Moving Past Single Metrics: Exploring Short-Text Clustering Across Multiple Resolutions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Miller, Justin, Alexander, Tristram
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Miller, Justin
Alexander, Tristram
author_facet Miller, Justin
Alexander, Tristram
contents Cluster number is typically a parameter selected at the outset in clustering problems, and while impactful, the choice can often be difficult to justify. Inspired by bioinformatics, this study examines how the nature of clusters varies with cluster number, presenting a method for determining cluster robustness, and providing a systematic method for deciding on the cluster number. The study focuses specifically on short-text clustering, involving 30,000 political Twitter bios, where the sparse co-occurrence of words between texts makes finding meaningful clusters challenging. A metric of proportional stability is introduced to uncover the stability of specific clusters between cluster resolutions, and the results are visualised using Sankey diagrams to provide an interrogative tool for understanding the nature of the dataset. The visualisation provides an intuitive way to track cluster subdivision and reorganisation as cluster number increases, offering insights that static, single-resolution metrics cannot capture. The results show that instead of seeking a single 'optimal' solution, choosing a cluster number involves balancing informativeness and complexity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_17020
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Moving Past Single Metrics: Exploring Short-Text Clustering Across Multiple Resolutions
Miller, Justin
Alexander, Tristram
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Cluster number is typically a parameter selected at the outset in clustering problems, and while impactful, the choice can often be difficult to justify. Inspired by bioinformatics, this study examines how the nature of clusters varies with cluster number, presenting a method for determining cluster robustness, and providing a systematic method for deciding on the cluster number. The study focuses specifically on short-text clustering, involving 30,000 political Twitter bios, where the sparse co-occurrence of words between texts makes finding meaningful clusters challenging. A metric of proportional stability is introduced to uncover the stability of specific clusters between cluster resolutions, and the results are visualised using Sankey diagrams to provide an interrogative tool for understanding the nature of the dataset. The visualisation provides an intuitive way to track cluster subdivision and reorganisation as cluster number increases, offering insights that static, single-resolution metrics cannot capture. The results show that instead of seeking a single 'optimal' solution, choosing a cluster number involves balancing informativeness and complexity.
title Moving Past Single Metrics: Exploring Short-Text Clustering Across Multiple Resolutions
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17020