Computer Methods for Describing Groups from Binary Phenetic Data: Preliminary Summary and Editing of Data

Summarizing and editing binary phenetic data before further analysis are an accepted practice. The microbiologist tabulates basic information about a strain by feature matrix and uses this information as an aid in editing that matrix. Interactive computer technology can be used to aid in this process. Advantages of such computer-aided matrix editing include (i) preliminary analysis of the data, (ii) automation of routine operations, (iii) reduced costs of subsequent analyses, and (iv) improved results of subsequent analyses. The reduced costs and improved results are demonstrated by running a cluster analysis program on data before and after editing.