Uniformity

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Maggie Matsui
Content Developer @ DataCamp
Uniformity
Different units or formats
Temperature: °C vs. °F

Weight: kg vs. g vs. lb

Money: USD $ vs. GBP £ vs. JPY ¥

Date: DD-MM-YYYY vs. MM-DD-YYYY vs. YYYY-MM-DD

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Where do uniformity issues come from?

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Finding uniformity issues
head(nyc_temps)

date temp
1 2019-04-01 4.2
2 2019-04-02 7.5
3 2019-04-03 12.2
4 2019-04-04 11.1
5 2019-04-05 41.5
6 2019-04-06 11.9

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Finding uniformity issues
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(nyc_temps, aes(x = date, y = temp)) +
geom_point()

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What to do?
There's no one best option. It depends on your dataset!
Do your research to understand where your data comes from

Data from Apr 7, 16, and 23 is from an external source that measured temps in °F

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Unit conversion
5
C = (F − 32) ×
9
ifelse(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false)

nyc_temps %>%
mutate(temp_c = ifelse(temp > 50, (temp - 32) * 5 / 9, temp))

date temp temp_c

1 2019-04-01 4.2 4.20000
...
7 2019-04-07 58.5 14.72222
...

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Unit conversion
nyc_temps %>%
mutate(temp_c = ifelse(temp > 50, (temp - 32) * 5 / 9, temp)) %>%
ggplot(aes(x = date, y = temp_c)) +
geom_point()

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Date uniformity
nyc_temps

Date string Date format

date temp_c
1 2019-11-23 5.12 "2019-11-23" "%Y-%m-%d"

2 01/15/19 -0.67 "01/15/19" "%m/%d/%y"

3 April 24, 2019 17.46
"April 24, 2019" "%B %d, %Y"
4 08/30/19 26.46
5 October 3, 2019 14.63
6 2019-03-17 3.47
?strptime in R console

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Parsing multiple formats
library(lubridate)
parse_date_time(nyc_temps$date,
orders = c("%Y-%m-%d", "%m/%d/%y", "%B %d, %Y"))

"2019-11-23 UTC" "2019-01-15 UTC" "2019-04-24 UTC" "2019-08-30 UTC"

"2019-10-03 UTC" "2019-03-17 UTC"

parse_date_time("Monday, January 3",

orders = c("%Y-%m-%d", "%m/%d/%y", "%B %d, %Y"))

NA

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Ambiguous dates
Is 02/04/2019 in February or April?

Depends on your data!

Options include:

Treat as missing

If your data comes from multiple sources, infer based on source

Infer based on other data in the dataset

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Let's practice!
C L E A N I N G D ATA I N R
 Cross field validation
C L E A N I N G D ATA I N R

Maggie Matsui
Content Developer @ DataCamp
 What is cross field validation?
Cross field validation = a sanity check
Does this value make sense based on other values?

1 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/graphs-that-lied-to-us

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Credit card data
head(credit_cards)

date_opened dining_cb groceries_cb gas_cb total_cb acct_age

1 2018-07-05 26.08 83.43 78.90 188.41 1
2 2016-01-23 1309.33 4.46 1072.25 2386.04 4
3 2016-03-25 205.84 119.20 800.62 1125.66 4
4 2018-06-20 14.00 16.37 18.41 48.78 1
5 2017-02-08 98.50 283.68 281.70 788.33 3
6 2014-11-18 889.28 2626.34 2973.62 6489.24 5

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Validating numbers
credit_cards %>%
select(dining_cb:total_cb)

dining_cb groceries_cb gas_cb total_cb

1 26.08 83.43 78.90 188.41
2 1309.33 4.46 1072.25 2386.04
3 205.84 119.20 800.62 1125.66
4 14.00 16.37 18.41 48.78
5 98.50 283.68 281.70 788.33
6 889.28 2626.34 2973.62 6489.24

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Validating numbers
credit_cards %>%
mutate(theoretical_total = dining_cb + groceries_cb + gas_cb) %>%
filter(theoretical_total != total_cb) %>%
select(dining_cb:theoretical_total)

dining_cb groceries_cb gas_cb total_cb theoretical_total

1 98.50 283.68 281.70 788.33 663.88
2 3387.53 363.85 2706.42 4502.94 6457.80

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Validating date and age
credit_cards %>%
select(date_opened, acct_age)

date_opened acct_age
1 2018-07-05 1
2 2016-01-23 4
3 2016-03-25 4
4 2018-06-20 1
5 2017-02-08 3
6 2014-11-18 5

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Calculating age
library(lubridate)
date_difference <- as.Date("2015-09-04") %--% today()
date_difference

2015-09-04 UTC--2020-03-09 UTC

as.numeric(date_difference, "years")

4.511978

floor(as.numeric(date_difference, "years"))

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Validating age
credit_cards %>%
mutate(theor_age = floor(as.numeric(date_opened %--% today(), "years"))) %>%
filter(theor_age != acct_age)

date_opened acct_age dining_cb groceries_cb gas_cb total_cb theor_age

1 2016-03-25 4 814.34 471.58 3167.41 4453.33 3
2 2018-03-06 3 238.48 186.05 213.84 638.37 2

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What next?

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Let's practice!
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 Completeness
C L E A N I N G D ATA I N R

Maggie Matsui
Content Developer @ DataCamp
What is missing data?

Can be represented as NA , nan , 0 , 99 , . ...

CLEANING DATA IN R
What is missing data?

Can be represented as NA , nan , 0 , 99 , . ...

CLEANING DATA IN R
What is missing data?

Can be represented as NA , nan , 0 , 99 , . ...

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Air quality
head(airquality)

Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day

1 41 190 7.4 67 5 1
2 36 118 8.0 72 5 2
3 12 149 12.6 74 5 3
4 18 313 11.5 62 5 4
5 NA NA 14.3 56 5 5
6 28 NA 14.9 66 5 6

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Air quality
head(airquality)

Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day

1 41 190 7.4 67 5 1
2 36 118 8.0 72 5 2
3 12 149 12.6 74 5 3
4 18 313 11.5 62 5 4
5 NA NA 14.3 56 5 5
6 28 NA 14.9 66 5 6

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Finding missing values
is.na(airquality)

Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day

[1,] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
[2,] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
[3,] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
[4,] FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
[5,] TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
[6,] FALSE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE

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Counting missing values
# Count missing vals in entire dataset
sum(is.na(airquality))

44

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Visualizing missing values
library(visdat)
vis_miss(airquality)

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Investigating missingness
airquality %>%
mutate(miss_ozone = is.na(Ozone)) %>%
group_by(miss_ozone) %>%
summarize(across(everything(), median, na.rm = TRUE))

miss_ozone Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day

<lgl> <dbl> <int> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
1 FALSE 31.5 207 9.7 65 7 16
2 TRUE NA 194 9.7 99 6 15

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Investigating missingness
airquality %>%
arrange(Temp) %>%
vis_miss()

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Types of missing data

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Types of missing data

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Types of missing data

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Types of missingness

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Dealing with missing data
Simple approaches:

1. Drop missing data

2. Impute (fill in) with statistical measures (mean, median, mode..) or domain knowledge

More complex approaches:

1. Impute using an algorithmic approach

2. Impute with machine learning models

Learn more in Dealing with Missing Data in R

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Dropping missing values
airquality %>%
filter(!is.na(Ozone), !is.na(Solar.R))

Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day

<int> <int> <dbl> <int> <int> <int>
1 41 190 7.4 67 5 1
2 36 118 8 72 5 2
3 12 149 12.6 74 5 3
4 18 313 11.5 62 5 4
5 23 299 8.6 65 5 7
6 19 99 13.8 59 5 8

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Replacing missing values
airquality %>%
mutate(ozone_filled = ifelse(is.na(Ozone), mean(Ozone, na.rm = TRUE), Ozone))

Ozone Solar.R Wind Temp Month Day ozone_filled

<int> <int> <dbl> <int> <int> <int> <dbl>
1 41 190 7.4 67 5 1 41
2 36 118 8 72 5 2 36
3 12 149 12.6 74 5 3 12
4 18 313 11.5 62 5 4 18
5 NA NA 14.3 56 5 5 42.1

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Let's practice!
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