Clustering with dendrograms on interpretation variables

Clustering techniques are used frequently in chemistry to show and to interpret similarities between objects or variables. The results of a clustering technique are generally reported in a plot (the dendrogram of similarities) where the ordinate is the similarity between groups and the abscissa has no specific meaning, but it is used only to separate the clusters. Here, the use of interpretation variables for the projection of the dendrogram is suggested. Some examples show that sometimes the so-modified dendrogram show the information more efficiently than the usual dendrograms. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.