Intersection rules for consensus \(n\)-trees (Q1895115)

In this paper a characterization of intersection consensus rules for \(n\)- trees is given. Let \(T_n\) denote the system of all hierarchical clusterings of a finite set \(S\) with cardinality \(n\). Members of \(T_n\) are called \(n\)-trees. A consensus rule is a function \(C : T^k_n \to T_n\). An element \(P = (T_1, \dots, T_k) \in T^k_n\) is called a profile. Let \(h\) be a height function defined on \(T^k_n\). The intersection consensus rule \(C_h\) applied to a profile \(P\) gives the \(n\)-tree with clusters \(F(x,P,r) = \bigcap F_i (x, P, r)\), where \(F_i (x,P,r)\) is the coarsest cluster in \(T_i \in P\) containing \(x\) and whose height is at least \(r\). Let \(A\) and \(B\) be nonempty subsets of \(S\). Then \(A <_T B\) if \(A \subseteq X \subset B\) where \(X \in T\). The consensus rule \(C\) preserves nesting if \((A <_{T_i} B\) for \(i = 1, \dots, k) \Rightarrow (A <_{CP} B)\). On the other hand \(C\) satisfies the upper strong presence condition for nesting iff \((A <_{CP} S) \Rightarrow (A <_{T_i} S\) for \(i = 1,\dots, k)\). The main result of the paper is the characterization of an intersection consensus rule as the rule preserving nesting and satisfying the upper strong presence condition as well as \(h\)-betweenness, which is defined by means of the height assignment \(h\).