English

Unbiased mixed variables distance

Methodology 2024-11-04 v1

Abstract

Defining a distance in a mixed setting requires the quantification of observed differences of variables of different types and of variables that are measured on different scales. There exist several proposals for mixed variable distances, however, such distances tend to be biased towards specific variable types and measurement units. That is, the variable types and scales influence the contribution of individual variables to the overall distance. In this paper, we define unbiased mixed variable distances for which the contributions of individual variables to the overall distance are not influenced by measurement types or scales. We define the relevant concepts to quantify such biases and we provide a general formulation that can be used to construct unbiased mixed variable distances.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.00429,
  title  = {Unbiased mixed variables distance},
  author = {Michel van de Velden and Alfonso Iodice D'Enza and Angelos Markos and Carlo Cavicchia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.00429},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

40 pages, 9 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:44:00.399Z