On multidimensional scaling with euclidean and city block metrics

Abstract

Experimental sciences collect large amounts of data. Different techniques are available for information elicitation from data. Frequently statistical analysis should be combined with the experience and intuition of researchers. Human heuristic abilities are developed and oriented to patterns in space of dimensionality up to 3. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) addresses the problem how objects represented by proximity data can be represented by points in low dimensional space. MDS methods are implemented as the optimization of a stress function measuring fit of the proximity data by the distances between the respective points. Since the optimization problem is multimodal, a global optimization method should be used. In the present paper a combination of an evolutionary metaheuristic algorithm with a local search algorithm is used. The experimental results show the influence of metrics defining distances in the considered spaces on the results of multidimensional scaling. Data sets with known and unknown structure and different dimensionality (up to 512 variables) have been visualized.