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cluster analysis

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Also known as clustering, clustering analysis

task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group (called a cluster) are more similar (in some sense or another) to each other than to those in other groups (clusters)

Research

213,303 papers

via PubMed

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The result of a cluster analysis shown as the coloring of the squares into three clusters

Cluster analysis, or clustering, is a data analysis technique aimed at partitioning a set of objects into groups such that objects within the same group (called a cluster) exhibit greater similarity to one another (in some specific sense defined by the analyst) than to those in other groups (clusters). It is a main task of exploratory data analysis, and a common technique for statistical data analysis, used in many fields, including pattern recognition, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphics and machine learning.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “cluster analysis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.