithm is often called the k-
means algorithm [9]. Prototypes algorithm is based on K-
means [5] but removes the numeric data limitation. It is
applicable for both numeric and categorical data. The
following are the steps for K-modes algorithm[11].
Given a set X of categorical data vectors in Pm and a specified
number k of desired clusters, do
Step 1. Begin with an initial partition,
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X=X1(0) Ụ X2(0) Ụ…. Ụ Xk(0)
Step 2: Update the modes of each cluster according to (3) to
obtain
C1(t) , C2(t) …. Ck(t)
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Step 3: Re-test the similarity of all data vectors from cluster to
cluster with each mode vector in the following way. If
a vector from Xi(t) is found to be strictly nearer to Cj(t)
than to the current Ci(t) , reallocate that vector to the
cluster Xj(t+1) to obtain a new partition
X=X1(t+1) Ụ X2(t+1) Ụ…. Ụ Xk(t+1)
Notice that ties here are biased so that the mode of a data
vector‘s current cluster is preferred.
Step 4: Go back to Step 2 and repeat the iteration until no
object has changed cluster assignment after full cycle
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Vol No. 2, Issue No. 2, 152 - 156
of the whole data set, that is,
Xi(t+1)= Xi(t) for all i=1,....,k
K-means is one of the simplest unsupervised learning
algorithms[12]. K-means clustering is a method of cluster
analysis which aims to partition n observations into k clusters
in which each observation belongs to the cluster with the
nearest mean. he procedure follows a simple and easy way to
classify a given data set through a certain number of clusters
(assume k clusters) fixed a priori.
The following are the steps for K-means algorithm [10].
Step 1: Place K points into the space represented by the
objects that are being clustered. These points
represent initial group centroids.Start with a random
partition into K clusters
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Step 2: Generate a new partition by assigning each pattern to
its closest cluster center
Step 3: Compute new cluster centers as the centroids of the
clusters.
Step 4: Steps 1 and 2 are repeated until there is no change in
the membership (also cluster centers remain the same)
The K-modes and extension of K-means cluster the
categorical data, where the means are replaced by modes. The
K representative algorithm is an extension of K-means
Algorithm using relative frequency as a measure to cluster the
categorical Data.
We are introducing a new representative Based Algorithm
IV. PROPOSED ALGORITHM
Let T be the set of n objects having categorical data
with m attributes. The proposed algorithm is divided into three
phases. The process of clustering is carried out in the first
phase. Merging of clusters is performed in the second phase.
Mode of attributes for each cluster is generated in the third
phase. Apply phase I and phase II for the dataset obtained in
the Third phase.
A. Proposed Representative Based Algorithm
Let the Object list = [1, 2, 3...n], where
N - Number of tuples/records
M - Number of attributes
Phase I
The steps involved in this phase are detailed below:
Step1: Construct a dissimilarity matrix ‗d‘ using the
measurement.
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Vol No. 2, Issue No. 2, 152 - 156

Step2. Compute the threshold value, and minimum TABLE-2 DISSIMILARITY MATRIX
dissimilarity of each object,
OBJECT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Step3. Construct a neighbor matrix as ‗neigh‘. 1 - 1 3 3 2 1 1
2 1 - 3 3 1 2 2
Step4. Select the first member of an object list, Form a new
cluster with this object as a member. Group the 3 3 3 - 1 3 3 3
neighbors of object based on the criteria. Remove the 4 3 3 1 - 3 3 3
clustered objects from the object list. 5 2 1 3 3 - 2 2
6 1 2 3 3 2 - 1
Step5. Repeat the above step until the object list becomes
7 1 2 3 3 2 1 -
empty.

Phase II
TABLE-3 NEIGHBOR MATRIX
The steps involved in merging of clusters are detailed below:
1 2,6,7
Step 1: Select the cluster with least number of objects. 2 1,5

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Step2. The objects in the selected cluster are Relocated based 3 4
on the Cluster Merging Criteria.
4 3
Step3. The above steps are repeated until no more merging is 5 2
possible.
6 1,7

Phase III
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Compute the mode of each column or attribute of all objects in
7 1,6

The minimum dissimilarity value of each object is, m

each cluster.
Where the attribute value with maximum frequency is defined
as a mode of an attribute. If the number of cluster produced in
Phase II is ‗K1‘, then this phase results in‗K1‘ tuples.
Consider this as a dataset with ―K1‖ Tuples with ‗m‘ attributes
and repeat Phase I and Phase II.
A
B. Illustration
(.) = [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1] and the neighbor‘s of each object
‗Neigh‘ is given in Table- 3.Object list is initialized with
values 1, 2 … n, Where n is the number of objects. Consider
the first object O1 = 1, neigh (O1) is {2, 6, and 7}. Objects 2,
6 and 7 are grouped into cluster1, C1 = {1, 2, 6, 7}. Now
object list contains the objects 3, 4 and 5. In the next iteration
object 3 is selected. C2 is formed with object 3 as member.
Repeat the process. At the end of I phase, we get 3 clusters,
which are given in Table – 4.

The proposed algorithm is illustrated with a sample dataset TABLE-4 RESULTANT CLUSTERS AFTER PHASE-2
given in the Table-1. The sample dataset consists of 7
tuples/objects with 4 attributes. CLUSTER OBJECT
NUMBER
The dissimilarity matrix is depicted in table-2. Here
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n = 4 and m = 3. 1 1,2,6,7

TABLE-1 SAMPLE DATA SET 2 3,4

GRADUA- BRANCH PERCEN- EMAIL-ID 3 5

TION TAGE
b-tech cse 70% yes
In the II phase, cluster with least number of Objects,
b-tech ece 70% no C3 is selected. Using the Cluster merging criteria, object 5 is
m-tech eee 60% no placed in the cluster C1. Thus 3 clusters are reduced to 2
m-tech eee 55% no clusters viz. C1 = {1, 2, 6, 7, 5} and C2 = {3, 4}. Mode of
b-tech ece 65% no cluster C1 and C2 is {btech, cse, 70%} and {mtech, eee,
b-tech cse 80% yes 60%}. Apply phase-I and phase-II for these two tuples. For
b-tech cse 75% yes

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G. Hanumantha Rao* et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 2, 152 - 156

this sample data set, after phase III also we get the same
9  10
results.
10  1
C. Results Done Experimentally
11  15,18
The proposed method is experimented with real data
set like Soybean small. Soybean small dataset consists of 47 12  16
records and each record contains 35 attributes describing the
feature of plants with four classes of diseases. And the result 13  18,20
can be obtained in 10 clusters after phase-2 and 4 clusters after
phase-3 14  19,20
D. Measure the purity of cluster 15  11
A cluster is called a pure cluster if all the objects 16  12
belong to a single class. To measure the efficiency of the
proposed method, we have used the clustering accuracy 17  13,15,19
measure .The clustering accuracy r is defined as,
18  11,13

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R= 1\n Summation I=1 to k of all a1
19  14
Where al is the number of data objects that occur in both
cluster Cl and its corresponding labeled class, and n is the 20  13,14
number of objects in the data set.
21  25
In Our proposed algorithm the number of clusters
‗K‘ is not given as input. But during merging using
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representative the number of clusters is reduced, evident that
when the number of clusters is more the purity is also more.
.So it is proposed here to select the cluster with high purity.
22

23



27

27

The proposed method is compared with K-modes algorithm 24  25,30

and the results depend on the mode selection. In the proposed
method whatever may be the order the results will be same. 25  21,24
Execution is necessary to minimize the cost function. The
sample dataset and dissimilarity matrix of Soya bean dataset 26  29
can be represented in power point representation and next step
is the neighbor matrix can be shown below as follows: 27  22,23
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TABLE-5 NEIGHBOR MATRIX OF SOYABEAN 28  24,25
DATASET
29  26

1  10 30  24
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2  6,7 31  34

3  8 32  37

4  10 33  39,43

5  1,10 34  31,41

6  2,4,9 35  43

7  2,3,4 36  43

8  3 37  47

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G. Hanumantha Rao* et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 2, Issue No. 2, 152 - 156

Because of the computation overhead in constructing

38  33,45
dissimilarity matrix, we have experimented only with small
Soya bean data set. Further we planned to extend this to a
39  33,40
large data set.
40  39
References
41  32,34,37
[1] Arun.K.Pujari, Data Mining Techniques, Universities
Press, 2001
42  34
[2] www.ics.uci.edu/~mlearn/MLRepository.html
43  33,36 [3] Aranganayagi.S and K.Thangavel, A Novel
ClusteringAlgorithm For Categorical Data ,Computational
44  31,36 Mathematics, Narosa Publishing House, New Delhi, India
[4] Maria Halkidi, Yannis Batistakis, Michalis Vazirgiannis,
45  38 On Clustering Validation techniques Journal of Intelligent
Information Systems.
46  31 [5] Ohn Mar San, Van-Nam Huynh, Yachter Nakamori, An
Alternative Extension Of The K-Means algorithm For
47  37 Clustering Categorical Data, J. Appl. Math. Comput.

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Science.
[6] http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31798.pdf
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_rule_learning
[8]http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/data
TABLE-6 RESULTANT CLUSTERS OF SOYABEAN -classification
DATASET AFTER PHASE-2 [9] An Efficient k-Means Clustering Algorithm: Analysis and
Implementation, Tapas Kanungo, IEEE transaction on

CLUSTER NUMBER

1 1,5,10
ES
OBJECT
pattern analysis and machine intelligence.
[10] clustering algorithms by Johan Everts, Kunstmatige
Intelligentie / RuG
[11] The Effects of Ties on Convergece in K-Modes
Variants for Clustering Categorical Data N. Orlowski, D.
2 2,3,4,6,7,8,9 Schlorff, J. Blevins, D. Ca˜nas, M. T. Chu_, R. E. Funderlic
N.C. State University Department of Computer Science
11 11,13,14,15,17,18,19,20 [12]http://home.dei.polimi.it/matteucc/Clustering/tutorial_htm
l/kmeans.html
12 12,16 [13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_set
[14]http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/m_src/kmeans/kmeans.
21 21,24,25,28,30
A
html
22 22,23,27 [15] http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~gk/A542/matt.pdf

26 26,29

31 31,32,34,37,47
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33 33,36,39,40,43

42 44,45,46,47

V. CONCLUSION

In many existing clustering methods, the number of

clusters is given as an input parameter. In the proposed
method, the dissimilarity measurement is used to cluster the
categorical data and the objects are clustered without getting
any input as ‗K‘ or the threshold value. The experimental
results depict the efficiency of the new proposed method.

ISSN: 2230-7818 @ 2011 http://www.ijaest.iserp.org. All rights Reserved. Page 156