[R] lapply question

[Dave Evens]

Dear members, 

I have numerous arrays that are organised in a list.
For example, suppose I have 2 arrays in a list called
alist 

alist <- list(array(rpois(12,5), 6:8) ,
array(rpois(15,5), 10:12)) 

with array dimnames 

dimnames(alist[[1]]) <- list(LETTERS[1:6],
paste("namesd", 1:7, sep=""), paste("namese", 1:8,
sep="")) 

dimnames(alist[[2]]) <- list(LETTERS[7:16],
paste("namesf", 1:11, sep=""), paste("namesg", 1:12,
sep="")) 

I would like to use the lapply function to produce a
report with:
____________________________________________________
Array 1 

Dimension name: namese1 

Row Value              Value-Average(excluding Value) 
A    alist[[1]][1,1,1]
alist[[1]][1,1,1]-mean(alist[[1]][1,-1,1]) 
...etc for all elements in the first row on the array 
B    alist[[1]][2,1,1]
alist[[1]][2,1,1]-mean(alist[[1]][2,-1,1]) 
...etc 

Dimension name: namese2 
.... 
....
....
Dimension name: namese8 
... 



Array 2 

Dimension name: namesg1 
....
....
....
Dimension name: namesg12 
....
______________________ 

Can I use the apply to do this, something like 
lapply(alist, function(k), apply(k, c(1,3), ... 

but how do I layout the report using the array names,
dimension names etc and with each observation on a
separate line? Is it possible to give apply an array
and output a list?

Thanks for any help in advance. 

Dave