Extending Gower's general coefficient of similarity to ordinal characters
1999/05/01 by János Podani · 375 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Mathematics · #Artificial intelligence #Botany and Plant Ecology Studies #Bryophyte Studies and Records #Cartography #Computer science #Contingency table #Data set #Geography #Lichen and fungal ecology #Mathematics #Metric (unit) #Multidimensional scaling #Multivariate statistics #Ordinal Scale #Ordinal data #Ordinal optimization #Ordinal regression #Scale (ratio) #Set (abstract data type) #Similarity (geometry) #Statistics
paper · doi:10.2307/1224438
published in Taxon 48(2), 331-340 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1999/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract
Summary Podani, J.: Extending Gower's general coefficient of similarity to ordinal characters. – Taxon 48: 331‐340. 1999. – ISSN 0040‐0262. The possibilities of calculating similarity based on ordinal characters are evaluated by distinguishing subtypes of the ordinal scale. Multivariate analysis is most problematic when ordinal variables appear together with other scale types in the data. This difficulty is solved by extending Gower's general coefficient of similarity to ordinal data types, facilitating cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. Two alternatives, a non‐metric and a metric version, are offered. The modified formula implies that ordinal variables are equally weighted with the others, and that partially and fully ranked data are both applicable, due to the inherent standardisation procedure. A morphological data set derived for the moss genus Tortula illustrates the new approach.
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