Comparison of fuzzy clustering algorithms for classification

The identification of fuzzy models for classification is a very complex task. Often, real world databases have a large number of features and the most relevant ones must be chosen. Recently, a new automatic feature selection for classification problems was proposed to construct compact fuzzy classification models. This technique used the classical fuzzy c-means algorithm. However, other fuzzy clustering algorithms, such as possibilistic c-means, fuzzy possibilistic c-means or possibilistic fuzzy c-means can be used to cluster the data. An open topic of research is what clustering algorithms can be used to derive fuzzy models for classification. This paper addresses this topic, by comparing fuzzy clustering algorithms in terms of computational efficiency and accuracy in classification problems. The algorithms were tested in well-known data sets: iris plant, wine, hepatitis, breast cancer and in a difficult real-world problem: the prediction of bankruptcy.