Delete outliers in each column of a matrix

Hi!

I have a matrix in which each line relates to a trial and each column is a specific moment I am analysing. I want to get the zscore for each column and, when it is > 3, I want to delete all the trial.

So, if I have a zscore > 3 in the position (120,3) of the matriz, I would delete all the 120th line ( all the values in (120,1); (120,2);(120,3) and (120,4)) .

I tried to use the following code but for some reason it is giving me the error: A null assignment can have only one non-colon index.

Error in NameOfTheScript > removeOutliers (line 72)

inicialVec(i,1) = [ ];

The code I'm trying to use is the following one (I'm using it in a function because I need to apply it a few times to different matrixes:

% %The inicial matrix I'm using its appended to this question


function finalMatrix = removeOutliers(inicialMatrix)
    z = abs(zscore(inicialMatrix, 0, 1));
    
    column1 = inicialMatrix(:,1);
    column2 = inicialMatrix(:,2);
    column3 = inicialMatrix(:,3);
    column4 = inicialMatrix(:,4);
    
    z1 = abs(zscore(column1, 0, 1));
    z2 = abs(zscore(column2, 0, 1));
    z3 = abs(zscore(column3, 0, 1));
    z4 = abs(zscore(column4, 0, 1));
    
    for i = 1:size(inicialMatrix,1)
        if (z1(i) > 3 || z2(i) > 3 || z3(i) > 3 || z4(i) > 3)
            inicialMatrix(i,1) = [];
            inicialMatrix(i,2) = [];
            inicialMatrix(i,3) = [];
            inicialMatrix(i,4) = [];
        end
    end
    finalMatrix = inicialMatrix;
end

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

[Mohammad Sami]

You can simplify your code like this.

% generate test data
initmatrix = rand(100,100);
initmatrix(12,99) = 1000;
initmatrix(100,20) = 1000;
% actual code
z = abs(zscore(initmatrix,0,1));
r = any(z>3,2);
find(r)

ans = 2×1

12 100

z(r,:) = [] % delete rows which contain z>3 in any of the column

z = 98×100

0.4486 1.6351 0.8696 1.5466 1.2569 0.3750 0.6603 1.4480 0.5331 1.6135 0.4029 0.1502 1.3191 1.5485 1.3806 1.9509 0.7581 1.2962 0.2115 0.0948 1.1977 0.7170 0.7267 1.8464 1.4979 1.1862 0.0955 1.3534 0.7246 0.0227 1.3435 0.5270 0.7838 0.4420 0.8637 1.6983 0.7365 1.5835 1.7832 1.1995 0.8098 0.3783 0.6114 0.7289 1.3684 0.5199 0.1479 1.6011 1.1674 0.1008 1.6536 0.9117 0.2892 0.0628 0.8930 1.5835 1.6276 0.3462 1.2780 1.6239 1.3840 0.9861 0.6293 0.7125 1.1208 0.6858 1.0796 1.0425 0.3800 0.6624 0.4181 0.0222 1.6590 1.2461 1.1508 0.5898 0.3082 0.1390 0.0944 0.1030 0.2596 0.9520 1.4091 1.0283 0.3187 1.2428 0.7697 1.1105 0.5035 0.3883 0.9446 1.2221 0.5471 0.7634 0.1452 0.4226 0.8562 0.3720 1.6256 1.3693 1.1051 0.5899 1.6194 1.4136 0.8398 1.0892 1.6172 1.2361 1.5738 0.1038 0.8252 0.3551 0.0096 0.1220 1.2095 0.6092 1.1176 0.3401 1.5413 0.0468 0.7778 0.7851 1.0830 0.8929 0.8980 1.7098 0.5250 0.3496 0.6848 1.0156 0.3100 1.0994 0.5688 0.6123 1.0206 1.4735 1.1513 0.8435 1.4876 0.0977 0.3021 0.2839 1.1523 0.7655 1.6208 0.3270 1.0914 1.4994 0.0605 0.8266 0.5422 1.3897 1.1328 1.2168 0.6141 1.4902 0.3619 1.1045 0.1055 0.2017 1.1860 0.6501 0.6592 0.8164 1.7778 1.3261 0.4172 0.0283 1.2942 0.1023 0.5454 1.0562 1.1242 0.2077 1.1497 0.4685 0.3934 1.3274 1.7776 0.5990 1.3802 1.3604 0.9775 0.4382 0.9015 1.4396 1.3423 1.1144 1.0314 0.8868 1.6298 0.9499 1.0735 1.0541 1.1243 1.4728 0.3105 1.4822 0.7873 0.1030 1.8047 1.8457 1.2293 1.3497 1.0004 0.8491 1.3042 0.4379 0.1624 0.9576 1.1294 0.9827 0.5206 0.5442 0.9353 1.1303 0.2730 0.6589 1.8006 0.9030 0.8461 0.9939 1.3696 1.0230 0.6484 1.0853 0.3890 1.3706 1.5768 0.0992 0.0129 0.6445 0.9603 1.2165 1.6887 1.2893 1.9955 0.8172 0.2980 0.2460 0.4145 1.2895 0.1903 0.7916 0.2410 0.7043 1.6700 0.5196 1.3627 0.5251 0.8479 0.1703 0.0975 0.0517 1.1446 0.7058 1.0924 1.4912 0.2258 0.0979 1.6034 0.4135 1.3310 1.0421 0.4732 1.1292 1.1430 0.5628 0.3155 0.7439 1.5187 0.7845 0.5416 0.9036 1.0819 0.8406 0.7669 0.8888 0.3895 0.7547 1.3280 1.4624 0.0907 0.2329 1.3002 0.7398 1.5080 1.6224 0.4189 0.0986 1.8357 1.2939 0.4354 1.3778 1.3226 0.4811 0.3108 0.8923 1.1767 0.1574

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Why don't you just use the build-in isoutlier() function?