square matrix with 1's for neighbours and NA's for
non-neighbours.
filename
filename that the adjacency matrix file will be written to
(default=‘Adj.txt’).
suffix
string to be appended to ‘num’, ‘adj’ and
‘weights’ object names
Value
Creates a text file named filename that contains the total
number of neighbours (num), the index number of the adjacent neighbours
(adj) and the weights (weights).
Details
Adjacency matrices are used by conditional autoregressive (CAR) models to
smooth estimates according to some neighbourhood map. The basic idea is
that neighbouring areas have more in common than non-neighbouring areas and
so will be positively correlated.
As well as correlations in space it is possible to use CAR models to model
similarities in time.
In this case the matrix represents those time points that we wish to assume
to be correlated.