SOM of SOMs: Self-organizing Map Which Maps a Group of Self-organizing Maps

This paper aims to propose an extension of SOMs called an “SOM of SOMs,” or SOM², in which the mapped objects are self-organizing maps themselves. In SOM², each nodal unit of the conventional SOM is replaced by a function module of SOM. Therefore, SOM² can be regarded as a variation of a modular network SOM (mnSOM). Since each child SOM module in SOM² is trained to represent a manifold, the parent SOM in SOM² generates a self-organizing map representing the distribution of the group of manifolds modeled by the child SOMs. This extension of SOM is easily generalized in the case of SOMⁿ, such that “SOM² as SOM of SOM²s.” In this paper, the algorithm of SOM² is introduced, and some simulation results are reported.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu, 808-0196, Japan

   Tetsuo Furukawa

Editors and Affiliations

1. Department of Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

   Włodzisław Duch

2. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Newelska 6, 01–447, Warsaw, Poland

   Janusz Kacprzyk

3. Adaptive Informatics Research Centre, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 5400, 02015 HUT, Finland

   Erkki Oja

4. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Newelska 6, 01-447, Warsaw, Poland

   Sławomir Zadrożny

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