[R-sig-Geo] regression and cluster analysis with shapefiles: data import problems

[Anja Matatko]

Dear list,

I have a shapefile with several numerical attributes and want to do cluster and regression analysis with this data (sociodemographic data). I use the read.shapefile-command to import my data (it is well imported, it appears as an object), and then my first problem occurs: 

I want to do the analysis as in Anselin's "An Introduction to Spatial Regression Analysis in R" or the FAO publication by Petrucci / Salvati / Seghieri "The application of a spatial regression model to the analysis and mapping of poverty", but they all use other raw data than shapefiles and I couldn't find a hint how to convert my shapefile to a format that supports the lm() or similar functions. 

I think there are two problems to solve:

- I need to have access to the headers of my shapefile attribute data, in order to execute commands as mydata$variable1 (actually, I can't call mydata$variable1, I just get the answer NULL)

- I need something to get the spatial information contained in the shapefile (my attribute table has no x y coordinates included). Or is it really necessary to insert x and y columns in the attribute table with the help of ArcGIS? 

Thanks for help,

Anja (student of applied geography writing masters thesis about the use of geographical information systems and several "spatial statistics software" - including R - in planning support, in domains not much affiliated to spatial analysis but working with spatial data)



-------------------------------------------- 
Anja Matatko
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