Importation of Lancashire larynx and lung cancer data from INFO-MAP to R/ S/ S-plus
Assuming that you have the INFO-MAP software installed on your PC, you may proceed with following steps:
Exportation of data set from INFO-MAP to text file:
  1. Run INFO-MAP (C:\INFOMAP\INFOMAP.EXE).
  2. Press Alt+F to access file menu, choose open option us up or down arrows.
  3. In the window that opens up, use down arrow to find and choose "Lancashire lung & larynx cases", and press ENTER key.
  4. Press Alt+D to bring up Data menu and choose "Open".
  5. Press Alt+D to bring up Data menu and choose "Modify".
  6. In the next screen,press Alt+D to bring up Data menu and choose "Export".
  7. Choose file name to be exported (program defaults to "larynx.txt"), and then press the ENTER key. From hereon you need to hit Alt+F twice in order to exit INFO-MAP.
IMPORTANT: This data file should be imported into spreadsheet and "cleaned up" so that it can be read into R/ S/ S-plus. It would also be advisable to break this data set up into two different files. The raw text file, larynx.txt may be viewed here. Please note that it is necessary to delete all header and text information (such as those in quotes), as well as population data, separate out the two different data types of interest(lung cancer case locations and larynx case locations) and then remove all data cells containing values of 1.00 and -999.00.
Importation of data set from INFO-MAP to Microsoft Excel for preparation of text files (these can and should be adapted for different spreadsheet programs such as StarOffice, QuattroPro, Lotus 123, etc.):
  1. In Excel, type Alt+O, go into the /File/Open menu or press the open file button.
  2. In the dialog box change "Files of type" option to "All files" or "Text files". Go to directory where "larynx.txt" resides and double click on file to open.
  3. In the "Import file" dialog box you must choose the "Fixed width" (the default) option. Click on "Next".
  4. It may be necessary in this screen to add a delimiting line between the first and second columns. If this is the case do so. Afterwards you may click on the "Finished" button.
  5. It is the recommended to add two worksheets to this Excel workbook. This may be achieved either via right clicking the tab at the bottom of the worksheet and choosing "Insert" or going to /Insert/Worksheet menu. You may also use "Notepad" instead of using worksheets.
  6. The two data sets of interest are easily distinguishable from each other by the type of data in them. Data sets are determinable by where values in the three rightmost columns change from -999.00 to some other value. From analyzing the first five rows on the raw text file, we can tell that the column "B" is Easting, "C" is Northing, with the data sets being defined by non- -999.00 values in columns "D" population data, then "E" lung cancer data and lastly "F" larynx cancer data. As the only thing of interest in these data sets are the coordinates of each individual case, we only need copy the easting and northing data (columns "B" and "C") for that set.
  7. The lung cancer data set has a total of 917 cases/ records/ rows. Paste and save in a file name that is easy to identify.
  8. The larynx cancer data is to be dealt with in a similar manner as the lung cancer, excepting the fact that it only has 57 cases/ rows/ records.


If you have succeeded in doing all of these steps then you are ready to continue on to the next steps of the data analysis.

Back to the Lancashire lung and larynx cancer data analysis instruction page.