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Non-hierarchical clustering: K-means analysis

Source: R/nhclu_kmeans.R
nhclu_kmeans.Rd

This function performs non-hierarchical clustering based on dissimilarity using a k-means analysis.

Usage

nhclu_kmeans(
  dissimilarity,
  index = names(dissimilarity)[3],
  seed = NULL,
  n_clust = c(1, 2, 3),
  iter_max = 10,
  nstart = 10,
  algorithm = "Hartigan-Wong",
  algorithm_in_output = TRUE
)

Arguments

dissimilarity

The output object from dissimilarity() or similarity_to_dissimilarity(), or a dist object. If a data.frame is used, the first two columns should represent pairs of sites (or any pair of nodes), and the subsequent column(s) should contain the dissimilarity indices.

index

The name or number of the dissimilarity column to use. By default, the third column name of dissimilarity is used.

seed

A value for the random number generator (NULL for random by default).

n_clust

An integer vector or a single integer value specifying the requested number(s) of clusters.

iter_max

An integer specifying the maximum number of iterations for the k-means method (see kmeans).

nstart

An integer specifying how many random sets of n_clust should be selected as starting points for the k-means analysis (see kmeans).

algorithm

A character specifying the algorithm to use for k-means (see kmeans). Available options are Hartigan-Wong, Lloyd, Forgy, and MacQueen.

algorithm_in_output

A boolean indicating whether the original output of kmeans should be included in the output. Defaults to TRUE (see Value).

Value

A list of class bioregion.clusters with five components:

  1. name: A character string containing the name of the algorithm.

  2. args: A list of input arguments as provided by the user.

  3. inputs: A list of characteristics of the clustering process.

  4. algorithm: A list of all objects associated with the clustering procedure, such as original cluster objects (only if algorithm_in_output = TRUE).

  5. clusters: A data.frame containing the clustering results.

If algorithm_in_output = TRUE, the algorithm slot includes the output of kmeans.

Details

This method partitions data into k groups such that the sum of squares of Euclidean distances from points to the assigned cluster centers is minimized. K-means cannot be applied directly to dissimilarity or beta-diversity metrics because these distances are not Euclidean. Therefore, it first requires transforming the dissimilarity matrix using Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) with pcoa, and then applying k-means to the coordinates of points in the PCoA.

Because this additional transformation alters the initial dissimilarity matrix, the partitioning around medoids method (nhclu_pam) is preferred.

See also

For more details illustrated with a practical example, see the vignette: https://biorgeo.github.io/bioregion/articles/a4_2_non_hierarchical_clustering.html.

Associated functions: nhclu_clara nhclu_clarans nhclu_dbscan nhclu_pam nhclu_affprop

Author

Boris Leroy (leroy.boris@gmail.com)
Pierre Denelle (pierre.denelle@gmail.com)
Maxime Lenormand (maxime.lenormand@inrae.fr)

Examples

comat <- matrix(sample(0:1000, size = 500, replace = TRUE, prob = 1/1:1001),
20, 25)
rownames(comat) <- paste0("Site",1:20)
colnames(comat) <- paste0("Species",1:25)

comnet <- mat_to_net(comat)

dissim <- dissimilarity(comat, metric = "all")

clust <- nhclu_kmeans(dissim, n_clust = 2:10, index = "Simpson")