"validMBdataKS" <-
function(object)
  {
    if(is.null(object@N) || is.na(object@N) || (object@N < 0) || (object@N != as.integer(object@N)))
      paste("@N must be a positive integer",sep="")
    else if(!all(c(length(object@assoc),length(object@IDs)) %in% object@N))
      paste("Incompatible dimensions of some attributes (must all match @N)",sep="")
    else if((length(object@assoc)>0) && !all(unlist(lapply(object@assoc,function(x) is.character(x)))))
      paste("@assoc must be character",sep="")
    else if(length(object@Name)>1)
      paste("@Name cannot be longer than 1 element",sep="")
    else
      TRUE
  }