A Fusion Approach to Computing Distance for Heterogeneous Data

Aalaa Mojahed, Beatriz de la Iglesia

2014

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce heterogeneous data as data about objects that are described by different data types, for example, structured data, text, time series, images etc. We provide an initial definition of a heterogeneous object using some basic data types, namely structured and time series data, and make the definition extensible to allow for the introduction of further data types and complexity in our objects. There is currently a lack of methods to analyse and, in particular, to cluster such data. We then propose an intermediate fusion approach to calculate distance between objects in such datasets. Our approach deals with uncertainty in the distance calculation and provides a representation of it that can later be used to fine tune clustering algorithms. We provide some initial examples of our approach using a real dataset of prostate cancer patients including visualisation of both distances and uncertainty. Our approach is a preliminary step in the clustering of such heterogeneous objects as the distance between objects produced by the fusion approach can be fed to any standard clustering algorithm. Although further experimental evaluation will be required to fully validate the Fused Distance Matrix approach, this paper presents the concept through an example and shows its feasibility. The approach is extensible to other problems with objects represented by different data types, e.g. text or images.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Mojahed A. and de la Iglesia B. (2014). A Fusion Approach to Computing Distance for Heterogeneous Data . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval - Volume 1: KDIR, (IC3K 2014) ISBN 978-989-758-048-2, pages 269-276. DOI: 10.5220/0005083702690276

in Bibtex Style

@conference{kdir14,
author={Aalaa Mojahed and Beatriz de la Iglesia},
title={A Fusion Approach to Computing Distance for Heterogeneous Data},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval - Volume 1: KDIR, (IC3K 2014)},
year={2014},
pages={269-276},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005083702690276},
isbn={978-989-758-048-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval - Volume 1: KDIR, (IC3K 2014)
TI - A Fusion Approach to Computing Distance for Heterogeneous Data
SN - 978-989-758-048-2
AU - Mojahed A.
AU - de la Iglesia B.
PY - 2014
SP - 269
EP - 276
DO - 10.5220/0005083702690276