Transaction Clustering Using a Seeds Based Approach

Abstract

Transaction clustering has received a great deal of attention in the past few years. Its functionality extends well beyond traditional clustering algorithms which basically perform a near-neighbourhood search for locating groups of similar instances. The basic concept underlying transaction clustering stems from the concept of large items as defined by association rule mining algorithms. Clusters formed on the basis of large items that are shared between instances offer an attractive alternative to association rule mining systems. Currently, none of the techniques proposed offer a good solution to scenarios where large items overlap across clusters. In this paper we overcome the aforementioned limitations by using cluster seeds that represent initial centroids. Seeds are generated from sets of transaction items that occur together above a certain threshold and such seeds may overlap in their itemsets across clusters