Two-Stage Sparse Representation Clustering for Dynamic Data Streams

Data streams are a potentially unbounded sequence of data objects, and the clustering of such data is an effective way of identifying their underlying patterns. Existing data stream clustering algorithms face two critical issues: 1) evaluating the relationship among data objects with individual landmark windows of fixed size and 2) passing useful knowledge from previous landmark windows to the current landmark window. Based on sparse representation techniques, this article proposes a two-stage sparse representation clustering (TSSRC) method. The novelty of the proposed TSSRC algorithm comes from evaluating the effective relationship among data objects in the landmark windows with an accurate number of clusters. First, the proposed algorithm evaluates the relationship among data objects using sparse representation techniques. The dictionary and sparse representations are iteratively updated by solving a convex optimization problem. Second, the proposed TSSRC algorithm presents a dictionary initialization strategy that seeks representative data objects by making full use of the sparse representation results. This efficiently passes previously learned knowledge to the current landmark window over time. Moreover, the convergence and sparse stability of TSSRC can be theoretically guaranteed in continuous landmark windows under certain conditions. Experimental results on benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of TSSRC.

Automated summary

This article proposes a two-stage sparse representation clustering (TSSRC) method based on sparse representation techniques to address the critical issues in data stream clustering. The TSSRC algorithm evaluates the effective relationship among data objects in landmark windows with an accurate number of clusters and efficiently passes previously learned knowledge to the current landmark window. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of TSSRC.