apply()
ваш друг:
R> M <- matrix(c(2,1,4,4,1,2,1,0), 2, 4, byrow=TRUE)
R> M
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
[1,] 2 1 4 4
[2,] 1 2 1 0
R> apply(M, 1, min) # goes row-wise
[1] 1 0
R> apply(M, 2, min) # goes column-wise
[1] 1 1 1 0
R> sum(apply(M, 2, min))
[1] 3
R>