Clustering Semi-Random Mixtures of Gaussians

Authors: Aravindan Vijayaraghavan, Pranjal Awasthi

ICML 2018 | Conference PDF | Archive PDF | Plain Text | LLM Run Details

Reproducibility Variable Result LLM Response
Research Type Theoretical In this paper, we propose a natural robust model for k-means clustering that generalizes the Gaussian mixture model, and that we believe will be useful in identifying robust algorithms. Our first contribution is a polynomial time algorithm that provably recovers the ground-truth up to small classification error w.h.p., assuming certain separation between the components. Perhaps surprisingly, the algorithm we analyze is the popular Lloyd s algorithm for k-means clustering that is the method-of-choice in practice. Our second result complements the upper bound by giving a nearly matching lower bound on the number of misclassified points incurred by any k-means clustering algorithm on the semi-random model.
Researcher Affiliation Academia 1Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, USA. 2EECS Department, Northwestern University, USA.
Pseudocode Yes Algorithm 1 Lloyd s Algorithm Input: A be the N d data matrix with rows Ai for i [N]. Use A to compute initial centers µ(1) 0 , µ(2) 0 , . . . µ(k) 0 as detailed in Proposition 3.2. Use these k-centers to seed a series of Lloyd-type iterations i.e., for r = 1, 2, . . .: do Set Zi be the set of points for which the closest center among µ(1) r 1, µ(2) r 1, . . . , µ(k) r 1 is µ(i) r 1. Set µ(i) r 1 |Zi| P Aj Zi Aj. end for
Open Source Code No The paper does not contain any statements or links indicating that open-source code for the described methodology is provided.
Open Datasets No The paper is theoretical and focuses on a mathematical model (semi-random GMM). It does not use or provide access information for a specific public dataset for experimental training.
Dataset Splits No The paper is theoretical and does not describe empirical experiments with training, validation, and test dataset splits.
Hardware Specification No The paper focuses on theoretical analysis and algorithms; it does not describe any empirical experiments that would require hardware specifications.
Software Dependencies No The paper focuses on theoretical analysis and algorithms; it does not describe any empirical experiments that would require specific software dependencies with version numbers.
Experiment Setup No The paper is theoretical and does not describe an experimental setup with specific hyperparameters or system-level training settings.