Eigenvectors for clustering: Unipartite, bipartite, and directed graph cases

This paper presents a concise tutorial on spectral clustering for broad spectrum graphs which include unipartite (undirected) graph, bipartite graph, and directed graph. We show how to transform bipartite graph and directed graph into corresponding unipartite graph, therefore allowing a unified treatment to all cases. In bipartite graph, we show that the relaxed solution to the K-way co-clustering can be found by computing the left and right eigenvectors of the data matrix. This gives a theoretical basis for K-way spectral co-clustering algorithms proposed in the literatures. We also show that solving row and column co-clustering is equivalent to solving row and column clustering separately, thus giving a theoretical support for the claim: “column clustering implies row clustering and vice versa”. And in the last part, we generalize the Ky Fan theorem - which is the central theorem for explaining spectral clustering - to rectangular complex matrix motivated by the results from bipartite graph analysis.