ISSS608 Sivagamy CHALLENGE QUESTIONS

ISSS608 ASSIGNMENT - MINI CHALLENGE 1 2017

Introduction

Data Preparation

Dashboard

Challenge Questions

Q1 Patterns of Daily Life

The 'Patterns of Daily Life' analyses depend on recognizing repeating patterns of activities by individuals or groups on a daily basis.

PATTERN 1 - Ranger Stops

• The least accessed gate is the ranger-base, which makes sense as it is located at the south east corner of the preserve and there is no need for the use of this gate by other vehicles. Also it is possible that only the rangers use this gate and other vehicle are restricted for access.
• The ranger-stop 0 and ranger-stop 2 are accessible by all vehicle types, as these are located in-between the the general-gate 1 and general-gate 2. As these ranger - stops acts as the shortest path between the general gates 1 and 2, other vehicles are given access to pass through these gates.
• Whereas the other ranger-stops are not accessed by vehicles other than ranger vehicle which could mean that the these gates are prohibited for other vehicle types or as all ranger-stops except (0 and 2) are located away from paths and there is no need for other vehicles to access this path.

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figure 1

PATTERN 2 - Campers

• All vehicle types except Buses use the camping sites.
• The most commonly used campaign gates are campaign 8 and campaign 5, it is most likely due to the location of these campaigns. Both these campaigns are located on the outer boundary of the reserve and also it is nearer to other gates.
• The least used campaign is campaign 1, most probably as it is isolated or located far from the other gates.

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PATTERN 3 - Peak Hours

• The peak hours are from 6 AM till 5 PM for all the vehicle types except for the buses (both 2 axle and 3 axle).
• For vehicletype, 2 axle (cars or motorcycles) this may be because they are tourists who must have come for activities such as bird watching, photo shooting, cycling, hiking or simply for sight seeing for which sunlight is necessary.

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PATTERN 4 - By-Passers

• Both 2 axle and 3 axle buses only use the gate type - General gates, entrance gate and ranger stop (only 0 and 2) gates and most of these gates lie on the outer boundary of the preserve.
• Also buses don't visit or pass through any Campaign stops or Gate stops.
• This could mean that these vehicle types, buses use the preserve as a by pass to move from one city to another.
• It is also possible that some of these buses are owned by the light manufacturing factories for transporting the workers in and out of the factory on various shifts.

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Q2 Patterns of Long period

The 'Patterns of Long period' analyses depend on recognizing repeating patterns of activities by individuals or groups over a longer period (multiple days).

PATTERN 1 - Summer Season

• The number of visitors starts to increase from the month of May and reaches its peak during the month of July, this can be explained as a seasonal effect.
• In summer, the daylight lasts longer for the visitors to have some extra time to enjoy the Flora and Fauna.
• It is also the holiday season, so people often travel to areas like these to have a calm and peaceful day.

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PATTERN 2 - Winter Season

• The number of visitors drop considerably after November, this can be explained as a seasonal effect.
• In winter, the flowers wither and the animals don't come out. So, this can be the main reason for the drop in the visits during the last quarter of the year.

PATTERN 3 - Stable Pattern

• Opposed to the summer pattern, where there is a peak during a certain period of time, the number of visitors with vehicle type - 3 axle bus and Ranger truck, remain stable throughout the year. There are changes but not a considerable one, or a very high peak then a sudden drop.
• For Ranger vehicles, this is reasonable as the rangers need to check the preserve at all times.
• As for the 3 axle bus, this might be the city bus, whose frequency doesn't change much with seasons.

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PATTERN 4 - Days of the week

• Sunday and Saturday during the months of Summer (May to August) have more visitors compared to the other days. One exception is Friday's on the month of July, which seems to the the highest number of visitors among all days of the week.
• This might be due to the holiday month, where people start going on a trip even during the weekdays.

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PATTERN 5 - Ranger's Patrol Period

• There is no ranger Patrol from 3 AM till 6 AM on weekdays except on Fridays. On Thursdays the 'no patrol period' extends for an hour - from 2 AM till AM
• On Saturdays, there is no patrol from 1 AM till 6 AM.
• The 'no patrol period' may be because of the lesser traffic on these periods or it may be that the early morning period (3 AM till 6 AM) is a very precious period for the Flora and the rangers had this 'no patrol period' specifically not to disturb them.

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Q3 Unusual Patterns

Analysis to find out patterns that differs from the ones that are already observed or anomalies.

PATTERN 1 - Ranger stops accessed by 4-axle trucks

• The pattern we have observed so far for the ranger stops seems to change for the 4-axle trucks, which seems to visit ranger stops 3 and 6.
• This might be an illegal entry in which case the rangers need to be more careful.
• Another possibility is that it might be an authorized entry for delivering some supplies for the preserves in which case it seems reasonable that it goes around to 4 of the ranger stops namely ranger stops 0, 2, 3 and 6.

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PATTERN 2 - Exit Pattern

• If we consider the final timestamp of each car type and then map it with the gate type, we can see that all of the car types are at entrance or campaign but 1 particular 3 axle bus is at general-gate 4 and a 2 axle (car or motorcycle) is at general-gate 7.
• One possibility could be that it had a break-down and was left there for later retrieval. Then while it was retrieved, the entry card was not card by the sensor or the entry card was return earlier to the rangers so the sensor would not have captured the data.

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Q4 Top 3 patterns

The top 3 patterns you discovered that I suspect could be most impactful to the bird life in the nature preserve?

• The 3 axle and 4 axle trucks are frequently using the nature reserve as a bridge at all times, these are heavy vehicles and produce a lot of noise pollution and birds are highly responsive to sound. So, the noise made by these vehicles could have an impact on the bird life.
• The buses, 2 axle and 3 axles, carrying a lot of people could make the birds to be defensive and hence may not nest on the routes the buses travel.
• The night campers are also suspected to be a reason for the disturbance of the bird life in the Boonsong Lekagul Nature Preserve, as this will have an impact on the resting time of the birds. And to find a peaceful resting place they might not nest in these areas as well.

by Chua Gim Hong

Overall, very interesting analysis and easy to understand visuals.

The first two graphs are aesthetically well considered. Please explore if you can improve on the clarity by (1) aligning the title with the description/labels on both axes (2) sorting the colour legends in the same order as the graphs and (3) using percentile on vertical axes to avoid cluttering of low values near the horizontal axes.

When using the map, please explore a larger image so that the fonts on the maps are large enough.

by Akanksha Mittal

Hi Shiva, you have put nice efforts in your work. But there are few points that I would like to highlight which we learnt in class as well as through reader’s perspective.
Reader’s perspective:
1. When you are providing any insights, please provide the picture reference that you are talking about. Because few times in a write-up portion you are talking about picture above and then in next point you start talking about picture below. So for a laymen, it will be difficult to trace which picture you are talking about. For e.g., in section “Ranger Stops”, your first point is about picture 1 and your next point is about picture 3.
Aesthetics:
1. The bar graph that you have shown in section “Campers” need to be sorted for better comparison and visuals.
2. The line graph in your Q2 section can have color contrast, few codes possess shades of a color which makes it hard to differentiate between the different car-types.
Clarity:
1. As I have also worked on this challenge, I don’t think that grouping 2 axle and 4 axle trucks as “truck” is a good option. If you try to do so, you can miss some important information because 2 axle truck can be part of ranger’s team for maintenance work and hence can be present at various places which are not so common for trucks to be there.