UNDP

This project was designed to test several things:

• Reading a JSON dataset
• Window functions in R
• Creating a simple analysis tool using UNDP data
• Interactive graphs with Plotly
• Uploading the tool to Shinyapps.io

The app is available on Shinyapps.io Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or you just want to report a bug :)

Downloading and preparing data

Data is first downloaded from UNDP as a JSON file containing three datasets.

library(jsonlite)
library(plyr)
library(dplyr)
library(plotly)

# read data
json_file <- "http://ec2-52-1-168-42.compute-1.amazonaws.com"
json_data <- jsonlite::fromJSON(json_file)

# create countries data.frame
countries <- ldply(json_data$country_name)
names(countries) <- c("id","name")

# create indicators data.frame
indicators <- ldply(json_data$indicator_name)
names(indicators) <- c("id","name")
indicators$id <- as.integer(indicators$id)

# create main data.frame
data <- as.data.frame(json_data$indicator_value, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
names(data) <- c("country","indicator","year","value")
data$indicator <- as.integer(data$indicator)
data$year <- as.integer(data$year)
data$value <- as.numeric(data$value)

Ranking function

The core of this ranking function is a concept I often use within TSQL, a Window function.

# ranking function returns chosen countries ranked by selected indicator
rank <- function(undp, indi, countries) {
    # filter by indicator
    filtered <- subset(undp, indicator == indi)
    
    # group by year
    grouped <- group_by(filtered, year)
    
    # add rank column
    ranked <- mutate(grouped, rnk = min_rank(value))        
    
    # keep only chosen countries
    ranked <- subset(ranked, country %in% countries)
    
    # return df
    ranked
}