How to assign a column vector a name in a matrix while processing multiple files (loop)?

Hi, We have 100 .mat- data files containing 5 column vectors. We would like to calculate the average of the 4th column for each of those 100 .mat- data files. Here is a sample of one of our .mat-files:

    0.6797    0.2551    0.2543    0.8308    0.0540
    0.6551    0.5060    0.8143    0.5853    0.5308
    0.1626    0.6991    0.2435    0.5497    0.7792
    0.1190    0.8909    0.9293    0.9172    0.9340
    0.4984    0.9593    0.3500    0.2858    0.1299
    0.9597    0.5472    0.1966    0.7572    0.5688
    0.3404    0.1386    0.2511    0.7537    0.4694
    0.5853    0.1493    0.6160    0.3804    0.0119
    0.2238    0.2575    0.4733    0.5678    0.3371

We tried the following code but we were not able to assign the 4th column the name “HR1” to calculate its mean for each person/.mat- data file.

%%Set path
cd ('N:\backups\Jennifer T.\HR data analysis')

thePath.data = fullfile(pwd,'subject data','PTSDdata','to be added');
thePath.programs = fullfile(pwd,'programs');

addpath(genpath(thePath.data))

% Select multiple Out4 files and open them
cd (thePath.data)               
[F,P]=uigetfile('*.*','MultiSelect', 'on'); 
Re=zeros(length(F),1);
for i = 1:length(F)
    HR1=??(:,4);
    Re(i)= nanmean(HR1)
End

Any suggestions on how to do this? Thank you!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_process_a_sequence_of_files.3F http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_create_variables_A1.2C_A2.2C....2CA10_in_a_loop.3F

Also, it is recommended to use the functional form of load:

data = load(F{i});
varnames = fieldnames(data);
firstvar = varnames{1};
HR1 = data.(firstvar)(:,4);

[Jennifer]

Thank you, this was very helpful for solving our problem!

[Jennifer]

Maybe you could also help us with this problem? ;-)

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/75079-how-to-add-specific-values-from-column-vectors-of-multiple-files-to-a-new-vector

Thanks a lot!

Answer 2

[Iman Ansari]

Hi. What is the variable name that you want to calculate its 4th column average? if the name of the variable is the same in all files:

 for i = 1:length(F)
    load(F{i})
    HR1=Variable_name(:,4);
    Re(i)= nanmean(HR1);
 end