[R] Ordination of feature film data question

[Prof Brian Ripley]

`Ordination' is ecologists' terminology for multidimensional scaling.
You will find worked examples in MASS (the book, see the R FAQ), and the 
two most commonly used functions, isoMDS and sammon, in MASS the package.

In your example, the main issue is going to be to choose an appropriate 
dissimilarity measure, and dist() (in stats) and daisy() in package 
cluster will give you a good start.

On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, David Woods wrote:

> I am severely rusty re. multivariate / ordination analysis, having done 
> my last work 40 years ago (in plant ecology). I am interested in 
> exploring applications of multivariate analytic approaches to data from 
> the history of motion picture films. I'd very much appreciate any 
> pointers as to possibly appropriate proceedures. The individual 
> "samples" may be individual films and the measurements may be the 
> presence and absence of actors and production personel; for example two 
> films with many actors and / or crew in common would be located close 
> together in the resultant ordination, while films with few or no 
> personel in common would be located far apart.

> May I express my appreciation in advance to any helpful recipients.
> cordially
> David Woods
>
> Dr. David Woods M.B.K.S.
> Holcus Ltd.
> 16 John Street
> Kingston Square
> Hull  HU2 8DH
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> UK
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
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