Big Data Analytics - Summarizing Data
Reporting is very important in big data analytics. Every organization must have a regular provision of information to support its decision making process. This task is normally handled by data analysts with SQL and ETL (extract, transfer, and load) experience.
The team in charge of this task has the responsibility of spreading the information produced in the big data analytics department to different areas of the organization.
The following example demonstrates what summarization of data means. Navigate to the folder bda/part1/summarize_data and inside the folder, open the summarize_data.Rproj file by double clicking it. Then, open the summarize_data.R script and take a look at the code, and follow the explanations presented.
# Install the following packages by running the following code in R.
pkgs = c('data.table', 'ggplot2', 'nycflights13', 'reshape2')
install.packages(pkgs)
The ggplot2 package is great for data visualization. The data.table package is a great option to do fast and memory efficient summarization in R. A recent benchmark shows it is even faster than pandas, the python library used for similar tasks.
Take a look at the data using the following code. This code is also available in bda/part1/summarize_data/summarize_data.Rproj file.
library(nycflights13)
library(ggplot2)
library(data.table)
library(reshape2)
# Convert the flights data.frame to a data.table object and call it DT
DT <- as.data.table(flights)
# The data has 336776 rows and 16 columns
dim(DT)
# Take a look at the first rows
head(DT)
# year month day dep_time dep_delay arr_time arr_delay carrier
# 1: 2013 1 1 517 2 830 11 UA
# 2: 2013 1 1 533 4 850 20 UA
# 3: 2013 1 1 542 2 923 33 AA
# 4: 2013 1 1 544 -1 1004 -18 B6
# 5: 2013 1 1 554 -6 812 -25 DL
# 6: 2013 1 1 554 -4 740 12 UA
# tailnum flight origin dest air_time distance hour minute
# 1: N14228 1545 EWR IAH 227 1400 5 17
# 2: N24211 1714 LGA IAH 227 1416 5 33
# 3: N619AA 1141 JFK MIA 160 1089 5 42
# 4: N804JB 725 JFK BQN 183 1576 5 44
# 5: N668DN 461 LGA ATL 116 762 5 54
# 6: N39463 1696 EWR ORD 150 719 5 54
The following code has an example of data summarization.
### Data Summarization
# Compute the mean arrival delay
DT[, list(mean_arrival_delay = mean(arr_delay, na.rm = TRUE))]
# mean_arrival_delay
# 1: 6.895377
# Now, we compute the same value but for each carrier
mean1 = DT[, list(mean_arrival_delay = mean(arr_delay, na.rm = TRUE)),
by = carrier]
print(mean1)
# carrier mean_arrival_delay
# 1: UA 3.5580111
# 2: AA 0.3642909
# 3: B6 9.4579733
# 4: DL 1.6443409
# 5: EV 15.7964311
# 6: MQ 10.7747334
# 7: US 2.1295951
# 8: WN 9.6491199
# 9: VX 1.7644644
# 10: FL 20.1159055
# 11: AS -9.9308886
# 12: 9E 7.3796692
# 13: F9 21.9207048
# 14: HA -6.9152047
# 15: YV 15.5569853
# 16: OO 11.9310345
# Now let’s compute to means in the same line of code
mean2 = DT[, list(mean_departure_delay = mean(dep_delay, na.rm = TRUE),
mean_arrival_delay = mean(arr_delay, na.rm = TRUE)),
by = carrier]
print(mean2)
# carrier mean_departure_delay mean_arrival_delay
# 1: UA 12.106073 3.5580111
# 2: AA 8.586016 0.3642909
# 3: B6 13.022522 9.4579733
# 4: DL 9.264505 1.6443409
# 5: EV 19.955390 15.7964311
# 6: MQ 10.552041 10.7747334
# 7: US 3.782418 2.1295951
# 8: WN 17.711744 9.6491199
# 9: VX 12.869421 1.7644644
# 10: FL 18.726075 20.1159055
# 11: AS 5.804775 -9.9308886
# 12: 9E 16.725769 7.3796692
# 13: F9 20.215543 21.9207048
# 14: HA 4.900585 -6.9152047
# 15: YV 18.996330 15.5569853
# 16: OO 12.586207 11.9310345
### Create a new variable called gain
# this is the difference between arrival delay and departure delay
DT[, gain:= arr_delay - dep_delay]
# Compute the median gain per carrier
median_gain = DT[, median(gain, na.rm = TRUE), by = carrier]
print(median_gain)
