Constrained Propagation Self-Adaptived Semi-Supervised Non-Negative Matrix Factorization Clustering Algorithm

Symmetric non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) can naturally capture the embedded clustering structure in the graph representation. It is an important method for linear and nonlinear data clustering applications. However, it is sensitive to the initialization of variables, and the quality of the initialization matrix greatly affects the clustering performance. In semi-supervised clustering, it faces the challenge of learning a more discriminative representation from limited labeled data. This paper introduces a constrained propagation self-adaptive self-supervised non-negative matrix factorization clustering algorithm (CPS3NMF) to solve the above problems. The algorithm propagates finite constraints to unconstrained data points, constructing a similarity matrix imbued with constraint information. The resultant similarity matrix serves the role of a non-negative symmetric matrix decomposition in SNMF and functions as graph regularization for the assignment matrix, fully utilizing the limited constraint information to preserve the geometrical structure of data space. Concurrently, leveraging the sensitivity of initial features in SNMF, the algorithm employs adaptively learned weights to rank the quality of multiple initial matrices. By integrating results from multiple clustering attempts, it progressively enhances the performance of semi-supervised clustering. Experiments on 6 public datasets show that the proposed CPS3NMF algorithm outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms, proving its effectiveness in semi-supervised clustering. © 2024 Journal of Computer Engineering and Applications Beijing Co., Ltd.; Science Press. All rights reserved.