What is cluster sampling'?
Cluster sampling is a statistical technique used across various fields for efficient data collection and analysis. It involves dividing the population into separate groups, or clusters, and then randomly selecting some of these clusters for further study. This method is particularly useful when dealing with large populations where individual sampling might be impractical or too costly. The essence of cluster sampling lies in its ability to manage and analyze data by grouping similar elements, thereby reducing variance and improving the representativeness of the sample. For instance, in graph neural networks (GNNs), cluster-based sampling has been proposed to mitigate the over-smoothing issue by assigning nodes to specific regions of the embedding space, which enhances the nodes' expressivity by ensuring that information is propagated more effectively to a node’s neighbors . Similarly, in stratified sampling, which shares similarities with cluster sampling, the population is divided into strata to minimize variance, with techniques like K-mean cluster analysis being employed to achieve minimum variance between strata. Adaptive sampling, another variant, adjusts the selection of units based on information collected from already selected units, which can be seen as a dynamic form of cluster sampling where the clusters are defined based on the data collected during the sampling process. The Swendsen-Wang algorithm, initially designed for sampling in statistical physics models, also utilizes a form of cluster sampling by automatically connecting adjacent nodes that share similar characteristics, thus forming clusters. In healthcare, cluster sampling has been adapted to address the complexity of health systems, allowing for the sampling of organizations within health systems in a manner that ensures a variety of organization types are included in the sample. The concept of Data shaping Using Cluster Sampling (DUCS) demonstrates the application of cluster sampling in reducing data redundancy and improving model performance by clustering a dataset and extracting a small number of frames from each cluster. Adaptive cluster sampling (ACS) further refines this approach for surveys where the characteristic of interest is sparsely distributed but highly aggregated, by selecting initial samples through simple random sampling and then adapting nearby units based on a pre-specified condition. A clustering sampling method based on a Kohonen neural network illustrates the use of cluster sampling in ensuring a diverse sample by giving different sample quantities to each class based on their characteristics. Lastly, the cluster sampling algorithm has been developed for sequential data assimilation in non-Gaussian and nonlinear settings, showing its applicability in a wide spectrum of problems including medical image retrieval. In summary, cluster sampling is a versatile and efficient sampling method that groups the population into clusters to improve the accuracy and efficiency of data collection and analysis across various applications and fields.
Answers from top 5 papers
Papers (5) | Insight |
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Cluster sampling is a method where units are grouped into clusters, and a random sample of clusters is selected for data collection, as discussed in the paper on adaptive cluster sampling. | |
Cluster sampling is a method where the population is divided into clusters, and a random sample of clusters is selected for analysis, commonly used in K-mean cluster analysis for data grouping. | |
19 Oct 2022 | Cluster sampling is a method used in the paper to address over-smoothing in Graph Neural Networks by assigning nodes to specific regions in the embedding space to improve expressivity. |
19 Oct 2022 | Cluster sampling is a method used in the paper to address over-smoothing in Graph Neural Networks by assigning nodes to specific regions in the embedding space to improve expressivity. |
Cluster sampling involves sampling nodes with labels from a Bernoulli random variable and connecting adjacent nodes with label 1, forming random clusters in a percolation model. |