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I am looking for a proper method to choose the number of clusters for K modes. 

I tried to find the optimal number of clusters by maximizing the average silhouette width though. 

In k-modes,  the average silhouette width increases with the increase of the number of clusters with my case.

So i tried to derive the elbow plot and I got the attached graph.

It is quite hard to which point is the location of a bend in this plot.. 

In this case, how can I choose the best number of groups? 

and Can anyone introduce better method that help choose the optimal number of clusters for K-modes? 

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  • $\begingroup$ the graph is attached as above. :) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 2:21
  • $\begingroup$ Hi @user3242742, what is the total within diff in your plot? $\endgroup$ Commented Sep 8, 2017 at 13:19
  • $\begingroup$ im facing the same problem. did you get the solution? $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 17, 2017 at 9:25
  • $\begingroup$ How did you determine the total within difference? $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 14, 2019 at 12:36

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The elbow is at 4.

Afterwards, the drop follows the usual behavior of random data and 1/x curves.

Since the elbow is not very prominent, the results likely are not very good, and you need to evaluate other preprocessing and clustering methods if they work better.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for comment. :) Now I see. I tried to use NbClust packages in R though, it does not provide "K-modes" method... Would you recommend other clustering method for categorical variables? $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 2:24
  • $\begingroup$ Categorical variables often don't cluster well. I'd consider frequent itemset mining. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 7:15
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    $\begingroup$ Actually, R does provide k-modes in the klaR package. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 16:46
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    $\begingroup$ @G5W yes I tried this with the klaR package though, it does not provide the additional method to support the decision to choose the proper number of clusters. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 4:49

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