PATN is a software package that aims to try and display
patterns in complex data. Complex in PATN's terms, means that you have at
least 6 objects that you want to know something about and a suite of more than
4 variables that describe the objects. Data must be in the form of a
spreadsheet of rows (the objects in PATN) and the columns (variables), as in
Microsoft Excel™.
There are usually around 7 components to a 'realistic'
(read as adequate, comprehensive, fair, reasonable or intelligent) pattern
analysis in PATN-
- Import the data
- Check the data using PATN's Visible Statistics
functions. It is important that you are confidant that your data is
error-free. PATN will operate on what data is available. There have been
examples where conclusions have been drawn from flawed data. Don't be among
them!
- Possible data transformation or standardization. Make
sure the data are in a form where the association, classification and
ordination will will make have greatest opportunity to detect patterns.
- Generate association values between objects and / or
variables. Association in PATN (resemblance, distance, dissimilarity,
affinity etc) is a quantitative estimate of the relationship between each
pair of objects and / or variables. This is probably the most important step
in PATN. Understand how the different options work!
- Classify. PATN has two options to organise the
objects and / or the variables into a set of discrete groups. If there
really are well-defined groups in the data, PATN will easily find them. In
most cases, there is a gradation between groups, so objects may be marginal.
User-defined groups or groups from other applications can be imported and
analysed. Think of classification as reducing n-objects to k-groups. Makes
information easier to view!
- Ordinate. This is the most powerful technique in
PATN. Think of ordination as reducing the number of significant variables to
2 or more usually, 3. With 3 new variables, visualization of the objects
(not variables in PATN) is easy!
- Analyse the results. This is where you come
in! PATN can do most of the computational work, but the hard work is in
interacting with PATN to interpret the results. Name the groups from
a classification! Detect the trends from an ordination!
PATN is setup to make it easy for you to follow this
process. For the average dataset, the first 6 steps should take no more than 5
minutes! The 7th step could however take many hours as you come to grips with
what PATN is trying to say about your data. The 3-dimensional plot in PATN is
the most powerful component for helping you with step 7.
