ERIC Number: EJ1094377
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Apr
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1076-9986
EISSN: N/A
A Survey of Popular R Packages for Cluster Analysis
Flynt, Abby; Dean, Nema
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, v41 n2 p205-225 Apr 2016
Cluster analysis is a set of statistical methods for discovering new group/class structure when exploring data sets. This article reviews the following popular libraries/commands in the R software language for applying different types of cluster analysis: from the stats library, the kmeans, and hclust functions; the mclust library; the poLCA library; and the clustMD library. The packages/functions cover a variety of cluster analysis methods for continuous data, categorical data, or a collection of the two. The contrasting methods in the different packages are briefly introduced, and basic usage of the functions is discussed. The use of the different methods is compared and contrasted and then illustrated on example data. In the discussion, links to information on other available libraries for different clustering methods and extensions beyond basic clustering methods are given. The code for the worked examples in Section 2 is available at http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/~nd29c/Software/ClusterReviewCode.R
Descriptors: Multivariate Analysis, Computer Software, Comparative Analysis, Programming Languages, Models
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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