No subject

[Rodham E. Tulloss]

Subject: Similarity Index

In Mycology and Sustainable Development (Palm and Chapela, eds.), I published
a paper on Similarity Indices in which I presented a new Similarity Index
that had advantages over other indices in common use.  A copy of the small
BASIC program used to compute the index was circulated.  I've found that
there was a line of code in the program that does not execute with all
BASIC interpreters.  I have revised the program and it is available by
email.  If you are interested, please advise me and I will send the
program by return mail.

The annotation within the program explains most of the information
necessary to use it.  The input file must a format like the following:

        n
        m, p, q
        r, s, t
        etc.

where n is the number of lines of data triplets in the file.  The data
triplets are explained in the source code.  Essentially the numbers
represent the number of elements in set A and not in set B, the number in
set B and not in set A, and the number in the intersection of the sets.
The order of the numbers is given in the comments in the source code.

The program was written in the simplest BASIC possible in hopes of
being easily portable.  With the variability in BASIC interpreters, I
should note that it was tested with QBASIC.

Reference to the original publication (cited above) will be useful in
understanding the motivation and methodology involved in the development
of the index.

Very best,

Rod Tulloss