Dear list, I have two dissimilarity matrices, one for a training data set which I then clustered using PAM. The second is a diss matrix for a validation data set (an independent field sample). I have been trying to use knn to distinguish distances between the validation data set and the 6 mediods of the training data defined by using PAM. I continue to get error messages in regards to either the lengths of matrices being different or that the dimensions of my data are incorrect. Here are the two steps I am using. I define my training data set: #read in the data file comm.data = read.csv(comm.data.file,as.is=T); rownames(comm.data) comm.data[,1] comm.dist = dist(comm.data[-1]) #define the fish community clusters clust.data = pam(comm.dist, 6, diss = TRUE, keep.diss = TRUE) #plot(clust.data) #print(clust.data) #define the community groupings comm.groups data.frame(GridID=names(clust.data$clustering),Class=clust.data$clustering) write.matrix(comm.dist, file = "train.dist.csv", sep = ",") Then #bring in the validation species data set comm.data2 = read.csv(comm.data.file2); rownames(comm.data2) comm.data2[,1] #define the row names as the site id's #bind validation data to training species data set test.data = rbind(comm.data[clust.data$medoids,],comm.data2) #get the distance matrix for the validation data test.dist = dist(test.data[-1]) test.dist.matrix = as.matrix(test.dist, rownames.force = TRUE) write.matrix(test.dist.matrix, file = "tested.dist.csv", sep = ",") knn1 = knn(test.dist.matrix[7:25,], clust.data$mediods, factor(c("1","2","3","4","5","6")), k = 3) Perhaps I am incorrect in thinking that I can use knn to distinguish distances between the training data mediods and the validation data, but I have seen similar statements produced on the R help before. All suggestions welcomed and thank you in advance for your time. Kind Regards Steph O__ ---- Stephanie Januchowski ARC COE for Coral Reef Studies c/ /'_ --- James Cook University Townsville Queensland 4811 (*) \(*) -- P: 0747816024 E: stephanie.januchowski@jcu.edu.au ~~~~~~~~~~ [[alternative HTML version deleted]]