Artificial Intelligence Review (2023) 56:6439–6475

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-022-10325-y

Data clustering: application and trends

Gbeminiyi John Oyewole1 · George Alex Thopil1

Accepted: 4 November 2022 / Published online: 27 November 2022

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022

Abstract
Clustering has primarily been used as an analytical technique to group unlabeled data
for extracting meaningful information. The fact that no clustering algorithm can solve all
clustering problems has resulted in the development of several clustering algorithms with
diverse applications. We review data clustering, intending to underscore recent applica-
tions in selected industrial sectors and other notable concepts. In this paper, we begin by
highlighting clustering components and discussing classification terminologies. Further-
more, specific, and general applications of clustering are discussed. Notable concepts on
clustering algorithms, emerging variants, measures of similarities/dissimilarities, issues
surrounding clustering optimization, validation and data types are outlined. Suggestions
are made to emphasize the continued interest in clustering techniques both by scholars and
Industry practitioners. Key findings in this review show the size of data as a classification
criterion and as data sizes for clustering become larger and varied, the determination of the
optimal number of clusters will require new feature extracting methods, validation indices
and clustering techniques. In addition, clustering techniques have found growing use in
key industry sectors linked to the sustainable development goals such as manufacturing,
transportation and logistics, energy, and healthcare, where the use of clustering is more
integrated with other analytical techniques than a stand-alone clustering technique.

Keywords Clustering · Clustering classification · Clustering components · Industry

applications, Clustering algorithms, Clustering trends

1 Introduction

Clustering has been defined as the grouping of objects in which there is little or no knowl-
edge about the object relationships in the given data (Jain et al. 1999; Liao 2005; Bose and
Chen 2015; Grant and Yeo 2018; Samoilenko and Osei-Bryson 2019; Xie et al. 2020).
Clustering also aims to reveal the underlying classes present within the data. Besides, clus-
tering is referred to as a technique that groups unlabeled data with little or no supervision
into different classes. The grouping is such that objects that are within the same class have

* Gbeminiyi John Oyewole

[email protected]
1
Department of Engineering and Technology Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria,
South Africa

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Vol.:(0123456789)
6440 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

similarity characteristics and are different from objects within other classes. Clustering has
also been described as an aspect of machine learning that deals with unsupervised learn-
ing. The learning lies in algorithms extracting patterns from datasets obtained either from
direct observation or simulated data. Schwenker and Trentin (2014) described the learning
process as attempts to classify data observations or independent variables without knowl-
edge of a target variable.
The grouping of objects into different classes has been one of the outcomes of data
clustering over the years. However, the difficulty of obtaining a single method of deter-
mining the ideal or optimal number of classes for several clustering problems has been a
key clustering issue noted by several authors such as Sekula et al. (2017), Rodriguez et al.
(2019), Baidari and Patil (2020). Authors have referred to this issue as the subjectivity of
clustering. Sekula et al. (2017), Pérez-Suárez et al. (2019) and Li et al. (2020a) described
this subjectivity as the difficulty in indicating the best partition or cluster. The insufficiency
of a unique clustering technique in solving all clustering problems would imply the careful
selection of clustering parameters to ensure suitability for the user of the clustering results.
Jain et al. (1999) specifically noted the need for several design choices in the clustering
process which have the potential for the use and development of several clustering tech-
niques/algorithms for existing and new areas of applications. They presented general appli-
cations of clustering such as in information filtering and retrieval which could span across
several industrial/business sectors. This work however discusses applications of clustering
techniques specifically under selected industrial/business sectors with strong links to the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We also note some new develop-
ments in clustering such as in techniques and datatype over the years of the publication of
Jain et al. (1999).
This review aims to give a general overview of data clustering, clustering classification,
data concerns in clustering, application and trends in the field of clustering. We present a
basic description of the clustering component steps, clustering classification issues, clus-
tering algorithms, generic application of clustering across different industry sectors and
specific applications across selected industries. The contribution of this work is mainly to
underscore how clustering is being applied in industrial sectors with strong links to the
SDGs. Other minor contributions are to point out clustering taxonomy issues, and data
input concerns and suggest the size of input data is useful for classifying clustering algo-
rithms. This review is also useful as a quick guide to practitioners or users of clustering
methods interested in understanding the rudiments of clustering.
Clustering techniques have predominantly been used in the field of statistics and com-
puting for exploratory data analysis. However, clustering has found a lot of applications
in several industries such as manufacturing, transportation, medical science, energy, edu-
cation, wholesale, and retail etc. Furthermore, Han et al. (2011), Landau et al. (2011),
and Ezugwu et al. (2022) indicated an increasing application of clustering in many fields
where data mining or processing capabilities have increased. Besides, the growing require-
ment of data for analytics and operations management in several fields has increased
research and application interest in the use of clustering techniques.
To keep up with the growing interest in the field of clustering over the years, general
reviews of clustering algorithms and approaches have been observable trends (Jain et al.
1999; Liao 2005; Xu and Wunsch 2005; Alelyani et al. 2013; Schwenker and Trentin 2014;
Saxena et al. 2017). Besides, there has been a recent trend of reviews of specific clustering
techniques such as in Denoeux and Kanjanatarakul (2016), Baadel et al. (2016) Shirkhor-
shidi et al. (2014), Bulò and Pelillo (2017), Rappoport and Shamir (2018), Ansari et al.
(2019), Pérez-Suárez et al. (2019), Beltrán and Vilariño (2020), Campello et al. (2020).

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Data clustering: application and trends 6441

We have also observed a growing review of clustering techniques under a particular field
of application such as in Naghieh and Peng (2009), Xu and Wunsch (2010), Anand et al.
(2018), Negara and Andryani (2018), Delgoshaei and Ali (2019). However, there appears
not to be sufficient reviews targeted at data clustering applications discussed under the
Industrial sectors. The application of clustering is vast, and as Saxena et al. (2017) indi-
cated, might be difficult to completely exhaust.
To put this article into perspective, we present our article selection method, a basic
review of clustering steps, classification and techniques discussed in the literature under
Sect. 2. Furthermore, we discuss clustering applications across and within selected busi-
ness sectors or Industries in Sect. 3. A trend of how clustering is being applied in these
sectors is also discussed in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4 we highlight some data issues in the field of
clustering. Furthermore, in Sect. 5, we attempt to discuss and summarize clustering con-
cepts from previous sections. We thereafter conclude and suggest future possibilities in the
field of data clustering in Sect. 6.

2 Components and classifications for data clustering

Our article selection in this work follows a similar literature search approach of Goven-
der and Sivakumar (2020) where google scholar (which provides indirect links to data-
bases such as science direct) was indicated as the main search engine. In addition to key
reference word combinations, they used such as "clustering", "clustering analysis”, we
searched the literature using google scholar for clustering techniques", "approaches", "time
series", "clustering sector application", "transportation", "manufacturing", “healthcare”
and “energy”. More search was conducted using cross-referencing and the screening of
abstracts of potential articles. We ensured that the articles with abstracts containing the
keywords earlier indicated were selected for further review while those not relevant to our
clustering area of focus were excluded. Figure 1 below further illustrates the process of
our article selection using the Prisma flow diagram (Page et al. 2021) which aims to show
the flow of information and summary of the screening for different stages of a systematic
review.
The components of data clustering are the steps needed to perform a clustering task.
Different taxonomies have been used in the classification of data clustering algorithms
Some words commonly used are approaches, methods or techniques (Jain et al. 1999; Liao
2005; Bulò and Pelillo 2017; Govender and Sivakumar 2020). However, clustering algo-
rithms have the tendency of being grouped or clustered in diverse ways based on their vari-
ous characteristics. Jain et al. (1999) described the tendency to have different approaches
as a result of cross-cutting issues affecting the specific placement of clustering algorithms
under a particular approach. Khanmohammadi et al. (2017) noted these cross-cutting issues
as a non-mutual exclusivity property of clustering classification. We follow the logical per-
spective of Khanmohammadi et al. (2017) using the term criteria to classify data cluster-
ing techniques or approaches. The clustering techniques or approaches are subsequently
employed to classify clustering algorithms.

2.1 Components of a clustering task

Components of data clustering have been presented as a flow from data samples require-
ment through clustering algorithms to cluster formations by several authors such as Jain

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6442 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

Fig. 1  Article selection process using PRISMA 2020 Flow diagram

et al. (1999), Liao (2005), and Xu and Wunsch (2010). According to Jain et al. (1999),
the following were indicated as the necessary steps to undertake a clustering activity: pat-
tern representation (feature extraction and selection), similarity computation, grouping
process and cluster representation. Liao (2005) suggested three key components of time
series clustering which are the clustering algorithm, similarity/dissimilarity measure and
performance evaluation. Xu and Wunsch (2010) presented the components of a clustering
task as consisting of four major feedback steps. These steps were given as feature selection/
extraction, clustering algorithm design/selection, cluster validation and result interpreta-
tion. According to Alelyani et al. (2013) components of data clustering was illustrated as
consisting of the requirement of unlabeled data followed by the operation of collating simi-
lar data objects in a group and separation of dissimilar data objects into other groups. Due
to the subjective nature of clustering results, the need to consider performance evaluation
of any methods of clustering used has become necessary in the steps of clustering.
Taking these observations into consideration, we essentially list steps of clustering
activity below and present them also in Fig. 2:

(1) Input data requirement.

(2) Pattern representation (feature extraction and selection).
(3) Clustering or grouping process (Clustering algorithm selection and similarity/dissimi-
larity computation).
(4) Cluster formation.
(5) Performance evaluation (clustering validation).

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Data clustering: application and trends 6443

Pattern
representation.
(Oyewole1a et al.)
(2)

Fig. 2  Typical clustering steps (1 to 6)

(6) Knowledge extraction.

Out of the six steps highlighted above, component steps (2), (3), and (5) practically
appear to be critical. This is because if the components steps (2), (3), and (5) are not appro-
priately and satisfactorily conducted during clustering implementation, each step or all
steps (2), (3) (5) including (4) might need to be revisited. We briefly discuss these vital
steps.

2.1.1 Pattern representation (step 2)

Jain et al. (1999) defined pattern representation as the "number of classes, the number of
available patterns, and the number, type, and scale of the features available to the clustering
algorithm". They indicated that pattern representation could consist of feature extraction
and/or selection. On one hand, feature selection was defined as “the process of identifying
the most effective subset of the original features to use in the clustering process”. On the
other hand, “feature extraction is the use of one or more transformations of the data input
features to produce new salient features to perform the clustering or grouping of data.”
We refer readers to Jain et al. (1999), Parsons et al. (2004), Alelyani et al. (2013), Solorio-
Fernández et al. (2020) for a comprehensive review of pattern representation, feature selec-
tion and extraction.

2.1.2 Clustering or grouping process (step 3)

This step is essentially described as the grouping process by Jain et al. (1999) into a par-
tition of distinct groups or groups having a variable degree of membership. Jain et al.
(1999) noted that clustering techniques attempt to group patterns so that the classes thereby
obtained reflect the different pattern generation processes represented in the pattern set.
As noted by Liao (2005) clustering algorithms are a sequence of procedures that are itera-
tive and rely on a stopping criterion to be activated when a good clustering is obtained.

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6444 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

Clustering algorithms were indicated to depend both on the type of data available and the
particular purpose and application. Liao (2005) discussed similarity/dissimilarity computa-
tion as the requirement of a function used to measure the similarity between two data types
(e.g., raw values, matrices, features-pairs) being compared. Similarly, Jain et al. (1999)
presented this as a distance function defined on a pair of patterns or groupings. Several
authors such as Jain et al. (1999), Liao (2005), Xu and Wunsch (2010), Liu et al. (2020)
have noted that similarity computation is an essential subcomponent of a typical clustering
algorithm. We further discuss some similarity/dissimilarity measures in Sect. 2.4.

2.1.3 Performance evaluation (step 5)

This step is done to confirm the suitability of the number of clusters or groupings obtained
as the results of clustering. Liao (2005) discussed this as validation indices or functions to
determine the suitability or appropriateness of any clustering results. Sekula et al. (2017)
indicated that the high possibility of clustering solutions is dependent on the validation
indices used and suggests the use of multiple indices for comparison.

2.2 Clustering classification

There have been different terminologies for data clustering classification in the literature.
This variety of classifications was indicated by Samoilenko and Osei-Bryson (2019), Rod-
riguez et al. (2019) as a means to organize different clustering algorithms in the litera-
ture. Some have used the word approaches, methods, and techniques. However, the term
techniques and methods appear to have been widely used to depict the term clustering
algorithms.
Liao (2005) segmented time-series data clustering using three main criteria. These cri-
teria referred to the manner of handling data as either in its raw form or transforming the
raw data into a feature or parameters of a model. Saxena et al. (2017) used the terminol-
ogy of clustering approaches and indicated linkage to the reason for different clustering
techniques. This is due to the reason for the word “cluster” not having an exact meaning
for the word. Bulò and Pelillo (2017) also discussed the limitation of hard or soft classifica-
tions of clustering into partitions and they suggested an approach to clustering which was
referred to as the game-theoretic framework that simultaneously overcomes limitations of
the hard and soft partition approach of clustering. Khanmohammadi et al. (2017) indicated
five criteria in the literature for classifying clustering algorithms which are the nature of
data input, the measure of proximity of data objects, generated data cluster, membership
function style and clustering strategy. These criteria have resulted in different classifica-
tions of clustering algorithms.
We present in Fig. 3 below a summary of the classification criteria presented by Khan-
mohammadi et al. (2017). We extend the classification criteria by adding a criterion that
can also be used to classify clustering algorithms. This is the size of input data. The size of
data was presented as a factor that affects the selection of clustering algorithm by Andreo-
poulos et al. (2009), Shirkhorshidi et al. (2014) and more recently Mahdi et al. (2021).
They observed that some clustering algorithms perform poorly and sacrifice quality when
the size of data increases in volume, velocity, variability and variety. On another hand,
some other clustering algorithms can increase scalability and speed to cope with the huge
amount of data. Another possible criterion that could be added is what Bulò and Pelillo
(2017) described as a framework for clustering. However, this appears to be a clustering

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Data clustering: application and trends 6445

Fig. 3  Criteria and sub-criteria for classifying clustering algorithms

strategy. They described this as a perspective framework of the clustering process that is
different from the traditional approaches of obtaining the number of clusters as a by-prod-
uct of partitioning. They referred to this as a clustering ideology which can be thought of
as a sequential search for structures in the data provided. Figure 3 below categorizes the
approaches or criteria and the sub-approaches or sub-criteria that can be useful in classify-
ing clustering algorithms.

2.3 Clustering algorithms

The criteria/sub-criteria described in the previous section can be used in classifying clus-
tering algorithms. However, clustering algorithms have traditionally been classified as
either having a partitioning (clusters obtained are put into distinctive groups) or hierarchi-
cal (forming a tree linkage or relationships for the data objects being grouped) strategy to
obtain results. Jain et al. (1999) indicated the possibility of having additional categories
to the traditional classification. Some authors have since then indicated the classification
of clustering algorithms using five clustering strategies such as in Liao (2005), Han et al.
(2011). Using the clustering criteria described earlier we demonstrate the classification
of selected 21 clustering algorithms out of several clustering algorithms in the literature.
These are (1) k-means, (2) k-mode, (3) k-medoid, (4), Density-Based Spatial Clustering
of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN), (5) CLustering In QUEst (CLIQUE), (6) Density
clustering (Denclue), (7) Ordering Points To Identify the Clustering Structure (OPTICS),
(8) STatistical INformation Grid (STING), (9) k-prototype, (10) Autoclass (A Bayes-
ian approach to classification) (11) fuzzy k-means, (12) COOLCAT (An entropy based
algorithm for categorical clustering), (13) Cluster Identification via Connectivity Ker-
nels (CLICK), (14) RObust Clustering using linK (Sandrock), (15) Self Organising Map
(SOM), (16) Single-linkage (17) Complete-linkage (18) Centroid-linkage, (19) Cluster-
ing Large Applications Based upon Randomized Search (CLARANS), (20) Overlapped
k-means, (21) Model-based Overlapping Clustering (MOC).
We summarize these classifications in Tables 1 and 2 below and include selected refer-
ences for extensive reading.

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6446 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

Table 1  Classifications of clustering algorithms based on identified clustering criteria and sub-criteria
Clustering criteria Sub Description Applicable Grouping of selected clustering
criteria scenario(s) algorithms

Type of input data: Categori- Data points Customer informa- k-mode (2), COOLCAT (12),
Banerjee et al. (2005), cal are usually tion such as CLICK (13), ROCK (14),
Andreopoulos et al. type described as gender, payment
(2009), Khanmo- qualitative method etc
hammadi et al. data (having
(2017) characteristic
attributes)
Numeric Data points Gene expression k-means (1), k-medoid (3),
type are usually dataset (gene vs DBSCAN (4), Denclue (6),
described as tissue), grouping OPTICS (7), Sting (8), SOM (15),
quantitative data potential cus- CLARANS (19), Overlapped
(measurable in tomers in sales k-means (20)
numbers) and marketing
Mixed Data points could Disease data CLIQUE (5), k-prototype (9), Auto-
type have numerical (Patient, sex, class (10), Fuzzy k-means (11),
or categorical (dis- age, group) Single linkage (16), complete-
crete) descriptive linkage (17), centroid –linkage
attributes (18), MOC (21),
Generated clusters: Overlap- Data points can Social network Fuzzy k-means (11), Overlapped
Andreopoulos et al. ping belong to more analysis, infor- k-means (20), MOC (21)
(2009), N’Cir et al. than one cluster mation retrieval
(2015), Khanmo- (membership (e.g., several
hammadi et al. either hard or topics for a
(2017), Beltrán and fuzzy) document)
Vilariño (2020) Non- Data points can Clustering of k-means (1), k-mode (2), k-medoid
over- only belong movies are done (3), DBSCAN (4), CLIQUE (5),
lapping to one of the by content e.g., Denclue (6), OPTICS (7), STING
various identi- AA, A, B, B15, (8), k-prototype (9), Autoclass
fied clusters C and D (10) COOLCAT (12), CLICK
(exclusive) (13), ROCK (14), SOM (15),
Single-linkage (16), complete-
linkage (17), centroid –linkage
(18), CLARANS (19)
Membership style: Soft Probability Clustering of a Fuzzy k -means (11)
Khanmohammadi (Fuzzy) membership range of million
et al. (2017), Bel- where a data colours
trán and Vilariño point can belong
2020) to a cluster with
some degree
of membership
between 0 and 1
Hard Binary member- Group work k-means (1), k-mode (2), k-medoid
(Crisp) ship where a (Grouping 12 (3), DBSCAN (4), Clique (5),
data point can students in a Denclue (6), Optics (7), Sting (8),
either belong or group of 4 hav- k-prototype (9), Autoclass (10),
doesn’t belong to ing 3 students COOLCAT (12), Click (13), Rock
a cluster (0 or 1 per group) (14), SOM (15), Single-linkage
membership) (16), complete-linkage (17), cen-
troid –linkage (18), CLARANS
(19), Overlapped k-means (20),
MOC (21)

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Data clustering: application and trends 6447

Table 1  (continued)
Clustering criteria Sub Description Applicable Grouping of selected clustering
criteria scenario(s) algorithms

Proximity measure: Similar- Data points are Common in Docu- k-mode (1), CLIQUE (5), Autoclass
Andreopoulos et al. ity grouped into ment cluster- (10), COOLCAT (12), CLICK
(2009), Xu and matrix different clusters ing, and gene (13), ROCK (14)
Wunsch (2005, according to expression data
2010), N’Cir et al. their resem- analysis
(2015), Khanmo- blance to one (e.g., use of cosine
hammadi et al. another or not similarity, pear-
(2017) (usually for son correlation
qualitative vari- etc.)
ables)
Distance Data points are Clustering using k-means (1), k-medoid (3),
matrix grouped into distance func- DBSCAN (4), Denclue (6),
different clusters tions such as OPTICS (7), STING (8),
according to Euclidean, k-prototype (9), Fuzzy k –means
certain distance Minkowski, (11), SOM (15), Single-linkage
functions (usu- distance, Sup (16), complete-linkage (17),
ally for continu- distance, city- centroid –linkage (18) CLARANS
ous features) block distance (19), Overlapped k-means (20),
etc MOC (21)

2.3.1 Traditional clustering strategies

In this section, a basic description of clustering algorithms that represent the traditional
clustering strategy of partitioning and hierarchical clustering algorithms is provided.
We present the common partitioning algorithm (k-means) and generic hierarchical clus-
tering algorithm due to their basic usage and importance in being foundational for other
clustering algorithms. This is as discussed by Xu and Wunsch (2010) and Sekula (2015),
James et al. (2015) with some modifications to aid comprehension.
Given the following notations:
n: number of observations of the data to the cluster (number of data objects).
K : the number of clusters (selected randomly or obtained through statistical tests such
as in the function NBclust in the statistical program R).
Ck ∶ Cluster centroid for each kth cluster, where k ranges from 1 to K

(a) K-means algorithm

1. Randomly assign a number from 1 to K to each of the n observations. (Initial cluster

assignment.
2. Iterate until the cluster assignment stops changing.
(a) For each of the kth clusters, compute the cluster centroid
C k.
(b) Assign each observation to the cluster whose centroid is closest (Where
closest is defined using distance measures such as Euclidean distance).

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6448 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

3. Iteration and cluster assignment ends when the total within-cluster variation
summed over all K clusters is as small as possible.

(b) Generic hierarchical agglomerative clustering

1. Begin with n observations and a distance/dissimilarity measure (such as Euclidean

distance) of all n(n − 1)∕2 pairwise dissimilarities (Each observation is treated as
its cluster).
2. Compute pairwise inter-cluster dissimilarities.
(a) Examine all pairwise inter-cluster dissimilarities among the
individual clusters and identify the pair of clusters that are
least dissimilar (Dissimilarities computed depend on the type
of linkages such as complete, single, or average and the type
of dissimilarity measure such as correlation-based distances,
Euclidean distances).
(b) Combine these two clusters.
(c) Compute the new pairwise inter-cluster dissimilarities among remaining
clusters.

3. Iteration proceeds until all n- observations belong to one cluster.

(c) Generic hierarchical divisive clustering

  The hierarchical divisive clustering is the reverse of the hierarchical agglomerative
clustering.

1. Begins with one cluster (all n observations in a single cluster).

2. Split this single (large) cluster in a hierarchy fashion into new smaller clusters using
a dissimilarity measure and appropriate linkage.
3. Iteration proceeds till all n observations have been allocated.

2.3.2 Traditional clustering strategy variants

Denoeux and Kanjanatarakul (2016) and Saxena et al. (2017)presented clustering algo-
rithms as basically having either hierarchical or partitioning strategies. The density-
based, grid-based, and model-based clustering strategies were indicated by them to
exhibit the spirit of either the hierarchical or partitioning strategy. The classification
of clustering algorithms based on one of the five clustering strategies as presented in
Table 2 above appears to be widely used by several authors. Therefore, we limit our fur-
ther discussions of clustering algorithms based on clustering strategy.
Some other clustering algorithms have been noted by Han et al. (2011) and Campello
et al. (2020) to possess characteristics that make them difficult to exclusively classify
under one of the five clustering strategies. As a result, different classification strategies
have been given in the literature to account for this (Saxena et al. 2017). Recently there
have been additional clustering strategies developed such as discussed in Ezugwu et al.
(2022). Some are partly to overcome limitations of the traditional clustering techniques
such as in Bulò and Pelillo (2017), Valls et al. (2018), He et al. (2020). Others have

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 Table 2  Continuation of classification of selected clustering algorithms based on identified clustering criteria and sub-criteria
Clustering criteria Sub criteria Description Applicable scenario(s) Clustering algorithms

Clustering strategy: Partitioning Given a number of partitions e.g., e.g., grouping post graduate stu- k-mean (1), k-mode (2), k-medoids
Jain et al. (1999), Han et al. k-partitions, n-data objects are dents with different supervisors (3), k-prototype (9), fuzzy k-means
(2012), Khanmohammadi et al. organized into such partitions (11), COOLCAT (12), CLARANS
(2017), Govender and Sivakumar by optimizing a partitioning (19), Overlapped k-means (20),
(2020), Ezugwu et al. (2022) criterion e.g. distance function. MOC (21)
Each partition contains at least
one object such that k ≤ n
Hierarchical This method works by grouping Clusters have different levels Rock (14), single-linkage (16),
Data clustering: application and trends

data objects into a tree of clus- e.g. text mining (Subtopics of complete –linkage (17), centroid
ters. This could be agglomera- Mathematics could be algebra, linkage (18)
tive or divisive calculus, trigonometry etc
Andreopoulos et al. (2009), Han Density-based clustering The central idea is to continue e.g. bioinformatics DBSCAN (4), Denclue (6), OPTICS
et al. (2011), Campello et al. growing a cluster as long as the for locating the densest subspaces (7), CLICK (13)
(2020) density (number of objects or in interactome networks
data points) in the “neighbour-
hood” exceeds some threshold.
Rather than producing a cluster-
ing explicitly
Wang et al. (1997), Hireche et al. Grid-based clustering This method quantizes the object Useful in facilitating several spa- CLIQUE (5), STING (8)
(2020) space into a finite number of tial queries (e.g. listing hotspot
cells that form a grid structure of crime within a specific dis-
on which all the operations for tance of geographical region)
clustering are performed. It
clusters based on the cells rather
than data objects
Andreopoulos (2009), Hudson Model-based clustering The method assumes a model for In protein sequencing, bioinfor- Autoclass (10), SOM (15), MOC
et al. (2011), Bouveyron and each of the clusters and attempts matics, (21)
Brunet-Saumard (2014) to best fit the data to the assumed synchronisation of flowering
model. Statistical and Neural (Eucalypt flower records)
networks are two approaches
6449

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 Table 2  (continued)
6450

Clustering criteria Sub criteria Description Applicable scenario(s) Clustering algorithms

13
Size of data: Suitability for large data As data points increase clustering For example social network- k-mode (2), CLIQUE (5), STING
Andreopoulos et al. (2009), (High dimensional). quality is minimally compro- ing websites with billions of (8), SOM (15), CLARANS (19),
Khanmohammadi et al. (2017), Data mised due to scalability and subscribers, Microarray gene Overlapped k-means (20)
Shirkhorshidi et al. (2014) speedup of the algorithm [small expression data etc.)
O(∙) complexity]
Non-suitability for large As data points increase clustering extraction of knowledge from data k-means (1), k-medoid (3),
data (low dimensional quality are largely compromised having bytes sizes less than ­108 DBSCAN (4), Denclue (6),
data) due to the high complexity of bytes OPTICS (7), k-prototype (9),
data and computational cost Autoclass (10), Fuzzy k –means
[large O(∙) complexity] (11), COOLCAT (12), CLICK
(13), ROCK (14), Single-linkage
(16), complete-linkage (17), cen-
troid –linkage (18) MOC (21),

O(∙) useful in describing the effect of the size of data on clustering algorithm speed and scalability (the higher the values the slower the clustering algorithm (Andreopoulos
et al. 2009)
G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil
Data clustering: application and trends 6451

resulted from the need to apply clustering in new fields of application. Saxena et al.
(2017) also acknowledged the division of clustering algorithms into the five previous
classifications above. However, they indicated other clustering methods such as multi-
objective clustering, collaborative fuzzy clustering, search based clustering technique as
variants of the two broad clustering methods earlier indicated. Based on their review we
present a brief description.
We summarize the description of Saxena et al. (2017) and suggest other references of
recent articles that have extended the selected clustering variants for detailed studies in
Table 3 below.
We present basic steps of selected variants of the traditional clustering strategy
as discussed by Saxena et al. (2017) including examples of clustering algorithms of
selected clustering strategy variants as discussed by Jain et al. (1999), Pedrycz (2002),
Johnell and Chehreghani (2020), Ramadan et al. (2020) with little modifications to aid
basic comprehension. Given n number of observations of data the goal is to form clus-
ters using different representations and approaches.

(a) Grid-based clustering

1. Define a set of grid cells.

2. Assign observations to the appropriate grid cell and compute the density of each
cell.
3. Eliminate cells, whose density is below a certain threshold.
4. Form clusters from contiguous groups of dense cells.

(b) Spectral clustering

1. Construct a similarity graph between n observations or objects to be clustered.

2. Compute the associated graph Laplacian matrix (This is obtained from the weighted
adjacency matrix and diagonal matrix of the similarity graph).
3. Compute the first K - eigenvectors of the Laplacian matrix to define a feature vector
for each object ( K implies the number of clusters to construct).
4. Organize objects into K classes by running the k-means algorithm on the features
obtained.

(c) Evolutionary based clustering

1. Generate (e.g., randomly) a population of solution S . Each solution S corresponds

to valid K -partitions or clusters of n observations.
2. Assign a fitness value with each solution.
3. Assign a probability of selection or survival (based on the fitness value) to each
solution.
4. Obtain a new population of solutions using the evolutionary operators namely selec-
tion (e.g., roulette wheel selection), recombination (e.g., crossover) and mutation
(e.g., pairwise interchange mutation).
5. Evaluate the fitness values of these solutions.
6. Repeat steps 4 to 5 until termination conditions are satisfied.

13
6452 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

(d) Dominant set clustering

  This follows the iterative procedure to compute clusters according to Johnell and
Chehreghani (2020)

1. Compute a dominant set using the similarity matrix of the available n observations
or data objects.
2. Remove the clustered observation from the data.
3. Repeat until a predefined number of clusters has been obtained.

(e) Collaborative fuzzy clustering (Pedrycz 2002)

  This is achieved through two stages namely: (A) Generation of clusters without col-
laboration and (B) Collaboration of the clusters.

1. Given subsets of patterns (patterns are obtained from n observations)

2. Select distance function, number of fuzzy clusters, termination criterion, and col-
laboration matrix.
3. Initiate randomly all partition matrices based on the number of patterns.
4. Stage A: Generation of clusters without collaboration.
4.1. Compute prototypes (centroids) and partition matrices for all subsets of
patterns. (The results of clustering for each subset of patterns come in the
form of a partition matrix and collection of prototypes).
4.2. Computation is done until a termination criterion has been satisfied.
5. Stage B: Collaboration of the clusters.
5.1. Given the computed matrix of collaboration
5.2. Compute prototypes (e.g., using Lagrange multipliers technique) and parti-
tion matrices (e.g., using weighted Euclidean distances between prototype
and pattern)
5.3. Computation is done until a termination criterion has been satisfied.
(f) Multi-objective clustering
  The multi-objective clustering is described using the k-means modified to work on
two objective functions according to Ramadan et al. (2020).

1. The data (consisting of n observations) is divided into a number of sets. The number
of sets may depend on the number of distributed machines or the number of threads
to be used.
2. x value (mean) and y value (variance) are computed for each set of data.
3. k-means clustering is applied to each set. K (number of clusters) is selected either
heuristically or based on the number of records in each set.
4. At the global optimizers, Pareto optimality is applied to the clusters’ centroids and
nondominated centroids.
5. For nondominated clusters, the distance between a point x and the cluster centre is
computed as well as the Silhouette scores between x and the nearest cluster centre.
Then, the k-means algorithm is used to re-cluster those points.

13
 Table 3  Clustering algorithms based on extended clustering strategy
Extended clustering strategy Description Clustering algorithms Selected references

Graph (theoretic) clustering A method that represents clusters using graphs. Complete link; minimum cut; information- Matula (1977), Hu et al. (2009), Das et al.
Graph clustering involves the task of dividing theoretic; normalized cut etc (2020), Chen et al. (2020)
nodes into clusters so that the edge density is
higher within clusters as opposed to across
clusters
Spectral clustering This constructs affinity matrix in terms of simi- Traditional spectral; Spectral clustering using Ng et al. (2002), Saxena et al. (2017), Du et al.
larity between data points before performing normalized laplacian;multi-view spectral (2020), Sharma and Seal (2020)
the clustering task. e.g. Un-normalized and clustering
Normalized spectral clustering. A special
Data clustering: application and trends

case of graph-theoretic clustering. Obtaining

the quality of affinity matrix and spectral vec-
tors determination are major steps
Dominant Set Clustering (DSC) This is based on a stepwise search for patterns DSC based on Frank-Wolfe algorithms, DSC Bulò and Pelillo (2017), Johnell and Chehreghani
or structures in data with the clustering based on replicator dynamics (2020)
ideology in mind similar to solution search
in optimization theory, game –theory and
graph theory. Another special case of graph-
theoretic clustering
Evolutionary Approaches Based Clustering The population of solutions corresponds to the EABC on particle swarm optimization, EABC Jain et al. (1999), Saxena et al. (2017), Ezugwu
(EABC) K-partitions of the data. Partitions with a on Genetic Algorithm; EABC on Ant colony et al. (2022)
large fitness value corresponding to a small optimization
square error are retained after the evolution- Whale optimization algorithm,
ary operation Crow search algorithm
Emperor Penguin Optimizer
Search-Based Clustering Approaches (SBCA) This comprises stochastic and deterministic SBCA on simulated annealing, SBCA on Tabu Saxena et al. (2017), (Bandyopadhyay et al.
techniques. The stochastic techniques are search (2008), Nakayama and Kagaku (1998)
similar to the evolutionary-based approach
and may not guarantee an optimal solution
while the deterministic seeks to obtain
optimal solutions
Collaborative fuzzy clustering This is relatively recent compared to other Horizontal or vertical type Hu et al. (2020), Pedrycz (2002), Zhao et al.
clustering techniques. subsets of patterns can (2020)
be processed together to find a structure that
is common to all of them
6453

13
 Table 3  (continued)
6454

Extended clustering strategy Description Clustering algorithms Selected references

Multi-objective clustering Clustering criteria are jointly optimized MOCK; MOCA-SM Ramadan et al. (2020), Kessira and Kechadi

13
(2020)
Overlapping clustering or overlapping com- Objects belong to more than one cluster or MOC; SBK; Banerjee et al. (2005), Beltrán and Vilariño
munity detection group in overlapping clustering. Overlap- ADCLUS; OKM; DClustR;OCDC; MCLC (2020), Xie et al. (2013)
ping community is aimed at identifying such
multiple groups
Evidential clustering (EVCLUS) This a soft clustering technique based on deter- EK-NNclus; Denoeux and Kanjanatarakul (2016), Masson
mining mass functions for data objects EVCLUS; ECM and Denoeux (2008), Denoeux (2020)
Subspace clustering This is an extension of feature selection that CLIQUE, ENCLUS, DOC, CBF, Multi-view Parsons et al. (2004), Huang et al. (2016), Rong
attempts to find clusters in different sub- subspace clustering et al. (2020)
spaces of the same dataset
G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil
Data clustering: application and trends 6455

6. A window W is used to extract the most effective clusters based on the required
points. Pareto optimality could be applied once more for better results.

(g) Search-based clustering

  The search-based clustering is described using the Simulated Annealing example
presented by Jain et al. (1999).

1. Randomly select an initial partition P0 for the data (comprising n observations) and
compute the squared error value termed EP0 .
2. Select values for the control parameters, initial and final temperatures T0 and Tf
respectively.
3. Select a neighbour partition ( P1) of P0 and compute its squared error value termed
EP1.
4. If EP1 is larger than EP0 , then assign P1 to P0 with a temperature-dependent prob-
ability. Else assign P1 to P0.
5. Repeat step 3 for a fixed number of iterations.
6. Reduce the value of T0 , i.e.T0 = cT0 , where c is a predetermined constant.
7. If T0 is greater than Tf , then go to step 3. Else stop.

2.4 Similarity and dissimilarity measures

As indicated by Jain et al. (1999) similarity measures are the actual strategies that cluster-
ing algorithms utilize in grouping data objects to fall within a class or cluster. The dissimi-
larity measures are used to differentiate a data grouping or cluster from one another. Saxena
et al. (2017) also emphasized the important role similarity of objects within a cluster plays
in a clustering process. According to Jain et al. (1999), many clustering methods use dis-
tance measures to determine the similarity or dissimilarity between any pair of objects and
also they gave conditions for any valid distance measure. Xu and Wunsch (2010) empha-
sized the conditional requirement for computing similarity/dissimilarity function between
any two data pairs of objects when using the distance measure. They stated that a valid
similarity function or measure must satisfy the symmetry, positivity triangular inequality
and reflexivity conditions. We present some of the similarity functions noted in the litera-
ture in Table 4 and suggest references to readers for more comprehensive studies. Other
similarity functions or measures that have been discussed in the literature are city-block
distance, sup distance, squared Mahalanobis, point symmetry distance. Xu and Wunsch
(2010), Niwattanakul et al. (2013), Saxena et al. (2017) and Kalgotra et al. (2020) provide
additional discussions on other similarity functions not included in this article.
Basic mathematical definitions of some of these measures as discussed by Xu and Wun-
sch (2010) are presented below. It is assumed that dataset X consists of n data objects or
observations and d features. Notation D(., .) => Distance function between two objects in
the dataset. S (., .) => Similarity function between two objects in the dataset.

(a) Minkowski distance:

1
� � ∑d
� �p
p

 
D xi , xj = ( �xil − xjl � ) p => a generic numeric value.
l=1 � �

13
6456 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

(b) Euclidean distance:

1∕2
( ) ∑
d
D xi , xj = ( |xil − xjl | )
2

l=1

  Special case of minkowski p = 2

(c) Cosine similarity:

� � xi T xj
S xi , xj = cos𝜶 =
‖xi ‖‖xj ‖

(d) Extended Jaccard measure

� � xi T xj
D xi , xj =
‖xi ‖2 + ‖xj ‖2 − xi T xj

2.5 Cluster optimization and validation

As indicated in the introduction section, obtaining the optimal number of clusters has been
a major output of data clustering and an issue that keeps research in the field of clustering
active. It has been widely indicated that no clustering algorithm can always solve all clus-
tering problems. Saxena et al. (2017) emphasized user control in deciding the number of
cluster results, which might either follow a trial and error, heuristic or evolutionary proce-
dure. Fu and Perry (2020) discussed some trial and error and heuristic methods of obtain-
ing the number of clusters and proposed a method that predicts errors and subsequently
chooses the smallest error to determine the appropriate number of clusters. Improving the
quality of clustering results obtainable from traditional clustering algorithms and variants
have recently been advanced by some authors such as Calmon and Albi (2020), Chen et al.
(2020), Ushakov and Vasilyev (2020).
As indicated by Jain et al. (1999) multiple features could be extracted or selected from
given data and also performing a pairwise comparison of similarity within clusters for all
data values can result in the combinatorial difficulty of clustering with an increase in data
sizes. Also, Xu and Wunsch (2005) emphasized that different clustering algorithms could
produce different results for a given data and also the same clustering algorithms using dif-
ferent approaches could still result in different clusters formed.
As a result, researchers have validated their search for the optimal number of clusters
through techniques that are widely referred to as indices. Two major categories of indices
have been highlighted in the literature. These are the internal indices and external indices.
Some authors have indicated a breakdown of these validation indices into three catego-
ries but as Xu and Wunsch (2005) and Sekula et al. (2017) indicated these could still be
subsumed into the spirit of internal and external indices. According to Baidari and Patil
(2020), Internal indices measure the compactness of the clusters by applying similarity
measure techniques cluster separability and intra-cluster homogeneity, or a combination of
these two Baidari and Patil (2020). External criteria are conducted to match the structure of
the cluster to a predefined classification of the instances to validate clustering results. They,
however, noted the common use of internal validity with clustering algorithms. Table 5
below shows selected internal and external indices from the literature.

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6457

Table 4  Selected use of some similarity and dissimilarity measures

Measure Suitability Selected reference

Minkowski For numeric attributes. The similarity between Xu and Wunsch (2010), Saxena et al.
data pairs corresponds to the closeness of (2017), Xu and Wunsch (2005)
distance between data pairs
Euclidean dis- Most commonly used for numeric attributes. A Thakur et al. (2020), Qian et al. (2004)
tance special instance of Minkowski e.g
k-means algorithm
Cosine measure Varies more with linear transformations than Qian et al. (2004), Ye (2011)
rotational transformations. More commonly
used for document clustering
Pearson correla- Suitable for numeric variables and magnitude D’haeseleer (2005), Xu and Wunsch
tion measure difference of two variables. Used for analyz- (2010)
ing gene expression data
Jaccard measure Suitable for information retrieval and word Niwattanakul et al. (2013), Xu and
similarity measurement. Can detect a mis- Wunsch (2005)
take in spellings but cannot detect over-type
words
Dice coefficient Similar to the Jaccard measure for information Pandit and Gupta (2011), Xu and
measure retrieval Wunsch (2005)

We present basic definitions of some of the indices discussed by Xu and Wunsch (2010)
with some modifications to aid basic comprehension.

2.5.1 Description of selected external indices

Given a derived clustering structure C , obtained using a clustering algorithm and linked
to dataset X and a prescribed clustering structure P, linked to prior information on data-
set X .
a = number of pairs of data objects in X , being a member of the same clusters in C
and P.
b = number of pairs of data objects in X , being a member of the same clusters in C
and but different clusters in P.
c = number of pairs of data objects in X , being a member of different clusters in C
and but same clusters in P.
d = number of pairs of data objects in X , being a member of different clusters in C
and P.
M = n(n − 1)∕2 (Total number of pairs of objects within n number of data objects in
dataset X .

(a) Rand index ( R):

(a + d)
R=
M

13
6458 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

(b) Jaccard coefficient (J) ∶

a
J=
(a + b + c)
(c) Fowlkes and Mallows Index (FM ):
√
a a
FM =
(a + b) (a + c)

2.5.2 Description of selected internal Indices

Also given n data objects in dataset X , with K partitions indexed from i = 1toK .
Where:
ni = Number of data objects assigned to cluster Ci
mi = centroid linked to cluster Ci
m = total centroid (mean) vector of the dataset.
ei = average error for cluster Ci
ej = average error for cluster Cj
( )
D Ci , Cj = Distance function between clusters Ci and Cj in the dataset.

(a) Calinski and Harabasz index (CH) ∶

Tr (SB ) Tr (Sw )
CH(K) = ∕
K−1 n−K
where

� � � K
Tr SB = ni ‖mi − m‖2 (Trace of between cluster scatter matrix)
i=1

� � � �
K i n
Tr Sw = ‖xj − mi ‖2 (Trace within − cluster scatter matrix)
i=1 j=1

  The larger the value of CH(K) the better the quality of the clustering solution
obtained.
(b) Davies-Bouldin Index (DB):

1 ∑
K
DB(K) = R
K i=1 i
� e +e �
 where Ri = max ‖m i−mj ‖2
j,j≠i i j
  The minimum DB(K) indicates the potential K in the data set.
(c) Dunn Index (DI)

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6459

Table 5  Selected internal and external validation indices

Major indices Other indices Examples Selected references
linked to major

Internal Stability criteria Sum of squared error; Scatter criteria; Liu et al. (2010)
indices Sekula et al. Condorcet’s criterion; The C –criterion; Mourer et al. (2020)
(2017) Category utility; Edge cut metrics
Calinski and Harabasz (CH) index
Krzanowski and Lai (KL) index
Silhouette index; Gap index
Compact-separate proportion (CSP) index;
Index method based on data depth
External Relative criteria Mutual information-based measure F–measure; Saxena et al. (2017)
Indices Xu and Wunsch Biological homogeneity index Biological Li et al. (2020b)
(2005) stability index, Jaccard index,
Fowlkes–Mallows index, Confusion matrix

⎛ ⎞
⎜ ⎛ D(C , C ) ⎞⎟
DI(K) = min ⎜ ⎜ ⎟⎟
i j
min
i=1,…,K ⎜ max 𝛿(Cl ) ⎟⎟
j = 1, … , K, ⎜⎝ l=1,…,K
⎜ ⎠⎟
⎝ j≠i ⎠

where D(Ci , Cj ) = min D(x, y)

x∈Ci ,y∈Cj
( )
𝛿 Cl = max D(x, y)
x,y∈Cl

The larger the value of DI(K) the better the estimation of K

3 Applications of clustering

Clustering techniques have been widely used in several fields and areas (Rai et al. 2006;
Devolder et al. 2012; Bulò and Pelillo 2017; Grant and Yeo 2018; Nerurkar et al. 2018;
Govender and Sivakumar 2020). Its relevance has also been shown as an analytical tech-
nique on its own (Ray and Turi 1999; Lismont et al. 2017; Motiwalla et al. 2019) and also
as a hybrid method with other analytical solution techniques such as in Grant and Yeo
(2018), Zhu et al. (2019), Liu and Chen (2019), Jamali-Dinan et al. (2020), Tanoto et al.
(2020), Pereira and Frazzon (2020). We review some field applications of clustering and
subsequently review the application of clustering techniques in particular business sectors
or fields.

3.1 Field applications

Some of the direct areas of clustering application generally discussed in the literature have
been textual document classification, image segmentation, object recognition, character
recognition, information retrieval, data mining, spatial data analysis, business analytics,

13
6460 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

data reduction, and big data mining. Other areas indicated by Saxena et al. (2017), have
been sequence analysis (Durbin et al. 1998; Li et al. 2012), human genetic clustering,
(Kaplan and Winther 2013; Lelieveld et al. 2017; Marbac et al. 2019), mobile banking
and information system (Motiwalla et al. 2019; Shiau et al. 2019), social network analysis
(Scott and Carrington 2011; Shiau et al. 2017; Khamparia et al. 2020), search result group-
ing (Mehrotra and Kohli 2016; Kohli and Mehrotra 2016), software evolution (Rathee and
Chhabra 2018; Izadkhah and Tajgardan 2019), recommender systems (Petwal et al. 2020),
educational data mining (Baker 2010; Guleria and Sood 2020), climatology (Sharghi et al.
2018; Pike and Lintner 2020; Chattopadhyay et al. 2020) and robotics (Khouja and Booth
1995; Zhang et al. 2013). In Table 6 below we briefly discuss a few applications as indi-
cated by Saxena et al. (2017) and also provide references for more detailed studies.

3.2 Selected industry applications

The application fields or areas of clustering described above have been noted to be in gen-
eral areas of application that possibly cut across through different industrial and business
sectors. Clustering techniques have also found extensive application in certain industries.
As indicated by Dalziel et al. (2018) different firms with similar buy-sell characteristics
could be grouped under the same industry. Clustering has been used partly as a stand-
alone analytical technique and largely as a hybrid technique with other analytical methods
to solve industrial problems. According to Jakupović et al. (2010), Dalziel et al. (2018),
(Grant and Yeo 2018), (Xu et al. 2020) and (Ezugwu et al. 2022) several business or indus-
trial sectors exist. They further noted that a unique or universal classification of industries
or business sectors is difficult due to the reason that industries or sectors are mostly classi-
fied based on the specific needs of the classifier.
According to Citizenship (2016), ten (10) industrial sectors of impact on the SDGs
were identified namely Consumer goods, Industrials, Oil and Gas, Healthcare, Basic Mate-
rials, Utilities, Telecomms, Financials, Consumer Services and Technology. In addition,
the industrial sectors were organised into three namely; the primary sector (raw material
extraction and production), Secondary (production of goods from raw materials) and Ter-
tiary (provision of services). These industries have also been noted to have strong linkages
to either one or more SDGs. For example, Healthcare strongly impacts SDG3 which is to
achieve good health and well-being for all, while Oil and gas are strongly linked to SDG 7
(affordable and clean energy). Consumer goods, industrials and consumer services impact
across SDG12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG2 (achieving Zero hunger)
and SG14 (on the protection of the marine environment). Furthermore, the Utilities sector
is known for infrastructure provision impacts across SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation),
SDG7 and SDG9 (decent work and employment). Others such as SDG 1 (poverty), SDG4
(education), and SDG 5(gender equality) have been known to be of low impact on a par-
ticular sector and receive supporting actions from the earlier discussed industrial/business
sectors.
As several clustering techniques have been extensively reported in the literature, chances
also exist of a corresponding application of clustering techniques in several identified
industries/sectors. Using the SDG classifications indicated above, we select sectors impor-
tant in driving most of the SDGs. These sectors are mostly grouped under Transportation
and logistics (such as consumer services), Manufacturing (such as Industrials, basic mate-
rials, consumer goods), Energy (such as Oil and Gas, Utilities) and Healthcare. In addi-
tion, the selected industries positively impact or stimulate economic growth, innovation,

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6461

development gaps and well being for a typical economy (Nhamo et al. 2020; Shi 2020;
Abbaspour and Abbasizade 2020).

3.2.1 Transportation and logistics

The application of clustering in the transportation industry has been generally noted to
be in the identification of similar patterns in various modes of transportation (Almannaa
et al. 2020). Some fields under the transportation sector, where clustering application has
been applied have been hazardous transportation, road transportation urban/public trans-
portation (De Luca et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2013; Rabbani et al. 2017; Sfyridis and Agnolucci
2020; Almannaa et al. 2020). Recently, Wang and Wang (2020) discussed the application
of genetic fuzzy C-means algorithm and factor analysis to identify the causes and control
high-risk drivers. (de Armiño et al. 2020) combined the hierarchical clustering and neural
networks to develop a linkage between road transportation data and macroeconomic indi-
cators. Almannaa et al. (2020) developed a multi-objective clustering that can maximize
purity and similarity in each cluster formed simultaneously. They also noted that the con-
vergence speed of the multi-objective clustering method was fast, and the number of clus-
ters obtained was stable to determine traffic and bike pattern change within clusters.

3.2.2 Manufacturing

Similarly to clustering applications in the transportation sector, the manufacturing sector

and systems such as discussed by Delgoshaei and Gomes (2016), Delgoshaei et al. (2021)
also possess a wide application of clustering techniques. The applications are mostly a
hybrid method with other analytical methods. Using the case study of the textile manu-
facturing business, Li et al. (2011) used clustering analysis to classify customers based on
selected customer characteristics and further used some cross-analysis for customer behav-
ior tendencies. Chandrasekharan and Rajagopalan (1986) adopted k-means in a group tech-
nology problem following which the initial groupings obtained were improved. There has
been a recent trend of application of clustering techniques in cloud manufacturing, cyber
manufacturing, smart manufacturing, manufacturing systems and cellular manufacturing.
Delgoshaei and Ali (2019) reviewed hybrid clustering methods and search algorithms such
as metaheuristics in the designing of cellular manufacturing systems. Liu and Chen (2019)
used the k-medoids clustering-based algorithm and trust-aware approach to predict the
quality-of-service records which might become intractable under cloud manufacturing. An
improved k-mean clustering technique was compared to a k-means random by Yin (2020).
The comparison was done to determine which method could provide an optimal number of
edge computing nodes in a smart manufacturing setup. Sabbagh and Ameri (2020) demon-
strated the application of unsupervised learning in text analytics. They used the k-means
clustering and topic modelling techniques to build a cluster of supplier capabilities top-
ics. Subramaniyan et al. (2020) clustered time-series bottle-neck data using dynamic time
wrapping and complete-linkage agglomerative hierarchical clustering technique for deter-
mining bottlenecks in manufacturing systems. Ahn and Chang (2019) discussed business
process management for manufacturing models. They used agglomerative hierarchical
clustering in the design and management of manufacturing processes. A hybrid dynamic
clustering and other techniques for establishing similarities in 3D geometry of parts and
printing processes were investigated by Chan et al. (2018).

13
6462 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

3.2.3 Energy

Clustering techniques have also been widely used in the field of energy both in isolation
and in combination with other analytical techniques. Some fields under energy where clus-
tering applications that have been used include energy efficiency, renewable energy, elec-
tricity consumption, heating and cooling, nuclear energy, and smart metering. The k-means
clustering technique and its variants have mostly been used in the energy sector cluster-
ing. Vialetto and Noro (2020) used the k-means clustering, silhouette method to define the
number of clusters while clustering energy demand data. They used clustering in the design
of cogeneration systems to allow energy-cost savings. Wang and Yang (2020) used fuzzy
clustering and an accelerated genetic algorithm to analyze and assess sustainable and influ-
encing factors for 27 European Union countries’ renewable energy. Fuzzy C means and
multi-criteria decision-making process were applied by (Tran 2020) to design the optimal
loading of ships and diesel fuel consumption of marine ships. Tanoto et al. (2020) applied a
hybrid of k-means clustering, neural network based-self organizing map to group technol-
ogy mixes with similar patterns. Their method was designed for the energy modelling com-
munity for the understanding of complex design choices for electricity industry planning.
Suh et al. (2020) applied text mining in nuclear energy. Clustering analysis and technol-
ogy network analysis were used to identify topics in nuclear waste management over time.
Shamim and Rihan (2020) compared using k-means clustering and k-means clustering with
feature extraction in smart metering electricity. Results of their experiments showed that
clustering using features from raw data obtained better performance than direct raw data.

3.2.4 Healthcare

The healthcare industry has been described as one that can generate a vast amount of data
from diverse clinical procedures and sources in which clustering techniques are found use-
ful (Palanisamy and Thirunavukarasu 2019; Ambigavathi and Sridharan 2020). According
to Jothi and Nur’Aini Abdul Rashidb (2015), Manogaran and Lopez (2017), Palanisamy
and Thirunavukarasu (2019) and Shafqat et al. (2020) some heterogeneous data sources in
the healthcare industry include electronic health records, medical imaging, genetic data,
clinical diagnosis, metabolomics, proteomics and long-term psychological sensing of an
individual.
Clustering techniques have been useful in the healthcare industry as part of data min-
ing techniques for the identification of patterns in healthcare data sets (Jothi and Nur’Aini
Abdul Rashidb 2015; Ahmad et al. 2015; Ogundele et al. 2018). As described by Ogundele
et al. (2018) data mining is the field of study that seeks to find useful and meaningful infor-
mation from large data. This definition makes data mining techniques such as clustering
relevant in the health care industry. Ahmad et al. (2015) showed with examples that clus-
tering algorithms could be used as a stand-alone technique or as a hybrid with other ana-
lytical techniques in understanding healthcare datasets. The use of clustering algorithms
such as k-means, k-medoids, and x-means has been used to diagnose several diseases such
as breast cancers, heart problems, diabetes, and seizures (Ahmad et al. 2015; Alsayat and
El-Sayed 2016; Kao et al. 2017; Ogundele et al. 2018; Shafqat et al. 2020). To understand
patterns in the automatically-collected event in healthcare settings, patient flow and clini-
cal setting conformance, Johns et al. (2020) discussed the use of trace clustering. Den-
sity-based clustering has also been applied to obtain useful patterns from biomedical data

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6463

Table 6  Some field applications of clustering techniques

Field Application of clustering References

Textual docu- Basically, clustering Rasmussen (1992), Piernik et al. (2015), Chan et al. (2016),
ments, of texts. Efficient Lee et al. (2020), Celardo and Everett (2020)
Document stor- document storage and
age retrieval for many insti-
tutions of learning have
been noted to be one of
the important applica-
tions of clustering. In
addition, discovering
events and sub-events
from a sequence of
news articles
Image segmenta- This is centered around Forsyth and Ponce (2002), Lam and Wunsch (2014), Zhang
tion the partition of et al. (2020)
images for visibility
and classification of
images based on some
properties
Object recogni- 3D object grouping Dorai and Jain (1995)
tion has been an area of
application
Character recog- handwriting recognition Connell and Jain (1998)
nition has been an important
application
Data mining Widely used in this field Hedberg (1996), Han et al. (2011)
both to analyze struc-
tured and unstructured
databases
Spatial and space Large data sets from geo- Upton and Fingleton (1985), Tahmasebi et al. (2012), Song
application graphical information et al. (2020), Zhang et al. (2020)
systems and satellite
images have been ana-
lyzed using clustering
techniques
Business analyt- Operational areas of Kiang et al. (2007), Fennell et al. (2003), Pereira and Fraz-
ics marketing, demand zon (2020)
management and
production areas of
product development
and categorization
Data reduction Compression of large Jiang et al. (2016), Huang (1997)
data into manageable
sizes usually saves pro-
cessing time and cost
Big data mining For databases with a Shirkhorshidi et al. (2014), Russom (2011), Ezugwu et al.
growing capacity of (2022)
being exponential
beyond manageable
sizes of conventional
database tools

13
6464 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

Table 6  (continued)
Field Application of clustering References

Social network- Applied in behavioural Cheng et al. (2020), Khamparia et al. (2020)
ing grouping of people
and activities such as
e-governance and edu-
cational learning sites
Non-numer- Categorizing verbal Batet et al. (2010), Valls et al. (2018)
ical openly information using
expressed motivation (push
information theory) and meaning
(pull theory)e.g. in
profiling tourists based
on motivations for des-
tinations and meanings
of destinations to the
same tourists

(Ahmad et al. 2015). Hybrid techniques for analyzing and predicting health issues such as
the use of clustering algorithms and classification trees, the use of k-means and statistical
analysis and hybrid hierarchical clustering were discussed by (Ahmad et al. 2015).
Yoo et al. (2012), Jothi and Nur’Aini Abdul Rashidb (2015) and Ogundele et al. (2018)
indicated that clustering techniques (unsupervised learning) form the descriptive compo-
nents of data mining techniques. In addition, Jothi and Nur’Aini Abdul Rashidb (2015),
noted that clustering techniques are not as utilized as the prescriptive (Supervised) compo-
nents of data mining techniques. Ahmad et al. (2015) however pointed out that a combina-
tion of different data mining techniques should be used to achieve better disease prediction,
clinical monitoring, and general healthcare improvement in the healthcare industry.
Figure 4 below summarizes the general application of clustering techniques based on
the identified industries above.

4 Data size, dimensionality, and data type issues in clustering

One of the approaches earlier listed for classifying clustering algorithms is the type of
input data. Liao (2005) observes that the data that can be inputted into any clustering task
can be classified as binary, categorical, numerical, interval, ordinal, relational, textual, spa-
tial, temporal, spatio-temporal, image, multimedia, or mixtures of the above data types.
This classification can also be sub-classified. For example, numeric raw data for clustering
can either be static, time series or as a data stream. Static data do not change with time
while time-series data have their data objects changing with time. Aggarwal et al. (2003)
described data stream as large volumes of data arriving at an unlimited growth rate. As
noted by Mahdi et al. (2021) data types that are vast and complex to store such as social
network data (referred to as big data) and high-speed data (data stream) such as web-click
streams, network traffic could be challenging to cluster. In addition, they emphasized that
the type of data type considered often influences the type of clustering techniques selected.
The application of some clustering algorithms directly to raw data has been noted to be
an issue as the data size becomes larger (Gordon 1999; Parsons et al. 2004). Two reasons
were given for this observed problem. The first reason indicated was based on the type of

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6465

clustering algorithm used. This is such that some clustering algorithms fully take into con-
sideration all dimensions of the data during the clustering process. As a result, they con-
ceal potential clusters of outlying data objects. The second was because, as dimensionality
increases in the given data, the distance measure for computing similarity or dissimilarity
among data objects becomes less effective. Feature extraction and selection were suggested
as a generic method to solve this problem by reducing the dimensionality of the data before
the clustering algorithms are applied. However, they noted that this feature-based method
could omit certain clusters hidden in subspaces of the data sets. Subspace clustering was
the method suggested to overcome this.
Research in the field of reducing the dimensionality of the original data through feature
extraction and selection methods and variants such as subspace clustering has continued
to be investigated by several authors (Huang et al. 2016; Motlagh et al. 2019; Solorio-
Fernández et al. 2020). Huang et al. (2016) specifically indicated time-series data to be
subject to large data sizes, high dimensionality, and progressive updating. They suggested
the preference of clustering over time segments of time-series data compared to the whole
time-series sequence to ensure all hidden clusters in the time series data are accounted for.
Hence data pre-processing techniques such as (normalization, cumulative clustering etc.)
have been suggested. Pereira and Frazzon (2020) utilized data preprocessing to detect and
remove outliers followed by normalization before a clustering algorithm was applied. Li
et al. (2020a) considered ameliorating datasets to improve clustering accuracy by trans-
forming bad data sets into good data sets using the HIBOG. Solorio-Fernández et al. (2020)
presents a comprehensive review of feature selection to highlight the growing advances of
unsupervised feature selection methods (filter, wrapper and hybrid) for unlabeled data.
Clustering of data could also become an issue when multi-source and multi-modal data
are considered. Multi-source data (originating from several sources) have been observed
with characteristics such as complexity, heterogeneity, dynamicity, distribution and large-
ness (Uselton et al. 1998). As noted by Sprague et al. (2017) and Afyouni et al. (2021)
the combination or fusion of data from diverse organizations having different reporting
formats, structures and dimensions could present some complexities in multi-source data.
Lahat et al. (2015) and Li and Wang (2021) discussed the complementary and diverse
attributes of multi-modal data (e.g. the same data from text, image audio, and video) and
also provided similar challenges of complexity resulting from the fusion of such data.
Adaptation of existing clustering algorithms or development of new clustering algorithms
will become useful to analyze such potential big and complex data.
Since clustering results are strongly linked to the type and features of the data being rep-
resented, their performance is being improved through current supervised machine learn-
ing methods such as Deep Neural Networks (DNN). As noted by James et al. (2015) and Ni
et al. (2022), DNN have had more successful performance (e.g. in speech and text model-
ling, video and image classification) compared to the earlier developed neural networks
as seen in (Hastie et al. 2009) due to the less training tinkering required and increasing
availability of large training data sets. DNN could be used to obtain improved feature rep-
resentation useful for clustering before the actual clustering is performed. This has been
referred to as deep clustering in the machine learning field (Aljalbout et al. 2018). Accord-
ing to Min et al. (2018) emphasis was placed on prioritizing network architecture over
clustering loss in classifying deep clustering due to the basic desire for clustering-oriented
representations. They further classified deep clustering based on: (I) the use of Autoen-
coder (AE) to obtain the feasible feature representation (II) Feedforward networks such as
Feedforward convolutional networks which can use specific clustering loss to obtain fea-
sible feature representation (III) Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and Variational

13
6466 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

Autoencoder (VAE) which uses effective generative learning frameworks to obtain feature
representations.

5 Discussions

In this section, we highlight the major considerations in the earlier sections and project
possible application trends in the field of clustering. In Sect. 2, we noted some inconsist-
encies in terminologies and classification criteria used in grouping clustering algorithms
and their variants. Authors in the field of data clustering have suggested different termi-
nologies for group clustering algorithms. The partitioning and hierarchical approaches
have primarily been used to group clustering algorithms. Other approaches such as density-
based, model-based, and grid-based have been suggested as an extension to the primary
approaches. The classification of the five clustering approaches earlier mentioned can be
categorized as clustering strategies. Other clustering criteria such as proximity measure,
input data, size of input data, membership function style, and generated clusters can further
be used to categorize different approaches employed in classifying clustering algorithms.
The selection and design of clustering algorithms are observed to be a vital step in the
clustering components. We suggest that the clustering component steps tend towards being
cyclical with feedback than a straight follow. This relates more with the reality of iteration
in obtaining the appropriate cluster results.
The reality is that there is no universally accepted clustering algorithm to solve all cluster-
ing problems (Jain et al. 1999; Rodriguez et al. 2019) and the limitation of clustering algo-
rithms is a strong motivation for the emergence of new clustering algorithms or variants of
the traditional clustering algorithms. As new clustering algorithms emerge, it is expected that
existing terminologies and classification approaches could become broader with a seeming
departure from the traditional approaches. With the growing number of clustering algorithms
is also the growing number of clustering validation indices. This perhaps is due to the reason
that users of clustering results are more interested in knowing with good confidence that clus-
tering results obtained are well suited for the application. To test the suitability of different
clustering algorithms and indices in meeting the users’ needs and also due to the increase in
computing technological capabilities, clustering algorithms and indices are being combined
in computer programs. Rodriguez et al. (2019) presented a comparative study of 9 clustering
algorithms available in the R programming language. Other authors such as Sekula (2015)
have indicated some clustering packages in the R-programming language that can be useful
for comparison and as a friendly user application. Besides, computer programs are used to
suggest a suitable number of clusters for clustering algorithms (e.g. k-means) requiring an
input of clusters as applied by (Rhodes et al. 2014; Charrad et al. 2015).
In Sect. 3, we considered that the application of clustering has largely been reported in areas
such as image segmentation, object recognition, character recognition, information retrieval,
and data mining. We have considered these areas to be specific applications of clustering algo-
rithms. It is expected that more field applications will be reported due to the vast applica-
bility of clustering techniques. Also emphasized is the application of clustering in selected
industrial sectors. We specifically noted the diverse classification schemes and groupings of
industrial sectors. The numerous clustering algorithms in existence have the corresponding
possible applicability in several of these industries. We, however, selected manufacturing,
energy, transportation and logistics, and healthcare as examples to illustrate the application
of clustering in industries with important links to achieving sustainable development goals.

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6467

The application of clustering techniques in these industries appears to be a move from a stand-
alone analytical technique into hybrid techniques with other analytical processes. This sug-
gests that clustering techniques will continue to be relevant as an integrated analytical tech-
nique in different industries and sectors. Besides, the vast application of clustering techniques
will imply practitioners or users with a basic understanding of clustering techniques can use
the clustering algorithm embedded into the software with little difficulty.
In Sect. 4, we highlighted some data sources used in clustering and discussed some data
issues users of clustering techniques are likely to deal with. Clustering raw data inputs are
generally observed to be more problematic than refined data inputs. This is attributable to the
dimensionality problem. Due to the increase in computing technology for many industrial
applications and cloud computing, the use of clustering techniques to analyze high volumes
of static, time-series, multi-sources, and multimodal data are trends in the future. For multi-
sources and multimodal data, applications or frameworks that can effectively integrate or fuse
the complementary attributes of such data are currently observable trends. As such clustering
techniques will be more readily deployed in such secondary data-use domain.
As the size of data becomes larger due to modern data mining capabilities and the need to
avoid incomplete knowledge extraction from single sources or modes of data, methods that
fuse complementary and diverse data with a goal of understanding and identifying hidden
clusters are also notable trends. For example, deep learning methods are sometimes merged

Fig. 4  General application of clustering techniques

13
6468 G. J. Oyewole, G. A. Thopil

with traditional clustering methods to further search for underlying clusters and thereby
improve clustering performance.
Putting the main observations in this paper together, the emergence of new clustering
algorithms is expected due to the subjectivity nature of clustering and its vast applicability
in diverse fields and industries. This suggests that emerging scholars can find meaningful
research interest in several aspects of data clustering such as the development of new clus-
tering algorithms, validity indices, improving clustering quality and comprehensive field
and industry reviews of clustering techniques. Industry Practitioners will also find use in the
application of specific clustering algorithms to analyze unlabeled data to extract meaningful
information.

6 Conclusion and future directions

In this paper, we presented a basic definition and description of clustering components. We

extended existing criteria in the literature for classifying clustering algorithms. Both tradi-
tional clustering algorithms and emerging variants were discussed. Also emphasized is the
reality that clustering algorithms could produce different groupings for a given set of data.
Also, as no clustering algorithm can solve all clustering problems, several clustering vali-
dation indices are used and have also been developed to gain some confidence in the cluster
results obtained from clustering algorithms.
We summarized field applications of clustering algorithms such as in image segmen-
tation, object recognition, character recognition, data mining and social networking that
have been pointed out in the literature. Selected applications of clustering techniques and
notable trends in industrial sectors with strong links to achieving sustainable development
goals were further presented to show the diverse application of clustering techniques. Also
suggested are possible application trends in the field of clustering that are observable from
both specific and general article reviews in the literature. Some data input concerns in the
field of clustering were examined.
This study presents a foundation for other research work that can be projected from
it. Firstly, the investigation into feature extraction, selection, alignment, and other meth-
ods that could reveal hidden clusters in large volumes, high-frequency data such as data
streams, multi-modal and multi-source data obtainable from current data mining capabili-
ties, technologies and computer simulations are current and research interest into the future
for the academia and industry.
In addition, the development of new clustering strategies to analyze existing and modern
data types (e.g., fused multi-source and multi-modal data) would also be of more interest to
researchers. The outputs and knowledge extracted from such data types could be beneficial
to policymakers and business practitioners in informed decision making.
Secondly, the use of clustering techniques has a high possibility of finding more applica-
bility in existing fields. Examples are text mining, industrial big data applications, biomed-
icals, commercial sectors, military applications, space navigation and biological processes.
In emerging areas of applications such as Learning management systems and social media
that currently churn out huge amounts of data and have recently seen a further increase due
to the covid-19 pandemic, the development of effective and efficient clustering algorithms
to sufficiently mine the massive amount of data from such fields are currently being pro-
jected. Deep clustering will generally find more applications in analysis useful across dif-
ferent business sectors where pure clustering methods have been used. This will be due to

13
Data clustering: application and trends 6469

observed performance in obtaining better clustering results for example in image classifica-
tion where the Feedforward convolutional network has been very useful.
Finally, a data clustering trend that summarizes trends from qualitative and quantitative
results of the application of diverse variants of clustering strategies will adequately be an
improvement on this research efforts.

Data availability Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during
the current study.

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