On clustering histograms with \(k\)-means by using mixed \(\alpha\)-divergences (Q296474)

Summary: Clustering sets of histograms has become popular thanks to the success of the generic method of bag-of-\(X\) used in text categorization and in visual categorization applications. In this paper, we investigate the use of a parametric family of distortion measures, called the \(\alpha\)-divergences, for clustering histograms. Since it usually makes sense to deal with symmetric divergences in information retrieval systems, we symmetrize the \(\alpha\)-divergences using the concept of mixed divergences. First, we present a novel extension of \(k\)-means clustering to mixed divergences. Second, we extend the \(k\)-means++ seeding to mixed \(\alpha\)-divergences and report a guaranteed probabilistic bound. Finally, we describe a soft clustering technique for mixed \(\alpha\)-divergences.