Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Statistical consultancy
- 2 Consultants' cameos: a chapter of encounters
- 3 Straight consulting
- 4 A two-period crossover trial
- 5 Consultancy in a medical school, illustrated by a clinical trial for treatment of primary biliary cirrhosis
- 6 The analysis of response latencies
- 7 Acid rain and tree roots: an analysis of an experiment
- 8 On identifying yeasts and related problems
- 9 Uneven sex ratios in the light-brown apple moth: a problem in outlier allocation
- 10 Collaboration between university and industry
- 11 Inspection for faulty components before or after assembly of manufactured items
- 12 Statistical modelling of the EEC Labour Force Survey: a project history
- Bibliography on statistical consulting
- Name index
- Subject index
8 - On identifying yeasts and related problems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of contributors
- 1 Statistical consultancy
- 2 Consultants' cameos: a chapter of encounters
- 3 Straight consulting
- 4 A two-period crossover trial
- 5 Consultancy in a medical school, illustrated by a clinical trial for treatment of primary biliary cirrhosis
- 6 The analysis of response latencies
- 7 Acid rain and tree roots: an analysis of an experiment
- 8 On identifying yeasts and related problems
- 9 Uneven sex ratios in the light-brown apple moth: a problem in outlier allocation
- 10 Collaboration between university and industry
- 11 Inspection for faulty components before or after assembly of manufactured items
- 12 Statistical modelling of the EEC Labour Force Survey: a project history
- Bibliography on statistical consulting
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
It was in 1960 that J.C.G. initially became interested in problems of classification in the sense of constructing classes of individuals. This type of problem contrasts with the use of the term ‘classification’ in classical statistics which is concerned with discrimination, that is the problem of assigning an individual to one of several a priori classes. Sneath (1957) had written a paper in the Journal of General Microbiology about a computer program that he had developed for generating a hierarchical classification of bacterial strains. His approach was to compute coefficients (the simple matching and related coefficients) that gave a measure of the similarity between each pair of strains as judged by their abilities, either ‘present’ or ‘absent’, to thrive on a selection of nutritive bases. Sneath used a simple hierarchical classification algorithm, now termed the single-linkage algorithm, in which strains are successively grouped, the pair of groups fusing at each stage which have the biggest similarity between any pair of strains, one from each group. Similar work was reported from the USA by Sokal and Michener (1958) (classifying bees) and Rogers and Tanimoto (1960) (botanical classification) while Williams and Lambert (1959), in Southampton, were concerned with the ecological classification of quadrats based on the presence/absence of plant species within quadrats sampled from a region. It was the newly available computers that stimulated these and other scientists to investigate problems that had not previously been viewed as amenable to a numerical approach.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Statistical Consultant in Action , pp. 108 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987