# Mahout k-means generates too many clusters [closed]

I am a beginner in Mahout, I use Mahout 0.8 and followed the tutorial in https://cwiki.apache.org/MAHOUT/clustering-of-synthetic-control-data.html

When I use : mahout org.apache.mahout.clustering.syntheticcontrol.kmeans.Job -i testdata -o output -t1 20 -t2 50 -k 5 -x 20 -ow

then use clusterdump to extract the cluster-centers:

mahout clusterdump --input output/clusters-20-final --output /media/synthetic_control.center


in the synthetic_control.center file:

VL-585{n=50 c=[29.832, 29.589, 29.405, 28.516, 29.600, ….] r=[3.152, 3.518, 3.292, …]}

VL-591{n=197 c=[29.984, 29.681,…] r=[3.602, 3.558, 3.364,…]}

VL-595{n=203 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-597{n=61 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-599{n=43 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-585{n=1 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-591{n=27 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-595{n=1 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-597{n=1 c=[….] r=[….]}

VL-599{n=16 c=[….] r=[….]}


It seems the kmeans algorithm generates 10 clusters, but my initial setting for k is 5.

I also tried other k, it always generate doubled clusters.

Can anyone help me with this? Thanks a lot!

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 This sounds like a mahout programming problem, not really a statistics problem. Is there a mahout list? Or, you might consider moving this to StackOverflow. I have suggested that. (Please don't crosspost yourself, that irritates the people in charge). – Peter Flom Oct 12 '12 at 10:26 Try without -t1 and -t2. I read somewhere that T2 < T1 should be used? – Anony-Mousse Oct 12 '12 at 10:45

## closed as off topic by Peter Flom, gung, mbq♦Oct 12 '12 at 12:14

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