The clique partitioning problem (CPP) requires the establishment of an equivalence relation for the vertices of a graph such that the sum of the edge costs associated with the relation is minimized. The CPP has important applications for the social sciences because it provides a framework for clustering objects measured on a collection of nominal…

Minimization of the within-cluster sums of squares (WCSS) is one of the most important optimization criteria in cluster analysis. Although cluster analysis modules in commercial software packages typically use heuristic methods for this criterion, optimal approaches can be computationally feasible for problems of modest size. This paper presents a…