Single-Link Hierarchical Clustering Clearly Explained!

Harika Bonthu 20 Feb, 2024 • 5 min read

Introduction

As we all know, single-link Hierarchical clustering starts with treating each observation as an individual cluster, and then iteratively merges clusters until all the data points are merged into a single cluster. Dendrograms are used to represent hierarchical clustering results.

Clusters are merged based on the distance between them and to calculate the distance between the clusters we have different types of linkages.

agglomerative clustering
Agglomerative Clustering using Single Linkage

This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon

Linkage Criteria

It determines the distance between sets of observations as a function of the pairwise distance between observations.

  • In Single Linkage, the distance between two clusters is the minimum distance between members of the two clusters
  • In Complete Linkage, the distance between two clusters is the maximum distance between members of the two clusters
  • In Average Linkage, the distance between two clusters is the average of all distances between members of the two clusters
  • In Centroid Linkage, the distance between two clusters is is the distance between their centroids
linkages explained
Agglomerative Clustering using Single Linkage

In this article, we aim to understand the Clustering process using the Single Linkage Method.

Clustering Using Single Linkage

Begin with importing necessary libraries

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline
import scipy.cluster.hierarchy as shc
from scipy.spatial.distance import squareform, pdist

Let us create toy data using numpy.random.random_sample

a = np.random.random_sample(size = 5)
b = np.random.random_sample(size = 5)

Once we generate the random data points, we will create a pandas data frame.

point = ['P1','P2','P3','P4','P5']
data = pd.DataFrame({'Point':point, 'a':np.round(a,2), 'b':np.round(b,2)})
data = data.set_index('Point')
data
example points | single-link Hierarchical clustering

A glance at our toy data. Looks clean. Let us jump into the clustering steps.

Step1: Visualize the data using a Scatter Plot

plt.figure(figsize=(8,5))
plt.scatter(data['a'], data['b'], c='r', marker='*')
plt.xlabel('Column a')
plt.ylabel('column b')
plt.title('Scatter Plot of x and y')for j in data.itertuples():
    plt.annotate(j.Index, (j.a, j.b), fontsize=15)
scatter plot x Y | single-link Hierarchical clustering

 

Scatter Plot of a,b (Image by Author)

Step2: Calculating the distance matrix in Euclidean method using pdist

dist = pd.DataFrame(squareform(pdist(data[[‘a’, ‘b’]]), ‘euclidean’), columns=data.index.values, index=data.index.values)

For our convenience, will be considering only the lower bound values of the matrix as shown below.

points

 

Distance Matrix

Step 3: Look for the least distance and merge those into a cluster

look for least distance | single-link Hierarchical clustering

 

We see the points P3, P4 has the least distance “0.30232”. So we will first merge those into a cluster.

Step 4: Re-compute the distance matrix after forming a cluster

Update the distance between the cluster (P3,P4) to P1

= Min(dist(P3,P4), P1)) -> Min(dist(P3,P1),dist(P4,P1))

= Min(0.59304, 0.46098)

= 0.46098

Update the distance between the cluster (P3,P4) to P2

= Min(dist(P3,P4), P2) -> Min(dist(P3,P2),dist(P4,P2))

= Min(0.77369, 0.61612)

= 0.61612

Update the distance between the cluster (P3,P4) to P5

= Min(dist(P3,P4), P5) -> Min(dist(P3,P5),dist(P4,P5))

= Min(0.45222, 0.35847)

= 0.35847

update distance matrix

 

Updated Distance Matrix

Repeat steps 3,4 until we are left with one single cluster.

After re-computing the distance matrix, we need to again look for the least distance to make a cluster

repeat | single-link Hierarchical clustering

We see the points P2, P5 has the least distance “0.32388”. So we will group those into a cluster and recompute the distance matrix.

Update the distance between the cluster (P2,P5) to P1

= Min(dist((P2,P5),P1)) -> Min(dist(P2,P1), dist(P5, P1))

= Min(1.04139, 0.81841)

= 0.81841

Update the distance between the cluster (P2,P5) to (P3,P4)

= Min(dist((P2,P5), (P3,P4))) -> = Min(dist(P2,(P3,P4)), dist(P5,(P3,P4)))

= Min(dist(0.61612, 0.35847))

= 0.35847

update distance matrix again | single-link Hierarchical clustering

After recomputing the distance matrix, we need to again look for the least distance.

The cluster (P2,P5) has the least distance with the cluster (P3, P4) “0.35847”. So we will cluster them together.

Update the distance between the cluster (P3,P4, P2,P5) to P1

= Min(dist(((P3,P4),(P2,P5)), P1))

= Min(0.46098, 0.81841)

= 0.46098

find least distance | single-link Hierarchical clustering

With this, we are done with obtaining a single cluster.

Theoretically, below are the clustering steps:

  • P3, P4 points have the least distance and are merged
  • P2, P5 points have the least distance and are merged
  • The clusters (P3, P4), (P2, P5) are clustered
  • The cluster (P3, P4, P2, P5) is merged with the datapoint P1

We can visualize the same using a dendrogram

plt.figure(figsize=(12,5)) 
plt.title("Dendrogram with Single inkage")  
dend = shc.dendrogram(shc.linkage(data[['a', 'b']], method='single'), labels=data.index)
dendrogram with single-link Hierarchical clustering

The length of the vertical lines in the dendrogram shows the distance. For example, the distance between the points P2, P5 is 0.32388.

The step-by-step clustering that we did is the same as the dendrogram🙌

Conclusion

Single linkage clustering involves visualizing data, calculating a distance matrix, and forming clusters based on the shortest distances. After each cluster formation, the distance matrix is updated to reflect new distances. This iterative process continues until all data points are clustered, revealing patterns in the data. It’s a simple, intuitive method that can uncover hidden structures in the data.

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Harika Bonthu 20 Feb 2024

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