Notes on the bias of dissimilarity indices for incomplete data sets: the case of archaelogical classification.
The problem of missing data is particularly present in archaeological research where, because of the fragmentariness of the finds, only a part of the characteristics of the whole object can be observed. The performance of various dissimilarity indices differently weighting missing values is studied on archaeological data via a simulation. An alternative solution consisting in randomly substituting missing values with character sets is also examined. Gower's dissimilarity coefficient seems to be...