I don't know how to describe this question succinctly to Google if there is a method for doing this kind of thing so perhaps someone will know of something and point me in the right direction.
I have a plot when the x-axis is divided into discrete equal-size intervals. During each interval, a process can either occur (that interval will be colored) or not occur (that interval will be blank).
The following are two example outcomes/realizations:
(1)
(2)
In the first example outcome there are 3 clusters, of length 3, 4, and 8 while in the second example outcome there are 2 clusters of length 4 and 10.
I was wondering if there is a way to mathematically describe (as a single number?) the two example outcomes in terms of the number of clusters (time intervals where a process occurred during consecutive intervals) as well as the length of the clusters (number of consecutive time intervals during which the process occurred) so that someone could have an idea of the difference in clustering between two outcomes given just the two numbers.