Product Water Footprint

The Water Footprint Network based in the Netherlands is a non-profit foundation that connects with communities and partners interested in sustainable use of fresh water.   The organization believes that sustainable use of fresh water is a critical foundation for healthy lives and a healthy planet.  

The Water Footprint Network employs the water footprint as a method to measure how much water was used to produce each of the goods or services we consume.  The water footprint looks at both direct and indirect water use of a product and includes water consumption and pollution through the full production cycle.

There are 3 types of water footprint:

     1)  Green water footprint:  water from rain or precipitation.  It is relevant for agricultural, horticultural and forestry products.

     2)  Blue water footprint:   water from surface or groundwater.  It is relevant for irrigated agriculture, industry and domestic water use.

     3)  Grey water footprint:  amount of fresh water required to assimilate pollutants to meet specific water quality standards.

Let’s take a look at the water footprint for agricultural and farm animal products and determine if you can do your part to reduce your water footprint.  Remember every drop counts!

Global Risks

Picture this:  Every January.  Davos.  World Economic Forum. 

Most people would envision an exclusive gathering of the world’s movers and shakers, some might see a big collection of private jets, but since I’m a data analyst the only thing I can think of is… lots of data.  And I’m not disappointed.

Since 2006, the World Economic Forum has published the annual Global Risks report which identifies risks that might cause significant negative impact for several countries and industries.  A key characteristic of global risks is their potential systemic nature to affect an entire system, as opposed to individual parts and components.

The risks can be viewed in terms of the financial impact they might cause or the probable likelihood they might occur.  The risks are also grouped into five categories:  (1) Economic, (2) Environmental, (3) Geopolitical, (4) Societal, & (5) Technological. 

The data was visualized as a bump chart.  The viz reveals that economic risk dominated from 2007 to 2014, such as asset-price bubble as top risk (during the Global Financial Crisis 2007-2009) and fiscal crises as a result of constrained fiscal finances (immediate post-crisis years 2010-2014).

In 2015, societal and geopolitical risks emerge as top risks with water crises (prolonged drought), spread of infectious diseases (Ebola in West Africa), and interstate conflict (rise of Islamic State) occupying the top five risks.  Also in 2015, water crises becomes the number 1 global risk in terms of impact and its category is changed from environmental to societal to reflect its potential enormous effect to social stability.

Eigentaste's Funniest Jokes

Eigentaste is a collaborative filtering algorithm to elicit real-valued user ratings on a common set of items and applies principal component analysis (PCA) to the resulting dense subset of the ratings matrix (Technical talk).

Eigentaste is a technology to deliver personalized jokes catered to your own taste, imagine that!  (Marketing talk).

Eigentaste was developed by Professor Ken Goldberg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.  The technology has been implemented in Jester 5.0, an online joke system, to recommend new jokes to users based on their ratings of the initial set.  Here’re the funniest jokes from Jester 5.0 based on users’ highest rating.  

Laugh more, live longer!

Doing Business 2015

Doing Business 2015 – Going Beyond Efficiency is a flagship report from the World Bank Group based in Washington DC.  This global thematic report measures business regulations whether they enhance or constrain business activity in 189 economies around the world (download report here).  Government with an efficient bureaucracy plays a critical role in providing a right environment where individuals and businesses will thrive.  Too much regulation is a recipe for economic stagnation whereas too little regulation can lead to economic disaster (remember the Great Recession?).

In this report , the countries are ranked by the Ease of Doing Business score, which is a composite of the following 10 indicators:  1) Starting a business, 2) Dealing with construction permits, 3) Getting electricity, 4) Registering property, 5) Trading across borders, 6) Getting credit, 7) Protecting minority investors, 8) Enforcing contracts, 9) Resolving insolvency, & 10) Labor market regulation.
                    
Parallel coordinates were used to visualize this multi-dimensional data.  The best way to utilize this visualization is to filter the data by region, income, or country.  Otherwise if all 189 countries were displayed, the chart would become a colorful abstract visualization with too much information!

The top 3 economies that make it easiest to do business in 2015 are Singapore, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, ranked 1, 2, and 3, respectively.  Now go ahead and compare countries of your choice to see which nation is more business-friendly so that you can open your oversea office or start your business there!

GE Data Visualization

I’ve recently got a new job at GE Global Research in San Ramon, CA.

GE is a global corporation that brings together the brightest engineers and scientists to solve complex scientific problems.  GE technologies generate huge data (petabytes) that contains valuable information which can drive insights, innovations, and discoveries.  GE is using data visualization to pair science and design in order to bring forward the meaning behind the data.

Check out some cool vizs at GE Data Visualization.

Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery

Have you been arrested?  Imagine this question appears when someone searches for your name on the Internet.  The Discrimination in Online Ad Delivery report by Professor Latanya Sweeney from Harvard University indicated that an Internet search by black-identifying names was more likely to yield an advertisement suggestive of an arrest record than a search by white-identifying names (download report here).  This racially biased advertisement distribution could inadvertently impact a person’s reputation and the affected person might not know about the potential negative consequences. 

However, advertisers are protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution that advertisements are commercial free speech.  But what if the advertisements suggestive of a criminal background appear more frequently for one racial group than for another’s, is that still free speech or has it become racial discrimination?  As this research yielded more questions than answers, perhaps Internet search companies should yield to moral high grounds and refine their search logic to provide a user experience free of racial bias.  

This viz was influenced by the New York Times’ “Why Is Her Paycheck Smaller” graph, which has been well-received in the data visualization community for its elegant use of annotation to deliver the thought-provoking message.  In order to draw the diagonal lines in the scatter plot, I sought help from Tableau Zen Master extraordinaire, Joe Mako.  Then I inserted the ‘% Arrest Ads’ annotations to the viz.  The final result highlights the unfair issue of discrimination in online ad delivery.

In addition, the box plots to the right show the differential on the arrest ads display when searching for names according to race and gender.  

Learn About Tableau

This viz was made possible with the permission of Professor Latanya Sweeney from Harvard University and the contribution of Joe Mako, Tableau Zen Master.  I'm grateful to both for their generosity.

Global Warming

Let’s start the New Year with a hot topic and a Nobel-Prize-quality global thematic report.  The ‘Climate Change 2013 Assessment Report’, produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) based in Geneva, provides a comprehensive view of the current scientific knowledge of climate change.  It’s a compelling read into global warming and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts.
 

What fascinating about this authoritative 1522-pages report is that it contains 482 sophisticated graphs that help to illustrate complex concepts into something more understandable.  The graphs play an important role in consolidating numerous points into singular visualizations that define a central concept.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these 482 graphs tell many mini-stories and together enhance the value of the report tremendously.

I’m happy to recommend this extraordinary report because (1) global warming is currently relevant, and (2) this report is a fine example of how the combination of excellent research writing and meaningful data visualization/illustration can yield outstanding result.  This report is epic.  Obviously, there’ll be no viz of mine because none is needed.  By the way, Al Gore and IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize together.