Question

Which of the following clustering representations and dendrogram depicts the use of MIN or single link proximity function in hierarchical clustering?

A. Q 19, Option A

B. Q 19, Option B

C. Q 19, Option C

D. Q 19, Option D

Answer 1

Answer: (A)

For the single link or MIN version of hierarchical clustering, the proximity of two clusters is defined to be the minimum distance between any two points in the different clusters. For instance, from the table, we see that the distance between points 3 and 6 is 0.11, and that is the height at which they are joined into one cluster in the dendrogram. As another example, the distance between clusters {3, 6} and {2, 5} is given by dist({3, 6}, {2, 5}) = min(dist(3, 2), dist(6, 2), dist(3, 5), dist(6, 5)) = min(0.1483, 0.2540, 0.2843, 0.3921) = 0.1483.