Clustering Hybrid Data Using a Neighborhood Rough Set Based Algorithm and Expounding its Application

Abstract

In recent times, an enumerable number of clustering algorithms have been developed whose main function is to make sets of objects have almost the same features. But due to the presence of categorical data values, these algorithms face a challenge in their implementation. Also, some algorithms which are able to take care of categorical data are not able to process uncertainty in the values and therefore have stability issues. Thus, handling categorical data along with uncertainty has been made necessary owing to such difficulties. So, in 2007 an MMR algorithm was developed which was based on basic rough set theory. MMeR was proposed in 2009 which surpassed the results of MMR in taking care of categorical data but cannot be used robustly for hybrid data. In this article, the authors generalize the MMeR algorithm with neighborhood relations and make it a neighborhood rough set model which this article calls MMeNR (Min Mean Neighborhood Roughness). It takes care of the heterogeneous data. Also, the authors have extended the MMeNR method to make it suitable for various applications like geospatial data analysis and epidemiology.