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sARI: a soft agreement measure for class partitions incorporating assignment probabilities

Author

Listed:
  • Abby Flynt

    (Bucknell University)

  • Nema Dean

    (University of Glasgow)

  • Rebecca Nugent

    (Carnegie Mellon University)

Abstract

Agreement indices are commonly used to summarize the performance of both classification and clustering methods. The easy interpretation/intuition and desirable properties that result from the Rand and adjusted Rand indices, has led to their popularity over other available indices. While more algorithmic clustering approaches like k-means and hierarchical clustering produce hard partition assignments (assigning observations to a single cluster), other techniques like model-based clustering include information about the certainty of allocation of objects through class membership probabilities (soft partitions). To assess performance using traditional indices, e.g., the adjusted Rand index (ARI), the soft partition is mapped to a hard set of assignments, which commonly overstates the certainty of correct assignments. This paper proposes an extension of the ARI, the soft adjusted Rand index (sARI), with similar intuition and interpretation but also incorporating information from one or two soft partitions. It can be used in conjunction with the ARI, comparing the similarities of hard to soft, or soft to soft partitions to the similarities of the mapped hard partitions. Simulation study results support the intuition that in general, mapping to hard partitions tends to increase the measure of similarity between partitions. In applications, the sARI more accurately reflects the cluster boundary overlap commonly seen in real data.

Suggested Citation

  • Abby Flynt & Nema Dean & Rebecca Nugent, 2019. "sARI: a soft agreement measure for class partitions incorporating assignment probabilities," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 13(1), pages 303-323, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:advdac:v:13:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11634-018-0346-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11634-018-0346-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Paul D. McNicholas, 2016. "Model-Based Clustering," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 33(3), pages 331-373, October.
    2. Qiu, Weiliang & Joe, Harry, 2006. "Separation index and partial membership for clustering," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 585-603, February.
    3. Lawrence Hubert & Phipps Arabie, 1985. "Comparing partitions," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 2(1), pages 193-218, December.
    4. Fraley, Chris & Raftery, Adrian, 2007. "Model-based Methods of Classification: Using the mclust Software in Chemometrics," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 18(i06).
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jeffrey L. Andrews & Ryan Browne & Chelsey D. Hvingelby, 2022. "On Assessments of Agreement Between Fuzzy Partitions," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 39(2), pages 326-342, July.

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