<i>tscluster</i> : A python package for the optimal temporal clustering framework
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Temporal clustering extends the conventional task of data clustering by grouping time series data according to shared temporal trends across sociospatial units, with diverse applications in the social sciences, especially urban science. The two dominant methods are as follows: Time Series Clustering (TSC), with dynamic cluster centres but static labels for each entity, and Sequence Label Analysis (SLA), with static cluster centres but dynamic labels. To implement the universe of models spanning the design space between TSC and SLA, we present tscluster , an open-source Python framework. tscluster offers: (1) several innovative techniques, such as Bounded Dynamic Clustering (BDC), that are not available in existing libraries, allowing users to set an upper bound on the number of label changes and identify the most dynamically evolving time series; (2) a user-friendly interface for applying and comparing these methods; (3) globally optimal solutions for the clustering objective by employing a mixed-integer linear programming formulation, enhancing the reproducibility and robustness of the results in contrast to existing methods based on initialization-sensitive local optimization; and (4) a suite of visualization tools for interpretability and comparison of clustering results. We present our framework using a case study of neighbourhood change in Toronto, comparing two methods available in tscluster . Supplemental materials provide an additional case study of local business development in Chicago and a detailed mathematical exposition of our framework. tscluster can be installed via PyPI (pypi.org/project/tscluster), and the source code is accessible on Github (github.com/tscluster-project/tscluster). Documentation is available online at the tscluster website (tscluster.readthedocs.io).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.116 | 0.049 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".