Obi Griffith
2010-Oct-07 21:50 UTC
[R] Using MDSplot from randomForest to classify samples
I am using randomForest to classify (relapse vs non-relapse) patients. I have built a forest using a training data and now want to predict classes in a test dataset. Instead of using the resulting randomForest object. I was wondering if there is a way to use the MDSplot. From looking at the MDS plot it seems like I could draw some lines through the plot to define 'high risk', 'intermediate' and 'low risk' groups with higher accuracy than what can be achieved with the forest itself. I have two questions: 1) Is this approach advisable? 2) How can I plot each unknown patient in an MDSplot along with the training data to determine which class it should belong to? I can feed the training data along with the unknown patient into predict.randomForest and produce the dissimilarity matrix. But, MDSplot takes an object of class RandomForest and this is not what predict.randomForest outputs. -- Obi L. Griffith, PhD Post-doctoral fellow Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Life Sciences Division, Cancer & DNA Damage Responses [[alternative HTML version deleted]]