RELATIONAL TOPOLOGICAL MAP

Abstract

This paper introduces a relational topological map model, dedicated to multidimensional categorial data (or qualitative data) arising in the form of a binary matrix or a sum of binary matrices. This approach is based on the principle of Kohonen's model (conservation of topological order) and uses the Relational Analysis formalism by maximizing a modified Condorcet criterion. This proposed method is developed from the classical Relational Analysis approach by adding a neighborhood constraint to the Condorcet criterion. We propose a hybrid algorithm, which deals linearly with large data sets, provides a natural clusters identification and allows a visualization of the clustering result on a two-dimensional grid while preserving the a priori topological order of this data. The proposed approach called Relational Topological Map (RTM) was validated on several databases and the experimental results showed very promising performances.