Consensus and fuzzy partition of dendrograms from a three-way dissimilarity array.

In cluster analysis, a problem often addressed is finding a consensus on a set of hierarchical classifications of the same set of objects, named primary hierarchies (dendrograms). A unique consensus of the primary hierarchies, called a secondary hierarchy, is sufficient to synthesize the relevant clustering information only when the primary dendrograms are similar to one another. In contrast, when several differences are observed, more than one consensus secondary hierarchy is required to clearly synthesize the different primary hierarchies.