[R] self organizing map advice for categorical data

[Thomas Petzoldt]

George Chen schrieb:
> Hello,
> 
> Could anybody offer any advice about implementing a Kohonen self organizing map for categorical data?  Specifically I am wondering if there are any pre-existent packages that can deal with categorical data and/or how one would compare the input vector of categoricals with the self organizing map nodes.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> George Chen
> 

Yes, there is a very nice one with excellent graphics, see article:

Ron Wehrens, Lutgarde M. C. Buydens (2007) Self- and Super-organizing 
Maps in R: The kohonen Package. Journal of Statistical Software	21(5). 
http://www.jstatsoft.org/v21/i05


Hope it helps

Thomas Petzoldt