R: Mean Absolute Deviation From a Center Point

MeanAD {DescTools} | R Documentation

## Mean Absolute Deviation From a Center Point

### Description

Calculates the mean absolute deviation from a center point, typically the sample mean or the median.

### Usage

    MeanAD(x, weights = NULL, center = Mean, na.rm = FALSE)

### Arguments

`x` | a vector containing the observations.
`weights` | a numerical vector of weights the same length as `x` giving the weights to use for elements of `x`.
`center` | a single numerical value or the name of a function to be used as center. Can as well be a self defined function. Default is `Mean()`.
`na.rm` | a logical value indicating whether or not missing values should be removed. Defaults to FALSE.

### Details

The MeanAD function calculates the mean absolute deviation from the mean value (or from another supplied center point) of x, after having removed `NA` values (if requested):

1/n sum(|x_i - c|) where c=mean(x) or c=med(x)

The function supports the use of weights. The default function for the center value `Mean()` has a weights arguments, too. If a user defined function is used it must be assured that it has a weights argument.

### Value

Numeric value.

### Author(s)

Andri Signorell <andri@signorell.net> following an idea of Daniel Navarro (`aad` in the lsr package)

### See Also

`mad`

### Examples

    x <- runif(100)
    MeanAD(x)

    speed <- c(58, 88, 40, 60, 72, 66, 80, 48, NA)
    MeanAD(speed)
    MeanAD(speed, na.rm=TRUE)

    # using the median as centerpoint
    x <- c(2,3,5,3,1,15,23)

    MeanAD(x, center=mean)
    MeanAD(x, center=median)

    # define a fixed center
    MeanAD(x, center=4)

    # use of weights
    MeanAD(x=0:6, weights=c(21,46,54,40,24,10,5))

[Package DescTools version 0.99.36 Index]