How to obtain a new table after filtering only one column in an existing table in R? - r

Question

I have a data frame having 20 columns. I need to filter / remove noise from one column. After filtering using convolve function I get a new vector of values. Many values in the original column become NA due to filtering process. The problem is that I need the whole table (for later analysis) with only those rows where the filtered column has values but I can't bind the filtered column to original table as the number of rows for both are different. Let me illustrate using the 'age' column in 'Orange' data set in R:
> head(Orange)
Tree age circumference
1 1 118 30
2 1 484 58
3 1 664 87
4 1 1004 115
5 1 1231 120
6 1 1372 142
Convolve filter used
smooth <- function (x, D, delta){
z <- exp(-abs(-D:D/delta))
r <- convolve (x, z, type='filter')/convolve(rep(1, length(x)),z,type='filter')
r <- head(tail(r, -D), -D)
r
}
Filtering the 'age' column
age2 <- smooth(Orange$age, 5,10)
data.frame(age2)
The number of rows for age column and age2 column are 35 and 15 respectively. The original dataset has 2 more columns and I like to work with them also. Now, I only need 15 rows of each column corresponding to the 15 rows of age2 column. The filter here removed first and last ten values from age column. How can I apply the filter in a way that I get truncated dataset with all columns and filtered rows?

Answer 1

You would need to figure out how the variables line up. If you can add NA's to age2 and then do Orange$age2 <- age2 followed by na.omit(Orange) you should have what you want. Or, equivalently, perhaps this is what you are looking for?
df <- tail(head(Orange, -10), -10) # chop off the first and last 10 observations
df$age2 <- age2
df
Tree age circumference age2
11 2 1004 156 915.1678
12 2 1231 172 876.1048
13 2 1372 203 841.3156
14 2 1582 203 911.0914
15 3 118 30 948.2045
16 3 484 51 1008.0198
17 3 664 75 955.0961
18 3 1004 108 915.1678
19 3 1231 115 876.1048
20 3 1372 139 841.3156
21 3 1582 140 911.0914
22 4 118 32 948.2045
23 4 484 62 1008.0198
24 4 664 112 955.0961
25 4 1004 167 915.1678
Edit: If you know the first and last x observations will be removed then the following works:
x <- 2
df <- tail(head(Orange, -x), -x) # chop off the first and last x observations
df$age2 <- age2