[R] Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) in R

[Isaac Waisberg]

Hi;

I am working with the similarity matrix below and I would like to plot
a two-dimensional MDS solution such as each point in the plot has a
label.

This is what I did:

data <- read.table('c:/multivariate/mds/colour.txt',header=FALSE)
similarity <- as.dist(data)
distance <- 1-similarity
result.nmds <- nmds(distance)
plot(result.nmds)

(nmds and plot.nmds as defined at
labdsv.nr.usu.edu/splus_R/lab8/lab8.html; nmds simply calls isoMDS)

Colour.txt, containing the similaity matrix, reads as follows:

 1.0 .86 .42 .42 .18 .06 .07 .04 .02 .07 .09 .12 .13 .16
 .86 1.0 .50 .44 .22 .09 .07 .07 .02 .04 .07 .11 .13 .14
 .42 .50 1.0 .81 .47 .17 .10 .08 .02 .01 .02 .01 .05 .03
 .42 .44 .81 1.0 .54 .25 .10 .09 .02 .01 .01 .01 .02 .04
 .18 .22 .47 .54 1.0 .61 .31 .26 .07 .02 .02 .01 .02 .01
 .06 .09 .17 .25 .61 1.0 .62 .45 .14 .08 .02 .02 .02 .01
 .07 .07 .10 .10 .31 .62 1.0 .73 .22 .14 .05 .02 .02 .01
 .04 .07 .08 .09 .26 .45 .73 1.0 .33 .19 .04 .03 .02 .02
 .02 .02 .02 .02 .07 .14 .22 .33 1.0 .58 .37 .27 .20 .23
 .07 .04 .01 .01 .02 .08 .14 .19 .58 1.0 .74 .50 .41 .28
 .09 .07 .02 .01 .02 .02 .05 .04 .37 .74 1.0 .76 .62 .55
 .12 .11 .01 .01 .01 .02 .02 .03 .27 .50 .76 1.0 .85 .68
 .13 .13 .05 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .20 .41 .62 .85 1.0 .76
 .16 .14 .03 .04 .01 .01 .01 .02 .23 .28 .55 .68 .76 1.0
 
The first row corresponds to colour 1 (C1), the second to colour 2
(C2), and so on.

First, I'm not sure if this is correct or not. Second, obviously the
points in the plot are not labeled. I suppose I must add a labels
column and then print the labels together with the results. But, how
should I do it?

Many thanks,

Isaac