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Intro To K Means Clustering

K-means clustering is an unsupervised learning algorithm that groups similar data points together into K clusters. It works by first randomly assigning data points to K clusters, then iteratively updating the cluster centroids and reassigning points until cluster membership stabilizes. The optimal number of clusters K can be chosen using the elbow method, which involves plotting the sum of squared errors for different values of K - the elbow in the graph indicates the best K.

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57 views12 pages

Intro To K Means Clustering

K-means clustering is an unsupervised learning algorithm that groups similar data points together into K clusters. It works by first randomly assigning data points to K clusters, then iteratively updating the cluster centroids and reassigning points until cluster membership stabilizes. The optimal number of clusters K can be chosen using the elbow method, which involves plotting the sum of squared errors for different values of K - the elbow in the graph indicates the best K.

Uploaded by

Abie D'first Hacker
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introduction to

K Means Clustering
Reading Assignment

Chapter 10 of
Introduction to Statistical Learning
By Gareth James, et al.
K Means Clustering

K Means Clustering is an unsupervised learning algorithm that


will attempt to group similar clusters together in your data.
So what does a typical clustering problem look like?
● Cluster Similar Documents
● Cluster Customers based on Features
● Market Segmentation
● Identify similar physical groups
K Means Clustering

● The overall goal is to divide data into distinct groups such


that observations within each group are similar
K Means Clustering

The K Means Algorithm


● Choose a number of Clusters “K”
● Randomly assign each point to a cluster
● Until clusters stop changing, repeat the following:
○ For each cluster, compute the cluster centroid by
taking the mean vector of points in the cluster
○ Assign each data point to the cluster for which the
centroid is the closest
K Means Clustering
Choosing a K Value
Choosing a K Value

● There is no easy answer for choosing a “best” K value


● One way is the elbow method
First of all, compute the sum of squared error (SSE) for some
values of k (for example 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.).
The SSE is defined as the sum of the squared distance
between each member of the cluster and its centroid.
Choosing a K Value

If you plot k against the SSE, you will see that the error
decreases as k gets larger; this is because when the number
of clusters increases, they should be smaller, so distortion is
also smaller.
The idea of the elbow method is to choose the k at which the
SSE decreases abruptly.
This produces an "elbow effect" in the graph, as you can see
in the following picture:
Choosing a K Value
Example with R

Let's go to RStudio and begin to explore an example, then


you’ll have a project to test your understanding!

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