[R] kmeans function

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 18:35:34 +0000 "Tomassini, Letizia"
<tomassini at vetmed.wsu.edu> wrote:

> 
> Hello
> I need to ask questions about the k-means clustering function. Mainly I would like to know why, with the use of nstart=enough number of times, kmeans always finds the same clustering arrangements; and this happens even when the input dataset is sorted in different ways or I take out few observations. I cannot seem to be able to recreate that when using SAS.

Do you understand what kmeans does? Why would you expect otherwise?
Besides, why does the function ahve to match SAS's output? (Do you
know how it goes about initializing the function in SAS?) In any
case, should it not be that it should provide the correct (best global
minima, if possible) answer?

Ranjan

____________________________________________________________
FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!