Exploratory Data Analysis : Objectives

04/08/2000

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Table of Contents

Exploratory Data Analysis : Objectives

Probability and statistics background

Why do exploratory data analysis?

A general model for data, estimates, predictions

Considerations on data, observations and predictions

Error characteristics

A measure of accuracy - MSE

In terms of the error

Typical questions in EDA

Data collection procedures

Some general characteristics exhibited by environmental data

What dictates the characteristics of the data?

Characteristics of interest

Characteristics of interest (cont.)

Analysis tools

A short preview of the tools

Summarizing univariate data

Aside: Ranked data and quantiles (or percentiles)

Ranked data and quantiles (continued)

Classical measures of location

Resistant measures of location

Measures of variability (spread)

Measures of symmetry

Measures of association between variables

Pearson’s correlation coefficient

Alternative measures of association

Test for significance of ?

Alternative measure of association

Association in time - serial correlation or autocorrelation

Transformation of data

Types of transformations

Some techniques for visualizing the characteristics of data

Time series plots of data

Annual streamflow data

Monthly precipitation data

Daily streamflow data

Daily precipitation data

Analyzing seasonal behavior

Visualizing seasonal behavior

Representations of seasonal data

Plots of seasonal descriptive statistics

Example: Plot of seasonal statistics

Box plots

Typical box plot features

Example box plot

Seasonal box plots

Computing Fourier series

Graphical representation of a univariate distribution

Box plots

Example: Box plot

Histograms

Histograms (cont.)

Determination of the number of intervals (bins)

Determination of the relative frequency

Example: Histogram

Example: Probability plot

Graphical representation of relationship between variables

More on the nature of the association

Functional forms of association

Nonlinear functional relationships

Example: Scatterplot

Associations among several variables

Example: SPLOM

Author: Engineering & Applied Science 

Email: roy@eas.pdx.edu

Home Page: http://www.ce.pdx.edu/~roy