Abstract
A METHOD of subdividing an associated population the individuals of which are specified by the presence or absence of a number of attributes has been described previously1; the process is ultimately derived from the R-techniques of factor analysis, and the groups of individuals so obtained will be called R-groups. The attributes may similarly be subdivided into Q-groups by the corresponding Q-techniques. There results a 2-way table in which every attribute-individual record is referred to one of each kind of group. The requirement is to extract from this table the most concentrated groups of records, the attribute-individual noda around which the population may be regarded as varying. The problem is essentially that of establishing coincidences between R and Q factors; even in normal factor analysis the coincidences are impaired in the formation of the correlation matrix2,3, and in a subdivision process involving successive correlation matrices the divergence may well be considerable.
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References
Williams, W. T., and Lance, G. N., Nature, 182, 1755 (1958).
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Cattell, R. B., Factor Analysis, 90 (Harper and Bros., New York, 1952).
Williams, W. T., and Lambert, J. M., J. Ecol., 47, 83 (1959).
Williams, W. T., and Lambert, J. M., J. Ecol., 48, 689 (1960).
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WILLIAMS, W., LAMBERT, J. Nodal Analysis of Associated Populations. Nature 191, 202 (1961). https://doi.org/10.1038/191202a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/191202a0
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