Dear all, propably this question sounds stupid to you, but since I'm new to R I got some troubles regarding the following issue (The table below does not represent my real data, it is just a simplified example): My intention is to first subdivide my data into several groups of vectors, let's say for instance 3 groups, such that group 1={A,B}, group2={C,D}, group3={E,F}. How can I do this even for a much larger data table (about 3'000 columns)?? After that I'd like to calculate weights for each element in the table as follows: weight(ij)=element(ij)/sum(elements in a row per group). So, for example: For the first element of column A: 1/(1+2)=1/3 For the first element of column B: 2/(1+2)=2/3 For the second element of column A: 2/(2+3)=2/5 And so forth. Table 1: A B C D E F 1 2 3 4 5 9 2 3 4 5 6 8 3 4 5 6 7 7 4 5 6 7 8 6 5 6 7 8 9 5 I tried to do something like apply(Table1, 1, function(x)x/sum(x(i+1))) but it returns an error (cannot find function x). I would be truly grateful for any hints. Many thanks in advance Best, Sam [[alternative HTML version deleted]]