方法对比

	层次聚类	DBSCAN	因子分析	高斯混合模型
领域	机器学习	机器学习	研究统计学	机器学习
方法族	Machine learning	Machine learning	Process / pipeline	Machine learning
起源年份	1963	1996	1931	1977
提出者	Ward, J. H.	Ester, M., Kriegel, H.-P., Sander, J. & Xu, X.	Louis Leon Thurstone	Dempster, Laird & Rubin (EM algorithm)
类型	Unsupervised clustering (agglomerative)	Density-based clustering algorithm	Method	Probabilistic (soft) clustering — mixture model
开创性文献	Ward, J. H. (1963). Hierarchical Grouping to Optimize an Objective Function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58(301), 236–244.	Ester, M., Kriegel, H.-P., Sander, J. & Xu, X. (1996). A Density-Based Algorithm for Discovering Clusters in Large Spatial Databases with Noise. Proceedings of the 2nd KDD, 226–231.	Thurstone, L. L. (1947). Multiple Factor Analysis. University of Chicago Press.	Dempster, A.P., Laird, N.M. & Rubin, D.B. (1977). Maximum Likelihood from Incomplete Data via the EM Algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B, 39(1), 1–22.
别名	Hiyerarşik Kümeleme, hiyerarşik kümeleme, agglomerative clustering, hierarchical agglomerative clustering	DBSCAN Kümeleme, density-based clustering, density-based spatial clustering	EFA, CFA, latent variable modeling	Gaussian Karışım Modeli (GMM Kümeleme), GMM, GMM clustering, mixture of Gaussians
相关	4	3	3	4
摘要	Hierarchical clustering is an unsupervised method that groups observations into nested clusters and draws the result as a dendrogram, so the number of clusters need not be fixed in advance. Its agglomerative form rests on the objective-function grouping criterion introduced by Joe Ward in 1963.	DBSCAN is a density-based clustering algorithm, introduced by Ester, Kriegel, Sander and Xu in 1996, that groups together points lying in dense regions and flags points in sparse regions as noise. It is effective on noisy data and on clusters of irregular, non-spherical shapes.	Factor analysis is a statistical technique for identifying latent (unobserved) dimensions underlying observed variables, developed by Louis Leon Thurstone in the 1930s and formalized by Jöreskog (1969). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) discovers unknown factor structure from data; confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests hypothesized relationships between observed and latent variables. Essential in psychometrics (test development), organizational research (measuring constructs like leadership style), and biomedicine (identifying disease subtypes), factor analysis reduces dimensionality while revealing conceptual organization in multivariate data.	A Gaussian Mixture Model is a probabilistic clustering method that models the data as a weighted mixture of several Gaussian distributions, fitted with the Expectation–Maximization algorithm formalized by Dempster, Laird & Rubin in 1977. It is a generalization of K-means in which each cluster can take its own shape, size, and orientation.