Multidimensional scaling analysis of virus diseases.
OBJECTIVE
Viruses are infectious agents that replicate inside organisms and reveal a plethora of distinct characteristics. Viral infections spread in many ways, but often have devastating consequences and represent a huge danger for public health. It is important to design statistical and computational techniques capable of handling the available data and highlighting the most important features.


METHODS
This paper reviews the quantitative and qualitative behaviour of 22 infectious diseases caused by viruses. The information is compared and visualized by means of the multidimensional scaling technique.


RESULTS
The results are robust to uncertainties in the data and revealed to be consistent with clinical practice.


CONCLUSIONS
The paper shows that the proposed methodology may represent a solid mathematical tool to tackle a larger number of virus and additional information about these infectious agents.
UISPA-LAETA/INEGI, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: aml@fe.up.pt.
António M
AM
Lopes
Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, 4200-319 Porto, Portugal.
José P
JP
Andrade
Institute of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal.
J A
JA
Tenreiro Machado
D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*
Clustering; Multidimensional scaling; Virus diseases