Clustering for Data Mining and Applications

Clustering in data mining is a technique used to group similar data points together based on shared characteristics. Imagine sorting a mix of different fruits into piles—apples with apples, oranges with oranges—without prior labels. This helps identify patterns or natural groupings within large datasets. Applications include segmenting customers for targeted marketing, organizing images or documents, detecting fraudulent transactions, and analyzing social networks. Clustering helps businesses and researchers uncover hidden insights, improve decision-making, and automate organization tasks by finding structure within complex data.