Clustering

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Overview

Clustering seeks useful groupings when labels are absent or incomplete, helping reveal structure in data such as text, images, graphs, time series, and scientific measurements. Methods include centroid-based k-means, density and hierarchical clustering, graph and spectral methods, mixture models, and newer approaches that learn embeddings or use optimal transport; fairness, privacy, streaming, and federated settings add further constraints. Work also studies how to choose the number of clusters and assess stability, uncertainty, interpretability, and statistical significance. No single method works best across data types: deep methods do not consistently beat strong conventional algorithms, and reliable validation remains a central challenge.

Latest papers

CardsList

345 papers31 papers in the last four weeks, up 11% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. Statistical Testing Framework for Clustering Pipelines by Selective Inference

    Mar 19, 2026Yugo Miyata, Tomohiro Shiraishi, Shuichi Nishino +1Statistical Hypothesis TestingClustering

    Nagoya University · RIKEN

  2. From Noise to Signal: When Outliers Seed New Topics

    Mar 18, 2026Evangelia Zve, Gauvain Bourgne, Benjamin Icard +1Topic ModelingClustering

    Sorbonne Université, CNRS, LIP6, France · Infopro Digital, France

  3. Efficient Dense Crowd Trajectory Prediction Via Dynamic Clustering

    Mar 18, 2026Antonius Bima Murti Wijaya, Paul Henderson, Marwa MahmoudPedestrian Trajectory PredictionClustering

    University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom

  4. Learning-Augmented Algorithms for kk-median via Online Learning

    Mar 18, 2026Anish Hebbar, Rong Ge, Amit Kumar +1Learning-Augmented AlgorithmsClustering

    Duke University · IIT Delhi

  5. Weight Clustering Reveals the Importance of Relative Rank in Large Language Models

    Mar 18, 2026Borja Aizpurua, Sukhbinder Singh, Román OrúsLLM CompressionLLM Quantization

    Multiverse Computing, San Sebasti´an, Spain · Department of Basic Sciences, Tecnun - University of Navarra, San Sebasti´an, Spain · Multiverse Computing, Toronto, Ontario, Canada +2

  6. Discovering Decoupled Functional Modules in Large Language Models

    Mar 18, 2026Yanke Yu, Jin Li, Ying Sun +3LLM InterpretabilityCircuits in Language Models

    Thrust of AI, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · Huawei Technologies Ltd.

  7. Behavior-Centric Extraction of Scenarios from Highway Traffic Data and their Domain-Knowledge-Guided Clustering using CVQ-VAE

    Mar 17, 2026Niklas Roßberg, Sinan Hasirlioglu, Mohamed Essayed Bouzouraa +2Intelligent Transportation SystemsClustering

    Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, 85049 Ingolstadt, Germany · AUDI AG, 85045 Ingolstadt, Germany · Technische Universität München, 80333 München, Germany

  8. Orthogonal Subspace Clustering: Enhancing High-Dimensional Data Analysis through Adaptive Dimensionality Reduction and Efficient Clustering

    Mar 16, 2026Qing-Yuan Wen, Da-Qing ZhangClusteringDimensionality Reduction

    School of Science, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan, Liaoning Province, 114051, PR China

  9. K−K-means with learned metrics

    Mar 15, 2026Pablo Groisman, Matthieu Jonckheere, Jordan Serres +1ClusteringMetric Learning

  10. Federated Hierarchical Clustering with Automatic Selection of Optimal Cluster Numbers

    Mar 13, 2026Yue Zhang, Chuanlong Qiu, Xinfa Liao +1Cluster Number EstimationClustering

    School of Computer Science, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangzhou, China · School of Computer Science and Technology, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China · Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China

  11. In the LLM era, Word Sense Induction remains unsolved

    Mar 12, 2026Anna Mosolova, Marie Candito, Carlos RamischClusteringDistributional Semantics

    Université Paris Cité, CNRS, LLF, Paris, France · Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LIS, Marseille, France

  12. Unsupervised LiDAR-Based Multi-UAV Detection and Tracking Under Extreme Sparsity

    Mar 12, 2026Nivand Khosravi, Rodrigo Ventura, Meysam BasiriUAV DetectionAerial Object Detection

    Instituto Superior T´ecnico, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

  13. Sample-and-Search: An Effective Algorithm for Learning-Augmented k-Median Clustering in High dimensions

    Mar 11, 2026Kangke Cheng, Shihong Song, Guanlin Mo +1ClusteringLearning-Augmented Algorithms

    University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China · School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

  14. TractoRC: A Unified Probabilistic Learning Framework for Joint Tractography Registration and Clustering

    Mar 11, 2026Yijie Li, Xi Zhu, Junyi Wang +3ClusteringDiffusion MRI

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China · Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China · Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. USA

  15. MultiwayPAM: Multiway Partitioning Around Medoids for LLM-as-a-Judge Score Analysis

    Mar 11, 2026Chihiro Watanabe, Jingyu SunLLM-as-a-JudgeClustering

    NTT Computer and Data Science Laboratories, 3-9-11, Midori-cho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo, Japan

  16. AdaBox: Adaptive Density-Based Box Clustering with Parameter Generalization

    Mar 6, 2026Ahmed ElmahdiDensity-Based ClusteringClustering

    Independent Researcher

  17. Single-pass Possibilistic Clustering with Damped Window Footprints

    Mar 6, 2026Jeffrey Dale, James Keller, Aquila GalushaClusteringStreaming Algorithms

    Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211

  18. Cluster-R1: Large Reasoning Models Are Instruction-following Clustering Agents

    Mar 6, 2026Peijun Qing, Puneet Mathur, Nedim Lipka +5ClusteringUnsupervised Clustering

    Dartmouth College, USA · Adobe Research, San Jose, USA

  19. GALACTIC: Global and Local Agnostic Counterfactuals for Time-series Clustering

    Mar 5, 2026Christos Fragkathoulas, Eleni Psaroudaki, Themis Palpanas +1Counterfactual ExplanationsTime Series Clustering

    University of Ioannina Ioannina, Greece · Archimedes, Athena Research Center Athens, Greece · Université Paris Cité, LIPADE, F-75006 Paris, France

  20. Synchronization-based clustering on the unit hypersphere

    Mar 5, 2026Zinaid Kapić, Aladin Crnkić, Goran MaušaKuramoto ModelClustering

    Faculty of Technical Engineering, University of Bihać, Bihać

  21. K-Means as the Zero-Temperature Limit of Normalized RBF Assignments: Rates, Trajectories, and Exact Recovery with Entmax

    Mar 4, 2026Felipe de Jesus Felix Arredondo, Manuel Alejandro Ucan Puc, Carlos Astengo NouguezClusteringRadial Basis Function Networks

    School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico · School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico

  22. Transport Clustering: Solving Low-Rank Optimal Transport via Clustering

    Mar 3, 2026Henri Schmidt, Peter Halmos, Ben RaphaelOptimal TransportClustering

    Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, NJ, USA.

  23. The elbow statistic: Multiscale clustering statistical significance

    Mar 3, 2026Francisco J. Perez-RecheCluster Number EstimationClustering

    School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Fraser Noble Building, AB24 3UE, United Kingdom

  24. Scalable Posterior Uncertainty for Flexible Density-Based Clustering

    Mar 3, 2026Nicola Bariletto, Stephen G. WalkerDensity-Based ClusteringClustering

    Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, UT Austin

  25. Incremental Graph Construction Enables Robust Spectral Clustering of Texts

    Mar 3, 2026Marko Pranjić, Boshko Koloski, Nada Lavrač +2Text ClusteringClustering

    Joˇzef Stefan Institute and International Postgraduate School, Ljubljana, Slovenia. · University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

  26. Learning Unified Distance Metric for Heterogeneous Attribute Data Clustering

    Mar 3, 2026Yiqun Zhang, Mingjie Zhao, Yizhou Chen +2ClusteringUnsupervised Clustering

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, Guangdong, China · Key Laboratory of Multimedia Trusted Perception and Efficient Computing, Ministry of Education of China, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, Fujian, China · Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China

  27. Learning Order Forest for Qualitative-Attribute Data Clustering

    Mar 3, 2026Mingjie Zhao, Sen Feng, Yiqun Zhang +3ClusteringMetric Learning

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China · Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China · Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy (SZ), Shenzhen, China +3

  28. Unsupervised Baseline Clustering and Incremental Adaptation for IoT Device Traffic Profiling

    Feb 27, 2026Sean M. Alderman, John D. HastingsInternet of ThingsClustering

    The Beacom College of Computer & Cyber Sciences, Dakota State University, Madison, SD, USA

  29. Universal NP-Hardness of Clustering under General Utilities

    Feb 27, 2026Angshul MajumdarClusteringUnsupervised Clustering

    Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, New Delhi, India

  30. Neural Operators Can Discover Functional Clusters

    Feb 26, 2026Yicen Li, Jose Antonio Lara Benitez, Ruiyang Hong +3ClusteringUnsupervised Clustering

    McMaster University and the Vector Institute, Main St., Hamilton, L8S 4L8, Ontario, Canada · Rice University, Main St., Houston, 77005, Texas, United States