Pattern Recognition, 4th Edition

Chapter 13. Clustering Algorithms II: Hierarchical Algorithms

13.1. Introduction

Hierarchical clustering algorithms are of different philosophy from the algorithms described in the previous chapter. Specifically, instead of producing a single clustering, they produce a hierarchy of clusterings. This kind of algorithm is usually found in the social sciences and biological taxonomy (e.g., [El-G 68, Prit 71, Shea 65, McQu 62]). In addition, they have been used in many other fields, including modern biology, medicine, and archaeology (e.g., [Stri 67, Bobe 93, Solo 71, Hods 71]). Applications of the hierarchical algorithms may also be found in computer science and engineering (e.g., [Murt 95, Kank 96]).

Before we describe their basic idea, let us ...