What are the examples of clustering in data mining?

The process of combining a set of physical or abstract objects into classes of the same objects is known as clustering. A cluster is a set of data objects that are the same as one another within the same cluster and are disparate from the objects in other clusters. A cluster of data objects can be considered collectively as one group in several applications. Cluster analysis is an essential human activity.

Cluster analysis is used to form groups or clusters of the same records depending on various measures made on these records. The key design is to define the clusters in ways that can be useful for the objective of the analysis. This data has been used in several areas, such as astronomy, archaeology, medicine, chemistry, education, psychology, linguistics, and sociology.

There are some examples of clustering which are as follows −

Biology − Biologists have spent several years producing a taxonomy (a hierarchical classification) of all living things such as kingdom, phylum, class, series, family, genus, and species. Therefore, it is not surprising that some early work in cluster analysis sought to produce a discipline of numerical taxonomy that can find such classification structures.

Furthermore, biologists have used clustering to analyze the huge amounts of genetic data that are accessible. For instance, clustering has been used to discover groups of genes that have the same functions.

Information Retrieval − The World Wide Web includes billions of Web pages, and the results of a query to a search engine can restore millions of pages. Clustering can be used to group these search results into a few clusters, each of which taking a specific element of the query.

For example, a query of "movie" can restore Web pages combined into categories including reviews, trailers, stars, and theaters. Each cluster can be splitted into subcategories (subclusters), making a hierarchical structure that supports a user's analysis of the query outcomes.

Climate − It can be learning the earth's climate needed discovering patterns in the atmosphere and ocean. Cluster analysis has been used to discover patterns in the atmospheric pressure of Polar Regions and areas of the ocean that have an essential impact on land climate.

Psychology and Medicine − An illness or condition frequently has multiple alterations, and cluster study can be used to recognize these multiple subcategories. For instance, clustering can be used to identify several types of depression. Cluster analysis is also used to identify patterns in the spatial or temporal allocation of a disease.

Business − Businesses collect huge amounts of data on current and potential users. It is generally used to segment users into a small number of teams for more analysis and marketing events.