An effective algorithm for mining 3-clusters in vertically partitioned data
Faris Alqadah, Raj Bhatnagar · 2008
Conventional clustering algorithms group similar data points together along one dimension of a data table. Bi-clustering simultaneously clusters both dimensions of a data table. 3-clustering goes one step further and aims to concurrently cluster two data tables that share a common set of row labels, but whose column labels are distinct. Such clusters reveal the underlying connections between the elements of all three sets. We present a novel algorithm that discovers 3-clusters across vertically partitioned data. Our approach presents two new and important formulations: first we introduce the notion of a 3-cluster in partitioned data; and second we present a mathematical formulation that measures the quality of such clusters. Our algorithm discovers high quality, arbitrarily positioned, overlapping clusters, and is efficient in time. These results are exhibited in a comprehensive study on real datasets.