Author(s)

Yuriy Lyakh, Vitaliy Gurianov, Oleg Gorshkov, Yuriy Vihovanets

Department of Medical Biophysics, Medical Informatics and Biostatistics, National Medical University, Donetsk, Ukraine.

A new method (the Contrast statistic) for estimating the number of clusters in a set of data is proposed. The technique uses the output of self-organising map clustering algorithm, comparing the change in dependency of “Contrast” value upon clusters number to that expected under a uniform distribution. A simulation study shows that the Contrast statistic can be used successfully either, when variables describing the object in a multi-dimensional space are independent (ideal objects) or dependent (real biological objects).

SOM Neural Network; Clustering; Gap Statistic; Silhouette Statistic

Lyakh, Y. , Gurianov, V. , Gorshkov, O. and Vihovanets, Y. (2012) Estimating the number of data clusters via the contrast statistic. Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering, 5, 95-99. doi: 10.4236/jbise.2012.52012.