fanny.object             package:cluster             R Documentation

Fuzzy Analysis (FANNY) Object

Description:

     The objects of class '"fanny"' represent a fuzzy clustering of a
     dataset.

Value:

     A legitimate 'fanny' object is a list with the following
     components: 

membership: matrix containing the memberships for each pair consisting
          of an observation and a cluster. 

memb.exp: the membership exponent used in the fitting criterion.

   coeff: Dunn's partition coefficient F(k) of the clustering, where k
          is the number of clusters. F(k) is the sum of all _squared_
          membership coefficients, divided by the number of
          observations.  Its value is between 1/k and 1.

          The normalized form of the coefficient is also given.  It is
          defined as (F(k) - 1/k) / (1 - 1/k), and ranges between 0 and
          1. A low value of Dunn's coefficient indicates a very fuzzy
          clustering, whereas a value close to 1 indicates a near-crisp
          clustering. 

clustering: the clustering vector of the nearest crisp clustering, see
          'partition.object'.

 k.crisp: integer (<= k) giving the number of _crisp_ clusters; can be
          less than k, where it's recommended to decrease 'memb.exp'.

objective: named vector containing the minimal value of the objective
          function reached by the FANNY algorithm and the relative
          convergence tolerance 'tol' used. 

convergence: named vector with 'iterations', the number of iterations
          needed and 'converged' indicating if the algorithm converged
          (in 'maxit' iterations within convergence tolerance 'tol'). 

    diss: an object of class '"dissimilarity"', see 'partition.object'.

    call: generating call, see 'partition.object'.

 silinfo: list with silhouette information of the nearest crisp
          clustering, see 'partition.object'.

    data: matrix, possibibly standardized, or NULL, see
          'partition.object'.

GENERATION:

     These objects are returned from 'fanny'.

METHODS:

     The '"fanny"' class has methods for the following generic
     functions: 'print', 'summary'.

INHERITANCE:

     The class '"fanny"' inherits from '"partition"'. Therefore, the
     generic functions 'plot' and 'clusplot' can be used on a 'fanny'
     object.

See Also:

     'fanny', 'print.fanny', 'dissimilarity.object',
     'partition.object', 'plot.partition'.

