Automatic Non-negative Matrix Factorization Clustering with Competitive Sparseness Constraints

Abstract

Determination of the appropriate number of clusters is a big challenge for the bi-clustering method of the non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). The conventional determination method may be to test a number of candidates and select the optimal one with the best clustering performance. However, such strategy of repetition test is obviously time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a novel efficient algorithm called the automatic NMF clustering method with competitive sparseness constraints (autoNMF) which can perform the reasonable clustering without pre-assigning the exact number of clusters. It is demonstrated by the experiments that the autoNMF has been significantly improved on both clustering performance and computational efficiency.