Dunn's index for cluster tendency assessment of pharmacological data sets

Can J Physiol Pharmacol. 2012 Apr;90(4):425-33. doi: 10.1139/y2012-002. Epub 2012 Mar 23.

Abstract

Cluster tendency assessment is an important stage in cluster analysis. In this sense, a group of promising techniques named visual assessment of tendency (VAT) has emerged in the literature. The presence of clusters can be detected easily through the direct observation of a dark blocks structure along the main diagonal of the intensity image. Alternatively, if the Dunn's index for a single linkage partition is greater than 1, then it is a good indication of the blocklike structure. In this report, the Dunn's index is applied as a novel measure of tendency on 8 pharmacological data sets, represented by machine-learning-selected molecular descriptors. In all cases, observed values are less than 1, thus indicating a weak tendency for data to form compact clusters. Other results suggest that there is an increasing relationship between the Dunn's index as a measure of cluster separability and the classification accuracy of various cluster algorithms tested on the same data sets.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cluster Analysis*
  • Data Interpretation, Statistical*
  • Databases, Factual / statistics & numerical data*
  • Humans
  • Pharmacology / statistics & numerical data*
  • Software