Group02 Proposal

PROPOSAL

POSTER

APPLICATION

RESEARCH PAPER

ALL PROJECTS

Overview

Empires rise and fall because of it; its ways are looked upon as the lifelines for nations who fought and died for it. Yet, it is something that you engage in as part of your daily life. 'It' refers to trade, which is the exchange of goods and services, often with compensation paid by the buyer to the seller.

From the simplest forms of bartering that had been interwoven into the earliest fabric of human history, to the modern-day commodity derivatives traded on virtual exchanges, trade has always been an essential economic activity to mankind. With the progression of time, the vital role of trade has not changed. Rapid industrialisation necessitated the embracing of division of labour, and entrance into the 21st century heralded various technological advancements that removed geographic boundaries that created a global market. Comparative advantages and trade dependencies have thus developed over the years, entrenching trade as a foundation for national economies and our global society at large. Voluminous commodities now flow in and out of countries, and data about such movements have proliferated over the years with the application of technology into commodity trading processes and workflows.

The importance of trade is unquestionable, and our group hopes to apply visual analytics methods to facilitate and share the understanding of trade in the form of an interactive dashboard, to empower users to explore commodity trades in all its complex interdependencies, and changes through time.

Plots

The following plots are proposed to provide visual insights into their respective topics:
1. EDA: Choropleth map plot
2. Relationships: Sankey plot
3. Chronology & Geography: Sun-burst plot

Data Sources

The Global Commodity Trade Statistics data is retrieved from United Nations Statistics Division of the UNData website. The retrieved 8.23 million rows of data between 1988 to 2016 comprises the following information:

• Country Name of Record
• Year in which the trade has taken place
• Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) by World Customs Organization comprising about 5000 commodity groups; each identified by a six digit code
• Description of a particular commodity code
• Flow of Trade (Import, Export)
• Value of Trade in USD
• Weight of the Commodity in Kilograms
• Description of the quantity measurement type given the type of item
• Quantity count of a given item based on the Quantity Name
• Category to identify commodity

URL: Link: http://data.un.org/Explorer.aspx

Tools & Packages

• shiny
• shinydashboard
• tidyverse
• dplyr
• countrycode
• rworldmap
• sunburstR
• treemap
• geofacet
• networkD3
• ggpplot2

References

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