[Traminer-users] Antw: selecting the number of clusters

[Rimantas Vosylis]

Dear Professor Gerhard,

I tried the NbClust package, but it does not seem to work for analysis of the sequences. Thing is that it has one mandatory argument data which is used to indicate the dataset. However, in sequence analysis this is the sequences of numbers/symbols rather than the vector(s) of numeric variable values. Even though it is possible to specify the distance matrix, it still requires the actual dataset and in my impression, it is not possible to overcome this. 

If you have successfully used this package for sequence analysis, could You possibly copy paste the function that You have used for the calculation of the fit indices?

Thank You in advance!

Rimantas

From: traminer-users-bounces at lists.r-forge.r-project.org [mailto:traminer-users-bounces at lists.r-forge.r-project.org] On Behalf Of Rimantas Vosylis
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 3:36 PM
To: 'Users questions'
Subject: Re: [Traminer-users] Antw: selecting the number of clusters

 

Dear Gerhard,

Thank You for this suggestion!

Sincerely

Rimantas

 

From: traminer-users-bounces at lists.r-forge.r-project.org <mailto:traminer-users-bounces at lists.r-forge.r-project.org>  [mailto:traminer-users-bounces at lists.r-forge.r-project.org] On Behalf Of Gerhard Wührer
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 1:55 PM
To: traminer-users at lists.r-forge.r-project.org <mailto:traminer-users at lists.r-forge.r-project.org> 
Subject: [Traminer-users] Antw: selecting the number of clusters

 

Hello,

 

please try the R - package 'nbclust' do decide how many clusters are feasable. In addition to that statistical measures, inspect the different cluster solutions by content and how meaningful interpretations are. You can also do some kind of x-square test where you align the clusters with variables not used in the cluster analysis.  At least you have some kind of face validity. 

 

Best regards - Gerhard A. Wührer

 

 

 

o. Univ.-Prof. Dkfm. Dr. Gerhard A. Wührer
Institut für Handel, Absatz und Marketing
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Altenberger Str. 69
4040 Linz/Austria
tel.: 004373224689401
fax.:004373224689404
mail: gerhard.wuehrer at jku.at <mailto:gerhard.wuehrer at jku.at> 

URL: www.marketing.jku.at <http://www.marketing.jku.at> 

 

 

>>> Rimantas Vosylis <rvosylis at live.com <mailto:rvosylis at live.com> > 10.06.2015 12:30 >>>

Dear Traminer users,

 

I am trying to build a typology of sequences by using cluster analysis with OM and Ward algorith.

 

I have a problem of choosing the number of clusters. I use several empirical indexes, but they don‘t help me a lot. I use Calinski and harabasz (CH) index, but it has a peak at two cluster solution and the goes down. I also use average shilloute width but it gives me the similar results as CH index. I also run pseudo ANOVA to see which cluster solution explains most variance, but it tells me the opposite – the more the clusters the higher the pseudo R2 gets. When I look at the various plots (e.g. seqdplot) I see that the most meaningful solutions (I have several types of sequences) lie somewhere between 4-6 clusters.

 

Could You perhaps suggest which indexes worked best for You and matched Your expectations / theoretical knowledge and that I could use in my analysis?

 

Thank You in advance!!

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Rimantas Vosylis

PhD student, lecturer

Insitute of Psychology

Faculty of Social Technologies

Mykolas Romeris University

 

e-mail: rimantasv at mruni.eu <mailto:rimantasv at mruni.eu> 

e-mail2: rvosylis at live.com <mailto:rvosylis at live.com> 

 

 

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