Clustering with the Average Silhouette Width

• Published in: Computational statistics & data analysis Vol. 158; p. 107190
• Main Authors: Batool, Fatima, Hennig, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.06.2021
• Subjects: algorithms; Axiomatic clustering; data analysis; data collection; Distance-based clustering; Number of clusters; objectives; Partitioning around medoids; statistics; Axiomatic clustering; Partitioning around medoids; Number of clusters; Distance-based clustering

The Average Silhouette Width (ASW) is a popular cluster validation index to estimate the number of clusters. The question whether it also is suitable as a general objective function to be optimized for finding a clustering is addressed. Two algorithms (the standard version OSil and a fast version FO...