Search code examples
routliersthreshold

How to find outliers with non-linear threshold


Assuming that I have a dataframe such as

x <- round(runif(1000,-5,5), 2)
y <- round(runif(1000,0,5), 2)
z <- sprintf("%s%05d", "A", seq.int(1000))
df <- data.frame(x, y, z)

How can I find which data point (names of the point from column z) is an outlier of a non-linear threshold that looks like this

y = a/(|x|-c)

where a and c are values that I can arbitrary chose?

|x| is the modulus of x


Solution

  • As mentioned in the comment, you can create a short function for this:

    find_outliers = function(df, a, c){
      y_threshold = a/(abs(df$x)-c)
      return(df$z[df$y>y_threshold])
    }
    
    a=1
    c=0.1
    find_outliers(df,a,c)