Abstract
Fuzzy clustering has emerged as one of the fundamental conceptual and algorithmic frameworks supporting the development of information granules. Generic fuzzy clustering such as fuzzy C-means (FCM) has been utilized in a broad range of applications. However, the constructs resulting from fuzzy clustering, namely a partition matrix and prototypes, are numeric and as such are not capable of fully capturing the essence of the overall data. In this study, we propose an alternative augmented way of building information granules by generating hypercube-like information granules. A collection of hypercubes is referred to as a family of ε-information granules. This family is constructed around numeric prototypes generated through a modified version of the FCM algorithm whose running time is linear with respect to the number of clusters. By admitting a certain level of information granularity (ε), a collection of hypercubes is formed around the prototypes. The quality of information granules realized in this way is assessed by involving them in the granulation-degranulation process as well as determining a value of the coverage criterion. The level of information granularity and the number of the granular prototypes in the family of ε-information granules form an important design asset directly impacting the obtained coverage level of the data. The computational facet of the approach is stressed. It has been demonstrated that the granular enhancements of the description of data come with a very limited computing overhead. Experimental studies involve synthetic data as well as data coming from the UCI Machine Learning repository. The granular reconstruction capabilities delivered by the family of ε-information granules are discussed.