Polar Classification of Nominal Data

Many modern systems record various types of parameter values. Numerical values are relatively convenient for data analysis tools because there are many methods to measure distances and similarities between them. The application of dimensionality reduction techniques for data sets with such values is also a well known practice. Nominal (i.e., categorical) values, on the other hand, encompass some problems for current methods. Most of all, there is no meaningful distance between possible nominal values, which are either equal or unequal to each other. Since many dimensionality reduction methods rely on preserving some form of similarity or distance measure, their application to such data sets…