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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nir, Oron, Tenenbaum, Jay, Shamir, Ariel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21695
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author Nir, Oron
Tenenbaum, Jay
Shamir, Ariel
author_facet Nir, Oron
Tenenbaum, Jay
Shamir, Ariel
contents Density-based clustering methods often surpass centroid-based counterparts, when addressing data with noise or arbitrary data distributions common in real-world problems. In this study, we reveal a key property intrinsic to density-based clustering methods regarding the relation between the number of clusters and the neighborhood radius of core points - we empirically show that it is nearly unimodal, and support this claim theoretically in a specific setting. We leverage this property to devise new strategies for finding appropriate values for the radius more efficiently based on the Ternary Search algorithm. This is especially important for large scale data that is high-dimensional, where parameter tuning is computationally intensive. We validate our methodology through extensive applications across a range of high-dimensional, large-scale NLP, Audio, and Computer Vision tasks, demonstrating its practical effectiveness and robustness. This work not only offers a significant advancement in parameter control for density-based clustering but also broadens the understanding regarding the relations between their guiding parameters. Our code is available at https://github.com/oronnir/UnimodalStrategies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_21695
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unimodal Strategies in Density-Based Clustering
Nir, Oron
Tenenbaum, Jay
Shamir, Ariel
Machine Learning
Density-based clustering methods often surpass centroid-based counterparts, when addressing data with noise or arbitrary data distributions common in real-world problems. In this study, we reveal a key property intrinsic to density-based clustering methods regarding the relation between the number of clusters and the neighborhood radius of core points - we empirically show that it is nearly unimodal, and support this claim theoretically in a specific setting. We leverage this property to devise new strategies for finding appropriate values for the radius more efficiently based on the Ternary Search algorithm. This is especially important for large scale data that is high-dimensional, where parameter tuning is computationally intensive. We validate our methodology through extensive applications across a range of high-dimensional, large-scale NLP, Audio, and Computer Vision tasks, demonstrating its practical effectiveness and robustness. This work not only offers a significant advancement in parameter control for density-based clustering but also broadens the understanding regarding the relations between their guiding parameters. Our code is available at https://github.com/oronnir/UnimodalStrategies.
title Unimodal Strategies in Density-Based Clustering
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21695