Clustering

Clustering is the task of dividing the population or data points into a number of groups such that data points in the same groups are more similar to other data points in the same group and dissimilar to the data points in other groups. It is basically a collection of objects on the basis of similarity and dissimilarity between them.?

It is basically a type of unsupervised learning method. An unsupervised learning method is a method in which we draw references from datasets consisting of input data without labeled responses. Generally, it is used as a process to find meaningful structure, explanatory underlying processes, generative features, and groupings inherent in a set of examples.

?For ex– The data points in the graph below clustered together can be classified into one single group. We can distinguish the clusters, and we can identify that there are 3 clusters in the above picture.?

Applications of Clustering in different fields??

? Marketing: It can be used to characterize & discover customer segments for marketing purposes.

? Biology: It can be used for classification among different species of plants and animals.

? Libraries: It is used in clustering different books on the basis of topics and information.

? Insurance: It is used to acknowledge the customers, their policies and identifying the frauds.

? ????City Planning: It is used to make groups of houses and to study their values based on their geographical locations and other factors present.?

• In Identification of Cancer Cells:?The clustering algorithms are widely used for the identification of cancerous cells. It divides the cancerous and non-cancerous data sets into different groups.
• In Search Engines:?Search engines also work on the clustering technique. The search result appears based on the closest object to the search query. It does it by grouping similar data objects in one group that is far from the other dissimilar objects. The accurate result of a query depends on the quality of the clustering algorithm used.
• Customer Segmentation:?It is used in market research to segment the customers based on their choice and preferences.
• In Biology:?It is used in the biology stream to classify different species of plants and animals using the image recognition technique.
• In Land Use:?The clustering technique is used in identifying the area of similar lands used in the GIS database. This can be very useful to find for what purpose the particular land should be used, which means for which purpose it is more suitable.
• It is used in market research to characterize and discover relevant customer bases and audiences.
• Classifying different species of plants and animals with the help of image recognition techniques
• It helps in deriving plant and animal taxonomies and classifies genes with similar functionalities to gain insight into structures inherent to populations.
• It is applicable in city planning to identify groups of houses and other facilities according to their type, value, and geographic coordinates.
• It also identifies areas of similar land use and classifies them as agricultural, commercial, industrial, residential, etc.
• Classifies documents on the web for information discovery
• Applies well as a data mining function to gain insights into data distribution and observe characteristics of different clusters
• Identifies credit and insurance frauds when used in outlier detection applications
• Helpful in identifying high-risk zones by studying earthquake-affected areas (applicable for other natural hazards too)
• A simple application could be in libraries to cluster books based on the topics, genre, and other characteristics
• An important application is into identifying cancer cells by classifying them against healthy cells
• Search engines provide search results based on the nearest similar object to a search query using clustering techniques
• Wireless networks use various clustering algorithms to improve energy consumption and optimise data transmission

Hashtags on social media also use clustering techniques to classify all posts with the same hashtag under one stream