[R] conditional mean between two data frames with different levels

[Joshua Wiley]

Hi Alberto,

It would help if you could provide a small example.  I might break the
problem down into three parts:  1) create a vector that has the final
subgroupings you want 2) find the conditional means by subgroup 3)
replicate the means as needed.  My first guess would be start with:


"==" or "%in%" to compare or find levels from 2008 %in% 2009

by(Data, GroupingVar, FUN = mean)

This is probably not the best way, but since "GroupingVar" should be a
factor, I would be tempted to do:

tmp <- (factor(GroupingVar, levels = levels(GroupingVar), labels =
ResultsofByCall)
YourMeans <- as.numeric(levels(tmp))[tmp]

as a way to map the means back to their appropriate subcondition
replicated as many times as necessary.  I'm sure you will get more
detailed help if you can post a bit of sample data.

HTH,

Josh

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 8:10 AM, albechan <alberto.casetta at satt.biz> wrote:
>
> Hi guys, I have two data frames: one referred to 2008 and one to 2009. Their
> structure is identical except for the different data in them.
> I need to create a vector alfa of the same length of the dataframe 2009 and
> fill each element with the mean of 2008$var1 conditional to the subgroup
> indicated by a factor variable in 2009$var2.
> In this case it would be easy to use the function
> alfa[i]<-ave(2008$var1,2008$var2==2009$var2[i],FUN=mean).
> The problem is that 2008$var2 and 2009$var2 contain both 20 levels each but
> only 18 of them are shared. So for those 18 I need to find the result that
> I`d get applying the above formula (which in any case doesnt work if the
> levels are not identical in the two data frames colmns) and for those two
> different levels in 2009$var2 to use the average of the whole column
> 2008$var2.
> Anybody has some ideas? Please help me...
> Hope it`s clear enough what I need.
> Thanks!
> alberto
> --
> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/conditional-mean-between-two-data-frames-with-different-levels-tp3049010p3049010.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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-- 
Joshua Wiley
Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.joshuawiley.com/