Informatica 32 (2008) 219-225 219 A Global A>means Approach for Autonomous Cluster Initialization of Probabilistic Neural Network Roy Kwang Yang Chang, Chu Kiong Loo and M.V.C. Rao Multimedia University, Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia E-mail: kychang@mmu.edu.my Keywords: probabilistic neural network, global k-means, condition monitoring Received: May 14, 2007 This paper focuses on the statistical based Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) for pattern classification problems with Expectation - Maximization (EM) chosen as the training algorithm. This brings about the problem of random initialization, which means, the user has to predefine the number of clusters through trial and error. Global k-means is used to solve this and to provide a deterministic number of clusters using a selection criterion. On top of that, Fast Global k-means was tested as a substitute for Global k-means, to reduce the computational time taken. Tests were done on both homescedastic and heteroscedastic PNNs using benchmark medical datasets and also vibration data obtained from a U.S. Navy CH-46E helicopter aft gearbox (Westland). Povzetek: Opisana je metoda nevronskih mrez. 1 Introduction The proposed model in this paper uses PNN as our choice of neural network for pattern classification problems. The Probabilistic Neural Network was first introduced in 1990 by Specht [1] and puts the statistical kernel estimator [2] into the framework of radial basis function networks. [3] We then used EM to train the PNN for the simple fact that it can help reduce the number of neurons that were committed in the network. The proposed model can be used in the field of condition monitoring which is garnering more attention due to its perks of time and cost savings. That is the reason why more focus should be spent on the creation of a more error tolerant and accurate yet fast diagnostic model. The EM method used as the training algorithm for the network has its advantages and disadvantages. In general it is hard to initialize and the quality of the final solution depends heavily on the quality of the initial solution. [4] Initialization of the number of clusters needed has to be done randomly by the user in a series of trial and error values. This brings about an unwanted stochastic nature in the model. Therefore, in order to build an autonomous and deterministic neural network, we opted to use Global k-means to help automatically find the optimum number of clusters based on minimizing the clustering error. In section 2, the PNN model is briefly discussed followed by section 3 where the E-step and the M-step of the EM method is showed together with the flaws of EM. Section 4 details cluster initialization with a brief discussion on two methods of cluster determination, which is Global k-means and its variant, Fast Global k-means. Experiments on Westland and benchmark medical datasets were done in section 5 to compare results between Global k-means and random initialization together with Global k-means and Fast Global k-means. Section 6 will conclude the paper. 2 Probabilistic neural network Probabilistic Neural Network was introduced by Donald Specht in a series of two papers, namely "Probabilistic Neural Networks for Classification, Mapping or Associative Memory" in 1988 [5] and "Probabilistic Neural Networks" in 1990 [1]. This statistical based neural network uses Bayes theory and Parzen Estimators to solve pattern classification problems. The basic idea behind Bayes theory is that it will make use of relative likelihood of events and also a priori information, which in our case would be inter-class mixing coefficients. As for Parzen Estimators, it is a classical probability density function estimator. Let us assume the dataset, X, will be partitioned into K number of subsets where X — X1