From Ensemble Clustering to Subspace Clustering: Cluster Structure Encoding

In this study, we propose a novel algorithm to encode the cluster structure by incorporating ensemble clustering (EC) into subspace clustering (SC). First, the low-rank representation (LRR) is learned from a higher order data relationship induced by ensemble K-means coding, which exploits the cluster structure in a co-association matrix of basic partitions (i.e., clustering results). Second, to provide a fast predictive coding mechanism, an encoding function parameterized by neural networks is introduced to predict the LRR derived from partitions. These two steps are jointly proceeded to seamlessly integrate partition information and original features and thus deliver better representations than the ones obtained from each single source. Moreover, an alternating optimization framework is developed to learn the LRR, train the encoding function, and fine-tune the higher order relationship. Extensive experiments on eight benchmark datasets validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm on several clustering tasks compared with state-of-the-art EC and SC methods.