Data Mining: Visualisation of the US Economy
How do you extract the useful and important information from a large data set?
The macro economic data related to 100 years of the US economy were analysed using a statistical method called archetype analysis.
What is archetype analysis?
Usually data are analysed in terms of averages.
A data set can be analysed by looking at the data
with respect to variables that represents extreme behaviour or archetypes.
For instance, if we were studying consumers' buying habits, extreme behaviours
would be the "shop-till-you-drop" type of person or
the type who only buys by mail-order.
The US economy can be summarised by plotting the data versus 3 archetypes: boom (in green), stagflation (in blue), and depression (in red).
This visualisation was done at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and Sydney VisLab with AVS.
N. Bordes and
B. Pailthorpe, Sydney VisLab
R. Carson, University of California San Diego
G. Johnson, San Diego Supercomputer Center