Initialization of missing values
Rough estimation of missing values in a vector according to its type.
initialise(x, mixed, method = "kNN", mixed.constant = NULL)
x: a vector.mixed: a character vector containing the names of variables of type mixed (semi-continous).method: Method used for Initialization (median or kNN)mixed.constant: vector with length equal to the number of semi-continuous variables specifying the point of the semi-continuous distribution with non-zero probabilitythe initialized vector.
Missing values are imputed with the mean for vectors of class "numeric", with the median for vectors of class "integer", and with the mode for vectors of class "factor". Hence, x should be prepared in the following way: assign class "numeric" to numeric vectors, assign class "integer" to ordinal vectors, and assign class "factor" to nominal or binary vectors.
The function is used internally by some imputation algorithms.
Matthias Templ, modifications by Andreas Alfons