Association rule mining is a rule-based learning method that is intended to be used to discover interesting relationships between
variables in a data set [Wikipedia]. For example, imagine a set of data where each row of data is a set of items that a
shopper at a grocery store has purchased. When looking at each row, one could see relationships between items. For example,
every time a basket of items has vanilla extract, the basket probably also has sugar (for baking purposes). If the store
can find that relationship, they might consider putting vanilla extract and sugar together so that shoppers would
be able to purchase those together for convenience purposes. Other relationships in the data may not be as clear cut, and
through association rule mining, the relationships can be visualized better and decisions/conclusions can be made given the data.
In this research, several sets of text data were gathered, both from the Google Search API, but also manually through a
variety of research areas. See the Data Cleaning portion of the project for more information on the Academic Corpus data.
Assuming each article is a "transaction" or basket of items/words, it would be interesting to see how the data is related
and whether there was a potential to isolate or at least better visualize the relationships between these disasters and
their effects on food security. To isolate the effect of each disaster on food security, several filters were added to attempt
to focus the relationships on certain keywords. These keywords came from the four pillars of food security, including availability,
access, stability, and utilization, plus food and security.
When gathering the data initially, there were only a few sets of transactions, since each transaction was an article, and each
transaction had a lot of items. After removing duplicate items from the transactions and removing words that didn't make any sense,
the following transaction data was produced. Below is a preview of the data, but it can also be downloaded in its raw form.
Africa hunger, famine: Facts, FAQs, and how to help | World Vision
drought
increasing alarming rate covid pandemic disaster relief news conflict drought economic extreme weather reversing progress sub chronically undernourished region work nearly population east risk starvation face acute acutely malnourished region heartbreaking east risk perfect storm conflict unpredictable weather covid said president vision long term harm malnutrition development ability achieve god given potential vision emergency response disaster relief news conflict work country south work country south work country work country help feed nutritional care screening pregnant acute malnutrition support vulnerable east avert catastrophic effect starvation loss particularly concerned impact said regional humanitarian emergency director vision east late avert crisis soon don act quickly decisively south successive crop poor work country zimbabwe work country zimbabwe mozambique work country mozambique work country taking toll agriculture production soaring past growing southern experienced rainfall widespread destruction disaster relief news cyclone march near time extreme drought conflict help need know crisis explore frequently crisis learn help hungry fast crisis recurring rainy impossible desert humanitarian need eastern southern global suffering declined nutrition situation sub past conflict poverty displacement create climate risk violence exploitation help necessary crisis worsening especially younger vulnerable need critical build strength immunity disease map current concern eastern southern according famine early warning network net net map east famine early warning march map courtesy net map east famine early warning june map courtesy net facing chronic recurring drought conflict instability led severe extreme poverty lack government community support help struggling economic health pandemic driven poverty despair secondary covid persist decline income lost power limited access basic continued compressed cycle recurring drought plunging drought chance recover sufficiently south news south refugee crisis fled violence able harvest crop available community rainy season country inaccessible transportation aid good sent market march long normal east brought relief livestock benefit flash net east alert overflowing thwarting cultivation relief kept coming nearly heavy flooding left trail destruction devastating half livestock swept away faced greater risk exposed disease time facing need aid poor afford healthy eventually need emergency help government aid run money talking low fund pantry past expiration talking money longer persist harder stave effect lost video hear word famine lot define famine word extreme scarcity absolute worst case scenario crisis technical definition used humanitarian community mind crisis crisis famine little region large scale starvation malnutrition death south declared famine unity state population aid area famine ended declare famine following happen given area face extreme limited ability cope suffer acute malnutrition day crisis longer technical criterion famine longer effect doe like crisis drought poor instability create cycle difficult break news worst instability conflict political flee unable plant livelihood dwindle close violent conflict worse humanitarian access affected bring emergency relief frequent intense recent western eastern southern affect production fragile similar way conflict doe water mean vast dead livestock affected livestock main source income nutrition sub stunted chronic malnutrition lack capacity learn contribute society little don right right time support physical intellectual growth lose significant leadership innovative potential cycle poverty deprivation malnutrition malnutrition unhealthy condition body doe need function properly occur don eat eating healthy crisis happen malnourished long underweight age growing poorly crisis risk permanently stunted short age risk experience severe acute malnutrition known severe wasting beginning lose ability absorb vital literally death time likely die child malnourished don just need need nutrient rich treatment ready use therapeutic month old charity mother community health worker mid upper arm circumference vision photo warren medical measure child mid upper arm circumference gauge level malnutrition child wrapping band green yellow red malnourished child tiny upper arm green child malnourished yellow malnourishment red severe malnourishment risk death malnutrition cause factor younger globally according health organization long term effect development doe exist table day vision crisis vision brought emergency aid long term assistance way help overcome root malnutrition assistance emergency feeding cash diagnosis treatment childhood malnutrition water sanitation prevent water related provide water irrigation support efficient agriculture diversify land rehabilitation improve march vision staff work country work country life saving include clean water sanitation livelihood training educational essential relief child protection provided child sponsorship local staff assist crisis provided drought resistant training cash work help avert crisis weather confidently time crisis staff south helping struggling malnutrition conflict persistent drought drought affected southern especially work country zimbabwe work country zimbabwe work country vision supporting nutrition stave poverty family drought raising economic empowerment news bring family facing drought vision helping affected east crisis vision south east seeking protect vulnerable severe emergency response south feed vision currently reaching sponsorship program east affected devastating east high malnutrition south vision providing nutritional care malnutrition march nearly age pregnant breastfeeding received nutritional care acute malnutrition dire situation faced gender based violence sexual exploitation abuse indirect covid persist region income lost limited access basic safety resilient don need aid substitute life saving aid emergency vision long term build resilience work agriculture bounce fail dry livelihood training aspect vision current help way crisis long term development place crisis maintain independence vision working today prevent future crisis benefit market development livestock training grow drought resistant cash aid ability care local saving community make help recover building water sanitation contribute healthy living new business training equipment help diversify income asset drought adverse weather resilience generational process stay school better prepared future help hungry pray news pray affected famine crisis emergency fund donate emergency campaign gift help provide essential care hungry sponsor child sponsor child campaign vision sponsorship program powerful way help fight poverty family community level sponsor child empower family community access life saving like nutritious clean water quality education history famine look major crisis faced today poverty sponsorship news global poverty drought conflict environmental degradation deforestation environmental damage drought region led mali chad drought conflict led widespread famine disaster relief news famine drought northern aid led massive famine drought civil war second war democratic republic mainly starvation disease horn crisis responsible east strong affected east southern causing humanitarian assistance east inter communal conflict report west conflict displacement flash update june led internally home half global total acutely insecure east highest number southern west late east widespread breeding desert loss vast large scale east devastating region conflict disaster relief news conflict dramatically displacement south experienced high malnutrition east risk starvation face acute acutely malnourished region south omer vision staff
SOFI 2018 - The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World
drought
high dependence agriculture measured number employed sector leaf percentage higher percent low income increase equal percentage percent finding different middle income rise pronounced later indicate middle income able absorb exposure climate able cope period possibly severity exposure come play period example economic experienced reduced fiscal environment implement social capacity cope aftermath extreme climate extreme crisis rise equally alarming number facing crisis level increase faced crisis acute worse immediate emergency action safeguard preserve increase respectively faced crisis climate related account percent major internationally percent total facing crisis acute worse nearly affected climate conflict climate occur impact acute severe crisis experienced double impact conflict climate led significant severity acute cause climate related globally extreme climate event flood related seeing highest increase percent occurrence frequency increasing second frequent driver climate related climate variability impact majority vulnerable climate natural billion small scale forest dependent derive income renewable natural drought percent crop harvest dry corridor especially climate variability direct impact availability given sensitivity agriculture climate primary role sector source rural poor overall far complex greater agricultural productivity climate variability undermining availability productivity undermine production increase access causing volatility especially following climate income loss depend agriculture utilization safety reduced dietary consumption reduced quality safety crop contamination rainfall intensity temperature
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/
Chapter 5 : Food Security - Special Report on Climate Change and Land
drought
diversification production promotion specie known orphan lost adaptation climate change particularly specie potential improve time help protect conserve traditional knowledge scaling training way adopt adequate crop management quality seed select farming soil management development new market district mid prefer cultivate local bean barley millet local maize commodity tolerant water stress extremely cold high altitude cold climate prefer local barley short growing period shorter growing window buckwheat commonly grown region mainly fast quinoa grew produced saline marginal soil grow time region substantial proportion population facing malnutrition various responsible lack diversity nutrition resulting production consumption past region different edible plant specie green revolution major rice wheat maize potato account global plant derived energy supply green revolution substantially yield reduce inappropriate excessive use inefficient water use loss beneficial water soil pollution significantly reduced crop varietal diversity farming moving away subsistence based commercial farming reluctant grow local low return poor market value lack knowledge nutritional environmental value transition traditional based local commercial crop based diet high salt sugar incidence non communicable diabetes obesity heart certain cancer hidden insufficient increasingly evident mountainous region internationally rising present fighting poverty malnutrition role climate risk agricultural production play important role mountain mountain agriculture generally low input agriculture region suitable cultivation traditional barley millet sorghum buckwheat bean taro yam vast range wild medicinal study carried mid indigenous crop specie belonging various farming continue grow various indigenous albeit marginal land value traditional associated culture agricultural research council list indigenous based nutritional medicinal cultural indigenous supply essential human body need mountain region various indigenous barley black gram horse gram yam sesame nutritional value indigenous comparable commercial dietary energy protein content rich example pearl millet higher content calcium iron zinc riboflavin acid rice maize provide climate resilience dietary diversity farming mountain indigenous high medical importance example mountain region syzygium treat diabetes province importance sea buckthorn nutritional medicinal local expanded cultivation cultivated marginal fallow land remains fallow specie drought resistant easily grown non land
2.1 Million Kenyans at Risk of Starvation Due to Droughts
drought
rapidly growing country drought lead facing starvation index resource center according national drought management authority dry impacted agricultural essential source beginning country declared state disaster president office state house press release president drought national disaster worsening drought governmental saying official statement government assist affected water relief distribution livestock uptake according index resource center drought driven result poor rainy march year said rainy season produce low rain worsen association north northeastern coastal country impacted urgent need aid climate change significantly impacted production country drought affected deal flash locust speaking guardian global development drought risk starvation secretary general red cross coupled conflict disastrous nation depressed desert fighting available making disaster said spoke impact covid living urban seen increase price reaching urban little power lost result pandemic said job agricultural industry result covid pandemic impact economy role global development mar fear work isolation option poor low production change social distance work proven significant hurdle overcome said index resource center national drought bulletin category drought social restricted communal performance agricultural availability casual labour reducing land cultivated crop production overall affected country decrease production staple maize experience total crop failure according speaking guardian global development drought risk starvation farmer eastern lack water struggle region facing salvage produce drip irrigation restrict water use drying river prove significant challenge told climate change past used cut firewood charcoal tell global warming rainfall said told guardian country think long term considering response climate crisis impact clear going worse said data help resilient bounce state disaster announcement stated government drought management plan revealed soon join global citizen live campaign defeat poverty defend planet action action movement powered taking action make change static static festival banner
How climate change threatens food security (and why we're all at risk)
drought
hungry undernourished climate change approach climate change response threat multiplier early number extreme weather related doubled reduced major increase decrease income disproportionately low income access chosen focus connection climate change global index project profile global index prepared concern sadly trend going away time soon looking ahead climate predict higher average land ocean hotter inhabited heavy precipitation increasing probability drought additional reducing reduced global proportionate level absolute number going bed hungry rise gradual progress reducing global scale progress uneven reduced global absolute number going bed hungry rise account undernourishment child story child wasting child mortality highlight action fight data available story let look way climate change impact climate change fast climate change threat multiplier hungry undernourished high highly vulnerable climate change low capacity adapt climate change production availability access quality utilization stability short extreme weather related increasing reduce major higher reduce nutritional value global greenhouse gas lost wasted farm table exacerbate climate change improving nutrition climate change conflict combined destroy drive displacement widen undermine sustainable development ending undernutrition climate large scale action carbon calculator carbon footprint responsible climate change struggling day day stack learn climate change living extreme poverty climate change agriculture production higher water scarcity extreme like greater atmosphere begun impact staple maize wheat production declined recent extreme weather plant overall increase water scarcity according agriculture organization united unpredictable yield cereal semi arid like region result climate variability related despite global falling face according global index like rising sea pose different threat likely flood coastal likely kill rice half national rice production centered delta region flood region roughly size impact country economy fairly consistent doing living story climate justice climate change effect climate change story effect climate change cycle poverty apparent like horn southeast need unique mitigate strike develop bespoke way reduce future boy water trough content drink water drought stricken concern severe drought horn forced leave countryside seek help near urban climate change access climate change production reason access simple supply demand big climate change weather drought lead inflated available price leave urban poor rural vulnerable urban poor spending total budget increasingly dependent frequent extreme region disrupt global likely adjust sudden event shock continue disproportionately affected climate change nutrition nutritional value insecure concern nutrition low income agrarian consumption seasonal harvest lean season leave reducing consumption skipping day harvest climate change reducing lean period extended longer adequate harvest additional zinc additional protein deficient climate change alternatively climate change adversely affect nutritional value grown higher carbon dioxide reduce protein zinc iron content additional zinc make susceptible additional protein deficient largely plant nutrition feel acutely plant based nutrition ripple effect livestock rely eat grow produce meat milk livestock severely drought accounting drought related account climate threaten fish especially like southeast climate change waste rain guarantee healthy higher flooding produce toxic mold grown high drought humid storage vulnerable fungal climate extreme climate commonplace lose annual basis woman mother law drought struck northern content concern drought mother law family live northwestern plagued drought photo concern according agriculture organization roughly produced lost field market low middle income high income similar wasted market table currently greenhouse meaning add climate crisis malnutrition conclusion climate change global way suffer undernutrition vulnerable added order end sustainable development story sustainable development year need tackle current climate crisis particularly topic climate justice raised climate change related climate justice climate change learn provide support affected climate change increasingly global nature happen isolation foster global solidarity climate vulnerable high income especially highest greenhouse taking responsibility climate change supporting low middle income effect tall order order affect regardless live global index content work climate change
Drought in south-western Angola drives severe hunger | World Food Programme
drought
south western facing severe worst drought leaf barren pasture dry according recent phase classification analysis migration search water grazing cattle registered south country said head office suffering devastating effect climate change current drought nutrition vulnerable threat high locust infestation severe damage compounding effect drought ability access nutritious coming situation likely worsen number hungry touching march lean season traditionally stock run low drought impacted age suffering likely suffer acute malnutrition effect physical mental development support drought response working provincial strengthen treatment prevention acute malnutrition working secure expansion drought affected expand nutrition affected period need assistance inter ministerial drought task force include support nutrition vulnerability analysis supply chain management help government set nutrition provincial level support assistance urgent need support government central provincial level link emergency response resilience development line national development plan analysis carried ministry agriculture technical assistance south western strengthening resilience nutrition funded union complete analysis available country analysis map ago united peace prize laureate humanitarian organization saving assistance build pathway peace stability prosperity conflict impact climate change follow twitter
El Niño, Drought Blamed As Severe Food Insecurity Doubles In 6 Months In Haiti | World Food Programme
drought
port prince consecutive year drought global weather phenomenon driven poverty doubled severely insecure population united said today facing severely insecure key finding emergency assessment agriculture organization national main harvest fell average percent severe blow agriculture half working population percent live day rain spring season lose fourth consecutive harvest normally depend feed said deputy country director need help meet immediate need help build resilience current early record affecting vulnerable globe percent population facing recent study government revealed malnutrition emergency based new scale assistance address critical immediate need drought affected cash complement immediate cash asset cash exchange work watershed management soil conservation improve local infrastructure long term development cash asset worst hit drought government worst affected drought month ration family basic rice oil sugar salt addition school drought hit provide crucial support receive meal daily time encouraging attend school assistance essential harvest meet basic need funded entirely voluntary humanitarian agency fighting assistance working improve nutrition build resilience year video footage available request contact follow twitter information contact address port prince geneva mob jane mob barrow mob new york mob
Climate Extremes, Food Insecurity, and Migration in Central America: A Complicated Nexus - Guatemala | ReliefWeb
drought
growing evidence climate devastating impact agriculture central affecting serving driver migration region shown financial rural associated southern oscillation phenomenon agricultural associated drought central dry corridor panama way southern billion half agricultural sector financial aid help recovery smallholder affected catastrophic climatic limited international fund agricultural development climate policy initiative just percent climate finance smallholder small longer piece living earnings crop suffer migration typically united resort adaptation strategy climate migration region environmental change just number stoke migration catastrophic climatic flooding following eta iota hit central hard week span devastating effect potentially encouraging migration nearly half program study migration insecure percent adopted emergency selling land percent dry corridor small scale migrate response difficult according survey agriculture organization migration high profile early impossible measure precisely multiple estimate thousand traveled north region difficult parse precisely role climate variability change migration given presence violence long established migration region united migratory affected significant central immigrant united seek reunite left availability enforcement immigration policy relationship climate agricultural production migration complex non linear nature situation complicated climatic forecasting understanding climate health morbidity mortality region deficient health care limited health result limited capacity understand spectrum decision making regarding intersection climate migration climate impact subsistence similar poor rural evaluate causality decision making regarding migration climate migration potential intervention adaptation provision climate generation translation transfer use climate information climate uneven development solely afford capitalize information vulnerability climate variability change illustrate seasonal forecast climate agricultural tool adapt climatic potentially achieve place engaging behavior outcome likely occur climate paired assistance demonstrate early policy mitigate effect climate ultimately migration order develop effective policy understanding climate variability environmental change affect urgent matter left unaddressed invisibility climate migration translate climate vulnerability face future exposure climate effect climate change common narrative poverty extreme poverty defined living day consume produce reality complex produce work seasonally pay unskilled labor coffee acquire additional natural water virtually rely combination climate variability environmental change impact different entangled way affecting multiple figure leaving aside structural poverty lack access health care financial different general illustrate difficulty causality climate variability change affect migration practical sense explain crisis join heading united recent poor extreme poor rural buy depend hired unskilled agricultural coffee demand labor declined coffee farm faced climate associated climate variability business lack transparency value chain receive just fraction coffee retail price especially vulnerable price recent price coffee structured way little farming saddled financial burden production associated climate bear risk cost climate behalf entire sector true cost coffee understood built according specialty coffee association report majority little social safety operating loss retail price coffee united left decreasing percentage total value overall low coffee increasing production capacity coffee remain profitable reducing demand unskilled labor used appropriately climate help adapt production climate hire second pathway staple maize pathway evident way climate variability change production affecting optimal climatic sowing available rainfall critical soil moisture cropland affected torrential rain produced persistent drought addition smallholder encounter production associated disaster related loss infrastructure limit access climate inform poor use efficiently grow lastly poor extreme poor rely fishing water study diverse number used seasonal collected shrinking partly effect climatic shrunk recent covering percent country land area percent fishing warm usually associated decrease fish availability particular pathway natural resource use climate aid adaptation climate effect hardly linear impact rural agricultural constructively depending employ adaptation different time understanding scope draw household propensity migrate potential climate complementary suggest close relationship precipitation crop failure particularly younger able anticipate enable make informed maximize crop production improve affect propensity migrate recent attention use climate information generation pillar climate agricultural associated climate triggered high demand comprehensive information use manage agricultural risk forecast seasonal addition new climate forecasting innovative way transferring knowledge distribution inclusive actionable climate information climate potential help adapt short term plant following season water rain irrigation ultimately long term climate aid transform agricultural potentially alternative migration additionally learned providing climate help understand climate information reveal specific pose spread information increase access use climate access climate information doe necessarily lead agricultural develop actionable farm level adaptation order climate impact development identify provide implement adequate climate effective consider socioeconomic solely providing climate information understand overall interrelated different climate financial support help different capitalize information climate provision power dynamic example project designed generate climate information forecasting able create regional climate relevant traditional kept climate information considered useful spatial scale predictability relevant make project university international research institute climate society use climate knowledge improve combat heavily reliant agriculture vulnerable climate variability change seasonal forecast potential aid decision making challenge remains identify cash coffee cacao staple maize connect information way doe promote uneven development foster inequality reproduce unequal power dynamic addition financial aid large scale afford capitalize climate information smallholder implement adaptation forcing consider alternative coping working farming migration adaptation affected unexpected way farm level provision climate just climate change migration complex potential policy hastily produced unintended inequality partly provision climate silver bullet calculus migration enable remain place choose climate paired financial assistance allow benefit par systematic approach ass climate information applied agriculture available science hidalgo sector available handle sequence migration propensity index application international policy research institute available publication migration propensity index application climate finance gap small scale agriculture climate policy initiative international fund agricultural development available climate finance agriculture organization united city available erratic weather central dry corridor leave urgent need assistance post available action global water partnership sectorial global water partnership available global romero rainfall early action acute undernutrition paper fall meeting geophysical union parry luke visible health climate change science agriculture stress index generation seasonal climate forecast general approach forecasting agriculture stress sub country level paper fall meeting available outreach session specialty coffee association crisis response initiative summary ana specialty coffee association available coffee united program emigration flee impact family left panama city available climate society institutional design evaluation framework climate available bank forest area land area available data indicator
Storms, coronavirus and drought spread hunger to millions in Central America | Reuters
drought
small patch corn feed tiny hamlet eastern hold flag sitting mountain hope military aid affected eta iota buried crop mud month husband worked day laboring coffee plantation dried pandemic increasingly scarce losing weight cough won away survive selling buy corn left fetch gone said year old hamlet municipality bordering region known dry corridor southern panama crossing way vulnerable western hemisphere year year crop half eta iota brought incessant rain washing power wrecking wide swath central say climate change regular weather pandemic contain cutting supplementary income number suffer severe sharply rural problem particularly severe hit fifth population suffering high acute according report prepared united body government nutritional secretariat acute immediate danger nearly half considered situation emergency report said report forecast reduction early reflect causing billion central president scale damage exempt united deportation factor mass north past iota bore region wealthy step help central recover face new number central ticking pandemic moving united option journey typical cost simply expensive instead trapped cut little government aid migrate money said speaking outside modest home built mud stick daunting task effect felt dry corridor suffering high acute according report prepared government classification large central storm damage drought aid scale task tipping extreme poverty combination emergency quadruple said manager international federation red cross red crescent based panama recovery united push number going hungry globally end year pandemic hit region said fold rise number assistance province worst affected time number suffering severe year according data collected international aid agency tried away family neighboring sold land ago pay trip united grow eat plot screwed pandemic getting worse said year old cut rest bridge area classified malnourished decade drought treatment pandemic hit used scrape skipping seven said informal economy population work practically pandemic struck population lived poverty government data share rural high worst year community leader roque damage particularly cruel little land cautiously optimistic gentle come ripening time eta iota end hope worst year lived roque said looking like best harvest drought speaking crackly connection municipality power iota start pandemic came god help said half coffee crop money spinner corn mud visit said reduced diet wild occasionally egg worried day taking debt buy diet small government charity running low humanitarian program based said complicated outlook small subsistence edge disaster nutrition situation going acute said situation bad source protein afford meat average price past calculated making unaffordable diet corn nutritional ministry said increase vulnerability nutrition susceptible deterioration ministry said measure impact way city frank jack low
The end of cattle’s paradise: Severe drought and food insecurity in Southern Angola - Angola | ReliefWeb
drought
facing flee drought south southern facing existential threat drought climate change ravage region amnesty international said today organization creation commercial cattle community land driven press amnesty click pastoralist land end civil war shift left huge population insecure way humanitarian crisis acute drought drought struck ago water grow increasingly scarce fled sought refuge southern brink starvation caught devastating effect climate change land diversion commercial cattle farming said amnesty international director east southern drought worst torn traditional struggling survive vast grazing land government responsibility role dire situation ensure affected immediate address rural according association building local traditional pastoralist municipality province facing malnutrition older particularly vulnerable area said eating leaf survive living especially hard hit persistent drought rainy season abnormally dry meaning situation likely far worse coming according program lack rainfall period worst drought drought traditional pastoralist difficult driven border start march according international federation red cross red crescent press amnesty click local total march march corporation large pastoralist abandoned seek refuge northern mainly young fled number rising climate attract attention fact drought lack southern pushing migrate desperate measure survive intergovernmental panel climate change frequency intensity southern industrial global warming frequency intensity increase particularly mediterranean region southern land occupation situation precarious drought partly diversion communal grazing land commercial happening past civil war amnesty international exposed press amnesty click government communal grazing land commercial cattle process according government grazing land municipality commercial cattle large known cradle cattle customary grazing common region report titled end cattle press amnesty click amnesty international occupation fertile land commercial cattle access quality grazing land economic social resilience pastoralist undermining ability produce survive impact climate change amnesty international traditional pastoral municipality province saw struggle produce hand instance adverse impact bear burden land taking care sick travel long sell firewood buy drought showing direct consequence drought malnutrition peaking access water sanitation hygiene increasingly precarious negative local health nutrition insufficient prevalent south country noted crisis emergency livelihood based coping spending reducing non amnesty international calling international community ramp relief providing sustained regular emergency assistance access clean safe water domestic use consumption rural situation southern stark reminder climate change causing suffering death international community particularly responsible climate crisis immediate action human urgently reducing providing necessary financial technical assistance government local civil society support impacted said addition stop diverting land away traditional rural ensure responsible communal grazing land commercial accountable information request interview contact amnesty international press office press amnesty twitter public document international secretariat amnesty international
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Shown above is the raw transaction data, where each row is a document containing at least a column of text plus some basic metadata
about the transaction. The raw data is the above data stripped of all columns except for the text, but to display
information about the transactions, it is more clear to show the transaction data with the extra metadata.
After reading the transaction data using the arules library, a set of relationships is generated. Each relationship is judged
using a couple of different metrics. These metrics include support, confidence, and lift. Support simply measures the popularity of
a set of items in a set. So in the grocery example, if out of 1000 carts, vanilla extract and sugar were bought together 200 times, the
support would be 200 / 1000. The confidence metric measures how often an item exists based on another item. In mathematics terms,
it is the conditional probability that an item occurs in a set based on another item occurring in the set. So if vanilla extract was
purchased 300 times total, the confidence metric would be 200 / 300. Finally, the lift metric measures the likelihood of how often items
are together rather than each item being alone. So if sugar is bought 400 times, vanilla was bought 300 times, and together they were bought
200 times, the confidence metric would be (200 / 1000) / ([400 / 1000] * [300 / 1000]) = 1.6667. Math aside, these metrics help us decide
which relationships, when generated, are statistically significant enough to pay attention to. Rather than looking at 500,000 relationships and
trying to make a decision is much more difficult than looking at 20 relationships.
When generating these relationships given these transactions, the first step was to prune the list of relationships to determine which are statistically
significant (as previously mentioned). Using the apriori algorithm plus the 3 metrics above, list of relationships were pruned down a
significant amount. And while that did reduce the number of relationships significantly, the focus on subjects of the relationships needed to be narrowed down
to only a couple of words since large articles that include information that doesn't pertain to this analysis. Using a
subset of the data, a set of relationships was generated. Only the top 15 rules sorted by support, confidence, and lift are shown below for
brevity purposes. Downloads of the top 15 rules are also available.
Antecedent
Consequent
Support
Confidence
Lift
malnutrition
nutrition
0.308641975308642
0.806451612903226
1.63306451612903
locust
region
0.271604938271605
0.846153846153846
1.59391771019678
drought
climate
0.259259259259259
0.807692307692308
1.52146690518784
continue
nutrition
0.246913580246914
0.8
1.62
nutritious
nutrition
0.197530864197531
0.8
1.62
hungry
nutrition
0.197530864197531
0.8
1.62
meet
nutrition
0.197530864197531
0.8
1.62
healthy
nutrition
0.185185185185185
0.9375
1.8984375
content
nutrition
0.185185185185185
0.882352941176471
1.78676470588235
quality
nutrition
0.172839506172839
0.823529411764706
1.66764705882353
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The top rules sorted by support mean relationships where both terms show up in the same transactions. So it is not at all
a surprise that the top rules include the relationship are mostly targeted towards words that are synonyms or antonyms, such
as nutrition and malnutrition. Unfortunately, the words that describe the disasters are not showing up, so
support might not be the right metric to use in this case.
Antecedent
Consequent
Support
Confidence
Lift
laying
locust
0.0493827160493827
1
3.11538461538462
sighted
locust
0.0493827160493827
1
3.11538461538462
emerge
locust
0.0493827160493827
1
3.11538461538462
migrant
covid
0.0493827160493827
1
2.07692307692308
risen
covid
0.0493827160493827
1
2.07692307692308
vice
locust
0.0493827160493827
1
3.11538461538462
vice
covid
0.0493827160493827
1
2.07692307692308
shocking
locust
0.0617283950617284
1
3.11538461538462
hatching
locust
0.0617283950617284
1
3.11538461538462
coupled
covid
0.0617283950617284
1
2.07692307692308
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The top rules sorted by confidence, a metric measuring how often an item shows up in a transaction given that another
item is in the transaction, appears to show a better distribution of words, but this could be deceiving. All of the confidence
values are 1, which means that every time, when a word shows up in the text, the other word will show up with it. So when
locust shows up in the text, the word emerges also shows up. This is helpful in some respects when clustering data,
as words associated with locusts would probably cluster well, but that doesn't imply there are clear relationships between data
since the items are relatively independent.
Antecedent
Consequent
Support
Confidence
Lift
patterns
security
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
security
patterns
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
patterns
food
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
food
patterns
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
patterns
ebola
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
ebola
patterns
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
communities
security
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
security
communities
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
communities
food
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
food
communities
0.0493827160493827
1
20.25
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The top rules sorted by lift, which is a metric that measures the likelihood that two items are grouped show rules
that have a very high lift (20.25!!). A lift value higher than 1 means that the consequent and antecedent of the rule are
positively correlated, and a lift value of 20 means they are extremely correlated. However, having a lift value of 20 is
somewhat suspicious, so another route should be taken.
One way to visualize the rules given their support, lift, and confidence metrics is using a simple graph that plots the
rules in 2 dimensions but includes an extra visual indicator for the remaining metric.
Given the above rules that are generated, it can be seen that there are large clusters of data with a confidence of 1 and lift near 20.
Assuming the lift value is used (or support/lift), the results in the network plots might not be helpful. And in fact,
they are not. After iterating through different values of lift, support, and confidence, the relationships were extremely difficult to decipher.
The problem was that all relationships needed to include nodes to visualize, including all four disasters (covid, ebola,
drought and locusts), and its effect on food security, so words like (food, security, nutrition, utilization, stability, etc...).
If interested, the old graph of networks still exists and is linked here.
A new approach was needed.
The new approach involved separating each disaster and trying to independently analyze the relationship the disaster has on food security. This
approach greatly reduced the number of rules being produced, while keeping the relationships intact, allowing analysis of the effects of
each disaster on food security to occur. For different disasters, like ebola, tweaks needed to be made on each of the metrics to
produce networks that had a reasonable number of rules. For ebola, the lift values were unnaturally high, probably because the academic papers
had far more mentions of ebola than random Google articles. For the other disasters, the metrics were largely similar. If interested, the code
is linked to every visualization, so feel free to explore yourself.
Using the igraph visualization, a very basic version of the network is generated using association rule mining. In the covid as
well as the drought network, it seems that nutrition is a stronger relationship than food and food security, and nutrition is closely
connected to stability and utilization, perhaps implying that covid affects the stability and utilization pillars of food security more than
availability and access. For the ebola network, interestingly, it seems to be strongly connected with the words food and security, and those
tend to be more connected with words associated with the availability of food. However, for the locust network, the locust node
is not connected to any of the nodes concerning nutrition. This makes some sense when examining the nodes it is connected to, which are words
strongly associated with the behavior and nature of locusts rather than the effect of locusts on food security. This is even because locusts
should have a massive effect on agriculture, which should make a difference in the availability of food.
Using the vis network visualization, allows for interaction exploration in one of two ways. Zooming into the network, one can interact
with each node and explore the relationships that way. Since there are a large number of relationships, sometimes it is easier to use the
dropdown to isolate certain words and explore the relationships that way. From this graph, exploring the relationships
between nodes by examing the rules and associated metrics is relatively simple. Here, it helps to view the rules that are darker in color (higher lift) since those
are nodes that are more strongly correlated. In the ebola example, it is easier to see that more nodes have rules strongly connecting them
with higher lift values than other disasters, so to create the network in the first place, the lift value was more important for the ebola
network. Also, it is much easier to view the relationships between the nodes by interacting with the graph. However, that interactive
exploration gets even easier when viewing the network using network d3.
Network D3 Visualization
Rather than using the tabs to view each network and switch between, it is easier to view them individually and make conclusions about
each network. Below are the final conclusions about each network followed by a conclusion concerning the networks as a whole.
Using network d3, a clearer picture of the network of relationships between covid and the pillars of food security can be seen and
interacted with. From this network, there are a couple of interesting relationships that also make perfect sense. Covid is related to
the word nutrition, which from its derivatives, leads to instability via the word acute and utilization via the word poor. Both of
these are negative connotations, which implies that covid has a negative effect on two of the pillars of food security. This is an encouraging
sign that our rule mining worked. By further exploring the network, there are a number of other important relationships and effects, including stunting,
which is a common metric used to measure food security.
Using network d3, a clearer picture of the network of relationships between ebola and the pillars of food security can be seen and
interacted with. From this network, the uniqueness of the network compared to other networks is generated and visualized here.
Specifically, the network generated by the keyword ebola shows a very powerful connection between ebola and food and security. By
closely examining the network, each of the orange nodes is connected to food, security and ebola. Some interesting connections include death,
magnitude, and negative, implying a negative connotation associated between the three. This also makes sense, but the relationship with each
individual pillar of food security isn't as clear.
Using network d3, a clearer picture of the network of relationships between drought and the pillars of food security can be seen and
interacted with. From this network, is it a very similar network to the network associated with the keyword covid. Again there is
a solid connection between the derivatives of nutrition and a single connection between drought and that network through the keyword
clean. Perhaps this implies the effect of drought is the lack of clean food or water, which is important when it comes to nutrition.
Using network d3, a clearer picture of the network of relationships between locusts and the pillars of food security can be seen and
interacted with. This unique network that shows a very distinct cluster of words associated with locusts
and no defined connection with the cluster concerned with food security. The words associated with locusts make perfect sense, including
swarm, aerial, pasture, and pest, but even though the words are negative in connotation and should have a connection to agriculture, which
connects to food, either the support, confidence, or lift wasn't high enough to make the connection between the two.
Conclusion
When using association rule mining, the hope when viewing the results is to gain some insight into relationships in the data. In this case,
when mining the text data, the hope was to find and confirm the effect of different natural disasters and the pillars of food security.
Two outcomes were possible, either confirmation of the previous understanding of the effects of each disaster on food security or finding
new relationships. Also, when exploring each network generated by each disaster, it is important to see the words associated with the core
keywords that describe each disaster and each pillar. From those words, the focus of this research is narrowed down.
The results of the association rule mining of text data confirmed the negative effect of covid and drought on two of the pillar of food
security, mainly stability and utilization. Both covid and drought had an overall adverse effect on each based on the connotation of connecting and surrounding the relationships. For ebola, even though it was a widespread disease, it was an epidemic rather than a pandemic and
it manifested itself as a different looking network, affecting mostly the availability of food and its effect on food and security directly.
Finally, the network of relationships generated by the word locust is somewhat distinct from the other networks as the cluster surrounding the
keyword locust is completely separate from the pillars of food security. Perhaps this means that either the metrics used to calculate the
relationships filtered out the connections or more likely, the transactions containing locusts were very targeted and less willing to make the
connection between the keywords. Either way, these networks provide some sense of the relationships between the disasters and the pillars of food
security and help us answer one of the questions for the research. Different disasters affect different indicators, and using association rule
mining, it can support that answer with data.
