Cluster analysis of Wisconsin Breast Cancer dataset using self-organizing maps

This work deals with multidimensional data analysis, precisely cluster analysis applied to a very well known dataset, the Wisconsin Breast Cancer dataset. After the introduction of the topics of the paper the cluster analysis concept is shortly explained and different methods of cluster analysis are compared. Further, the Kohonen model of self-organizing maps is briefly described together with an example and with explanations of how the cluster analysis can be performed using the maps. After describing the data set and the methodology used for the analysis we present the findings using textual as well as visual descriptions and conclude that the approach is a useful complement for assessing multidimensional data and that this dataset has been overused for automated decision benchmarking purposes, without a thorough analysis of the data it contains.