combinatorial data analysis In statistics, combinatorial data analysis (CDA) is the study of data sets where the order in which objects are arranged is important. CDA can be used either to determine how well a given combinatorial construct reflects the observed data, or to sea ...

, seriation is the process of finding an arrangement of all objects in a set, in a

linear order In mathematics, a total or linear order is a partial order in which any two elements are comparable. That is, a total order is a binary relation \leq on some set X, which satisfies the following for all a, b and c in X: # a \leq a ( reflexiv ...

, given a

loss function In mathematical optimization and decision theory, a loss function or cost function (sometimes also called an error function) is a function that maps an event or values of one or more variables onto a real number intuitively representing some "co ...

. The main goal is exploratory, to reveal structural information.

References

Combinatorics Data analysis {{combin-stub