For the first time in one text, this handy pedagogical reference presents comprehensive inference strategies for organizing disparate nonparametric statistics topics under one scheme, illustrating ways of analyzing data sets based on generic notions of proximity (of "closeness") between objects. Assignment Methods in Combinatorial Data Analysis specifically reviews both linear and quadratic assignment models ... covers extensions to multiple object sets and higher-order assignment indices ... considers methods of applying linear assignment models in common data analysis contexts ... discusses a second motion of assignment (or "matching") based upon pairs of objects ... explores confirmatory methods of augmenting multidimensional sealing, cluster analysis, and related techniques ... labels sections in order of priority for continuity and convenience ... and includes extensive bibliographies of related literature. Assignment Methods in Combinatorial Data Analysis gives authoritative coverage of statistical testing, and measures of association in a single source. It is required reading and an invaluable reference for researchers and graduate students in the behavioral and social sciences using quantitative methods of data representation. Book jacket.

The Structural Representation of Proximity Matrices with MATLAB presents and demonstrates the use of functions (by way of M-files) within a MATLAB computational environment to effect a variety of structural representations for the proximity information that is assumed to be available on a set of objects. The representations included in the book have been developed primarily in the behavioral sciences and applied statistical literature (e.g., in psychometrics and classification), although interest in these topics now extends more widely to such fields as bioinformatics and chemometrics. Throughout the book, two kinds of proximity information are analyzed: one-mode and two-mode. One-mode proximity data are defined between the objects from a single set and are usually given in the form of a square symmetric matrix; two-mode proximity data are defined between the objects from two distinct sets and are given in the form of a rectangular matrix. In addition, there is typically the flexibility to allow the additive fitting of multiple structures to either the given one- or two-mode proximity information.

Combinatorial data analysis (CDA) refers to a wide class of methods for the study of relevant data sets in which the arrangement of a collection of objects is absolutely central. The focus of this monograph is on the identification of arrangements, which are then further restricted to where the combinatorial search is carried out by a recursive optimization process based on the general principles of dynamic programming (DP).