in R there is a function na.locf [last observation carried forward] [package: zoo] that takes the last available value and copies them down over the NA values. the result is like this:
A Z 2010
A Z 2011
A Z 2012
is there a way to do something similar in KNIME [without using a R node?]
You can use the Java Snippet node if you are familiar with Java. You can keep the last not missing value and set that as the new value for the missing cells in columns. Although it is not flexible in a sense (as I know), that you have to set the columns for output in advance.