MATLAB: Sort cell values greater and smaller than the threshold

sort cell values greater and smaller than the threshold

I have 
C={[7],[4],[1],[2],[1],[3]};
A = [1 2 4 9; 6 9 9 13; 9 14 9 15; 11 14 11 14; 13 14 15 18; 11 16 11 16];
thresh = 3;
I want to sort the cell array according to
1-find values bigger than 3
{[7],[4],[3]}
2- sort it from smallest (3) to largest
{[3],[4],[7]}
3- add the remaining value of C to C_new (in largest to smallest order)
C_new ={[3],[4],[7],[2],[1],[1]}
4- change the order of A according to C_new
[7] in C is correspond to [1 2 4 9] in A
result should be
C_new ={[3],[4],[7],[2],[1],[1]}
A_new = [ 11 16 11 16;
           6  9  9 13;
           1  2  4  9;
           11 14 11 14;
           9  14  9 15;
           13 14 15 18]

Best Answer

A little awkward, but it works.
The algorithm is based on the fact that you want all elements sorted by their distance from the threshold value, but with all the above-threshold values coming before the below-threshold values.
% Original data
C={[7],[4],[1],[2],[1],[3]};
A = [1 2 4 9; 6 9 9 13; 9 14 9 15; 11 14 11 14; 13 14 15 18; 11 16 11 16];
thresh = 3;
% Convert C to numeric
dblC = cell2mat(C);
% Find the maximum distance that any element is from threshold.
% (This will become a "penalty" to below-threshold values,
% ensuring they are "further" from the threshold than any
% above-threshold value
maxdist = max(abs(dblC-thresh));
% Define a metric that is distance from threshold,
% but where below-threshold values are penalized
metric = abs(dblC-thresh) + maxdist.*(dblC<thresh);
% Sort the values according to that metric
[~,sortingIndex] = sort(metric);
C_new = C(sortingIndex);
A_new = A(sortingIndex,:);
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