Project Part 2: Unsupervised Learning (K-means)

Project Part 2: Unsupervised Learning (K-means)

Project Overview:
In this part, you are required to implement the k-means algorithm and apply your implementation on the
given dataset, which contains a set of 2-D points. You are required to implement two different strategies for
choosing the initial cluster centers.
Strategy 1: randomly pick the initial centers from the given samples.
Strategy 2: pick the first center randomly; for the i-th center (i1), choose a sample (among all possible
samples) such that the average distance of this chosen one to all previous (i-1) centers is maximal.
You need to test your implementation on the given data, with the number k of clusters ranging from 2-10.
Plot the objective function value vs. the number of clusters k. Under each strategy, plot the objective function
twice, each start from a different initialization.
(Referring to the course notes: When clustering the samples into k clusters/sets Di, with respective
center/mean vectors 𝜇 𝜇 , … 𝜇 , the objective function is defined as
)
Algorithms:
k-Means Clustering
Resources:
A 2-D dataset to be downloaded from this link: Dataset.
Workspace:
Any Python programming environment.
Software:
Python environment.
Language(s):
Python. (MATLAB is equally fine, if you have access to it.)
1, 2 k
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1/13/2020 Project Part 2: Unsupervised Learning (K-means)
https://asu.instructure.com/courses/31489/assignments/686560?module_item_id=1905559 2/2
Required Tasks:
1. Write code to implement the k-means algorithm with Strategy 1.
2. Use your code to do clustering on the given data; compute the objective function as a function of k (k =
2, 3, …, 10).
3. Repeat the above step with another initialization.
4. Write code to implement the k-means algorithm with Strategy 2.
5. Use your code to do clustering on the given data; compute the objective function as a function of k (k =
2, 3, …, 10).
6. Repeat the above step with another initialization.
7. Submit a short report summarizing the results, including the plots for the objective function values under
different settings described above.
Optional Tasks:
1. Repeat the experiments for different pairs of digits.
2. Consider doing multi-class classification.
Optional tasks are to be explored on your own if you are interested and have extra time for them. No
submission is required on the optional tasks. No grading will be done even if you submit any work on the
optional tasks. No credit will be assigned to them even if you submit them. (So, please do not submit any
work on optional tasks.)
Deliverables and due date(s):
The code and reports are due by Oct 27.
What to Submit:
1. Code file with comments explaining what you do for each part as directed
2. A report that summarizes the results and includes the plots for each of the objective function values.
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