Storytelling with R Markdown, Storyboards and Knitr

Storytelling with data is a critical aspect of data visualization. The ability to bring massive amounts of data and simplify it to an audience creatively and with meaning in purpose is a skill that is critical to data science. With the plethora of tools available to create effective story telling (Tableau, PowerBI, Data Driven Documents (D3), etc.) there are a few others that don’t get mentioned.

One of my favorites tools to use is R Markdown, storyboards and Knitr. R Markdown is a simple formatting syntax for authoring HTML, PDF, and MS Word documents using already existing R code (for more information go to http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com).

When you create a markdown document with extension *.rmd, you are given a button called Knit. Once clicked a document will be generated that includes both content and output of any embedded R code chunks within the document.

In this example, we take R Markdown syntax with R code for the MotorTrends car library to demonstrate how this works:

---
title: " Markdown 2"
author: "Derek Moore"
date: "3/22/2021"
output: html_document
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
```

## R Markdown


```{r cars}
summary(cars)
```

## Including Plots

You can also embed plots, for example:

```{r pressure, echo=FALSE}
plot(pressure)

```

The Knit button is located in the top left hand corner of the R toolbox.

When pressed, the Knitr package creates either a PDF, Rich document or HTML, based on your settings. In my case, it’s an HTML file

Finally, a storyboard is a great storytelling tool that can be created by R Markdown. By implementing storyboarding within the syntax, you can create dynamic storyboards within HTML.

---
title: "2008 Recession"
author: "Derek Moore"
output: 
  flexdashboard::flex_dashboard:
      storyboard: true
      theme: bootstrap
      orientation: rows
 
---

```{r setup, include = FALSE, echo=FALSE}
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
library(readr)
library(DT)
library(flexdashboard)
library(tidyverse)
library(datasets)
library(ggplot2)
library(grid)
#library(png)
#library(imager)
#library(plyr)
#install.packages("tidycensus")
#library(tidycensus)
#install.packages("tmap")
#library(tmap)
#library(tmaptools)
#library(sf)
#install.packages("imager")
#library(imager)

knitr::opts_chunk$set(fig.width = 5, fig.asp = 1/3)

setwd("C:/Dev/ISM 646/Assignment2/")
load(file = "Assignment2_646.RData")

```

<font face="sans-serif" size="1" color="#000000">Percentage of Subprime borrowers<br>during the Great Recession (2005 to 2009) </font> 
====================================================================

Row {data-width=100}
------------------------------------------------------------------

### <br><br><br><br><br> <font face="sans-serif" size="4" color="#000000"> The Great Recssion was one of the most turbulent economic periods of the past eighty year that lasted from December of 2007 and ended June of 2009.  It was a global economic recession that impacted hundreds of banks, some responsible for the financing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of entire countries.  During this period, many banks closed.  Thousands lost jobs and fell into poverty due to the collapsing economy, which was basically fulled by rising federal interest rates and  market speculation centered around mortgage back securities that failed due to consumer defaulting on their mortgage.  This sent housing prices eventually plumetting, causing more economic turmoil in local economies around the world. As banks failed, businesses and consumers lost money.  In the U.S., the Great Recession ended with a GDP decline of 4.3 percent and an unemployment rate of 10 percent. </font><br><br> <font face="sans-serif" size="4" color="#000000">  The largest crisis of the Great Receession were subprime mortgages. Hedge funds, insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions created or insured mortgage-backed securities, all in an attempt make more money from the creation of default swaps (CDS) which tended to have higher rates of return.  In addition to this, the Federal Reserve raised rates. Adjustable-Rate Mortgages or ARMs and Interest Only (IO) loans, were being combined within the CDSs to give them high investor ratings, as to appear safe. This created a huge incentive for banks to approve subprime or low-credit, high-risk borrowers.  Derivatives spread the risk globally causing the 2007 banking crisis and the the Great Recession. </font>


Row {.tabset .tabset-fade}
--------------------------------------------------------------------

### % Subprime Borrowers in North Carolina (2005-2010)

```{r Subprime Borrowers in North Carolina}

ChartA <- ggplot(Subprime_NC, aes(x = `Year-Quarter`, y = Percent, color=`Percent`)) + 
  geom_point(size=3) + 
  geom_smooth(method="lm", se=FALSE) +
  ylab("% Receiving Subprime Loans (NC)") +
   theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1 ,size = 8), axis.title.y=element_text(size=5)) +
    scale_x_discrete(limit = c("2005 Q1","2005 Q2","2005 Q3","2005 Q4","2006 Q1","2006 Q2","2006 Q3","2006 Q4","2007 Q1","2007 Q2","2007 Q3","2007 Q4","2008 Q1","2008 Q2","2008 Q3","2008 Q5","2009 Q1","2009 Q2","2009 Q3","2009 Q4","2010 Q1"))



plot(ChartA)

```


### % subprime Borrower in Massachusetts (2005-2010)


```{r Subprime Borrowers in Massachusetts}

ChartA <- ggplot(Subprime_MA, aes(x = `Year-Quarter`, y = Percent, color=`Percent`)) + 
  geom_point(size=3) + 
  geom_smooth(method="lm", se=FALSE) +
  ylab("% Receiving Subprime Loans (MA)") +
   theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1 ,size = 8), axis.title.y=element_text(size=5)) +
  scale_x_discrete(limit = c("2005 Q1","2005 Q2","2005 Q3","2005 Q4","2006 Q1","2006 Q2","2006 Q3","2006 Q4","2007 Q1","2007 Q2","2007 Q3","2007 Q4","2008 Q1","2008 Q2","2008 Q3","2008 Q5","2009 Q1","2009 Q2","2009 Q3","2009 Q4","2010 Q1"))

plot(ChartA)

```


### % subprime Borrowers in Florida (2005-2010)


```{r Subprime Borrowers in California}

ChartA <- ggplot(Subprime_CA, aes(x = `Year-Quarter`, y = Percent, color=`Percent`)) + 
  geom_point(size=3) + 
  geom_smooth(method="lm", se=FALSE) +
  ylab("% Receiving Subprime Loans (CA)") +
   theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1 ,size = 8), axis.title.y=element_text(size=5)) +
  scale_x_discrete(limit = c("2005 Q1","2005 Q2","2005 Q3","2005 Q4","2006 Q1","2006 Q2","2006 Q3","2006 Q4","2007 Q1","2007 Q2","2007 Q3","2007 Q4","2008 Q1","2008 Q2","2008 Q3","2008 Q5","2009 Q1","2009 Q2","2009 Q3","2009 Q4","2010 Q1"))

plot(ChartA)


```


### % subprime Borrowers in California (2005-2010)



```{r Subprime Borrowers in Florida}

ChartA <- ggplot(Subprime_FL, aes(x = `Year-Quarter`, y = Percent, color=`Percent`)) + 
  geom_point(size=3) + 
  ylab("% Receiving Subprime Loans (FL)") +
   theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 90, vjust = 0.5, hjust=1 ,size = 8), axis.title.y=element_text(size=5)) +
  scale_x_discrete(limit = c("2005 Q1","2005 Q2","2005 Q3","2005 Q4","2006 Q1","2006 Q2","2006 Q3","2006 Q4","2007 Q1","2007 Q2","2007 Q3","2007 Q4","2008 Q1","2008 Q2","2008 Q3","2008 Q5","2009 Q1","2009 Q2","2009 Q3","2009 Q4","2010 Q1"))

plot(ChartA)


```

Creating Twitter Sentiment Association Analysis using the Association Rules and Recommender System Methods

Contextual text mining methods extract information from documents, live data streams and social media.  In this project, thousands of tweets by users were extracted to generate  sentiment analysis scores.

Sentiment analysis is a common text classification tool that analyzes streams of text data in order to ascertain the sentiment (subject context) of the text, which is typically classified as positive, negative or neutral. 

In the R sentiment analysis engine, our team built, the sentiment score has a range of .-5 to 5. Numbers within this range determine the the change in sentiment. 

SentimentScore
Negative-5
Neutral0
Positive5

Sentiment Scores are determined by a text file of key words and scores called the AFINN lexicon.  It’s a popular with simple lexicon used in sentiment analysis.  

New versions of the file are released in source repositories and contains over 3,300+ words with scores associated with each word based on its level of positivity or negativity.

Twitter is an excellent example of sentiment analysis.

An example of exploration of the sentiment scores based on the retweets filtered on the keywords:

  1. Trump
  2. Biden
  3. Republican
  4. Democrat
  5. Election

The data was created using a sentiment engine built in R.  It is mostly based on the political climate in the United States leading up to and after the 2020 United States election.

Each bubble size represents the followers of user who’ve retweeted.  The bubble size gives a sense of the influence of those users (impact). The Y-axis is the sentiment score, the X-axis represents the retweet count of the bubble name.

“Impact” is a measure of how often a twitter user is retweeted by users with high follower counts.

Using the Apriori Algorithm, you can build a sentiment association analysis in R. See my article on Apriori Association Analysis in R.

Applying the Apriori algorithm. using the single format, we assigned our transactions as the sentiment score and We assigned items_id as retweeted_screen_name.  

This is the measure the association between highly retweeted accounts and their associations based on sentiment scores (negative, neutral, positive).  Support is the minimum support for an itemset.  Minimum support was set to 0.02.

The majority of the high retweeted accounts had highly confident associations based on sentiment values. We then focused on the highest confidence associates that provided lift above 1.  After removing redundancy, we were able to see the accounts where sentiment values are strongly associated between accounts.

 According to the scatter plot above, we see most of the rules overlap, but have very good lift due to strong associations, but also this is indicated by the limited number of transactions and redundancy in the rules.

The analysis showed a large number of redundancy, but this was mostly due to the near nominal level of sentiment values.  So having high lift, a larger minimum support and .removing redundancy find the most valuable rules.

Apriori Association Analysis using R

install.packages("tidyverse")
library(tidyverse)

# install.packages("arules")
library(arules)
# install.packages("arulesViz")
library(arulesViz)

# prepare for transaction data

my_basket1 <- read.transactions("GroceryStore_Basket.csv", format="basket", sep=",")

my_sentiment <- 

my_basket1

inspect(my_basket1)

my_basket2 <- read.transactions("GroceryStore_Single.csv", format="single", sep=",", cols = c("TransactionID","Item"), header= TRUE)

inspect(my_basket2)

## (1) Import "Online Retail.csv" as a transaction data

summary(my_basket2)

itemFrequencyPlot(my_basket2)

rules <- apriori(my_basket2, parameter = list(supp=0.01, conf=0.8, maxlen =4))

summary(rules)
inspect(rules)

rules <- sort(rules, by = 'confidence', decreasing = TRUE)
inspect(rules[1:10])

itemFrequencyPlot(my_basket2)
## (2) Summarize and visualize transaction data 

rules <- apriori(my_basket2, parameter=list(supp=0.01, conf=0.8, maxlen=4, minlen=2))

summary(rules)
inspect(rules)

rules <- sort(rules, by = "confidence")

## (3) Apply the Apriori algorithm

## Remove redundant rules

is.redundant(rules)

inspect(rules[is.redundant(rules)])

rule2 <- rules[!is.redundant(rules)]
inspect(rules2)

plot(rules2)
plot(rules2, method = "graph")
plot(rules[1:10], method = "graph")


bread_rules <- apriori(my_basket2, parameter = list(supp=0.01, conf=0.8, maxlen=4), appearance=list(default="lhs", rhs = "BREAD"))

bread_rules <- sort(bread_rules, by = "confidence", decreasing = TRUE)
inspect(bread_rules)
plot(bread_rules, method="graph")

Using the American Community Survey API in R

The United Status Census Bureau is one of the largest data collection and aggregation organizations in the United States. Their Survey and collection processes allow district lines to be drawn for voting, help local, state and municipal organizations determine how to allocate budgets, and give non-profit organizations insight into the the changing demographics of the United States. Among this incredibly valuable dataset is the American Community Survey or ACS, that collects data on race, gender, household income, employment, education, and age of citizens within each U.S. State. The ACS API or Application Program Interface is a valuable tool to collect and visualize the ACS data, without having to store it locally. The API allows you to interface with the U.S. Census Bureau portal to load the data directory into the R.

First I load I the libraries and packages necessary.

library(tidyverse)
library(tidyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
install.packages("broom")
library(readxl)
install.packages("stringi")
library(stringi)
install.packages("tidycensus")
library(tidycensus)
install.packages("tmap")
library(tmap)
library(tmaptools)
library(sf)
library(png)
install.packages("imager")
library(imager)

To get the load data from the ACS API. You have to apply for a U.S. Census Key. To find out more information on using the U.S. Census API go to Census API User’s Guide.

census_api_key('<api_key>', install=TRUE, overwrite=TRUE)

Use the get_acs to pull the data into R.

ACS_2010 <- get_acs("state",  year=2010, variables="S1702_C02_001", output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2011 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2011, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2012 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2012, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)
  
ACS_2013 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2013, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2014 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2014, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2015 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2015, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2016 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2016, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

ACS_2017 <- get_acs("state", variables="S1702_C02_001", year=2017, output="tidy", geometry=TRUE) %>%
  select(-moe)

The variable S1702_C02_001 is the table ID for the category of data that will be loaded. The data represents housing income data. Use Tidyverse to organize and aggregate.

ACS_geo_2011 <- ACS_2011 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate)) 

ACS_geo_2012 <- ACS_2012 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate)) 

ACS_geo_2013 <- ACS_2013 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate)) 

ACS_geo_2014 <- ACS_2014 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate)) 

ACS_geo_2015 <- ACS_2015 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate)) 

ACS_geo_2016 <- ACS_2016 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate))

ACS_geo_2017 <- ACS_2017 %>%
  select('GEOID','NAME','variable','estimate','geometry') %>%
  filter(variable=='S1702_C02_001') %>%
  group_by(GEOID, NAME) %>%
  summarize(estimate = sum(estimate))

To generate the vector maps of the ACS, use tmap calls.

jpeg(file="ACS_geo_2010.jpg")
tm_shape(ACS_geo_2010) + tm_polygons("estimate") + tm_layout(title.position=c("left","top"), title="Poverty Levels in U.S. Post-Recessions", asp=1)
dev.off()

plot(load.image("ACS_geo_2010.jpg"), axes=FALSE)


tm_shape(ACS_geo_2011) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2012) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2013) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2014) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2015) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2016) + tm_polygons("estimate")

tm_shape(ACS_geo_2017) + tm_polygons("estimate")

Data from the ACS portal can also be used to compare the home values by year of certain states.


ACS_Data_Housing <- ACS_Data %>%
  select('Home Values','Household Income','Bankruptcies','Percent Homeownership','Percent People in Poverty','State','Year') %>%
  filter(State %in% c("North Carolina","Massachusetts","Florida","California")) %>%
  group_by(`Year`)

ggplot(data=ACS_Data_Housing, aes(x=Year, y=`Home Values`, group=as.factor(`State`), color=as.factor(`State`))) +
   geom_line() + geom_point() +
  ylab("Home Values") +
  labs("States")

Using R to Create Decision Tree Classification

R is a great language for creating decision tree classification for a wide array of applications. Decision trees are a tree-like model in machine learning commonly used in decision analysis. The technique is commonly used in creating strategies for reaching a particular goal based on multi-dimensional datasets.

Decision trees are commonly used for applications such as determining what type of consumer is at higher risk of defaulting on a loan than borrowers of lower risk. What sort of factors impacts whether a company can retain customers, and what type of students are more at risk at dropping out and require mediation based on school attendance, grades, family structure, etc.

Below are the typically libraries for building machine learning analysis are below including decision trees, linear and logistic regression

library(tidyverse)
library(dplyr)
library(broom)
library(yardstick)
library(DescTools)
library(margins)
library(cutpointr)
library(tidyverse)
library(caTools)
library(rsample)
library(ROSE)
library(rpart)
library(rpart.plot)
library(caret)
install.packages("rsample")
install.packages("caTools")
install.packages("ROSE")
install.packages("rpart")
install.packages("rpart.plot")
install.packages("yardstick")
install.packages("DescTools")
install.packages("margins")
install.packages("cutpointr")

The following code block creates regression and decision tree analysis of custom churn predictions.

# Import the customer_churn.csv and explore it.
# Drop all observations with NAs (missing values)


customers <- read.csv('customer_churn.csv')
summary(customers)
str(customers)
customers$customerID <- NULL
customers$tenure <- NULL
sapply(customers, function(x) sum(is.na(x)))
customers <- customers[complete.cases(customers),]


#===================================================================



#  Build a logistic regression model to predict customer churn by using predictor variables (You determine which ones will be included).
# Calculate the Pseudo R2 for the logistic regression.


# Build a logistic regression model to predict customer churn by using predictor variables (You determine which ones will be included).

customers <- customers %>%
 mutate(Churn=if_else(Churn=="No", 0, 1))


str(customers)
         
regression1 <- glm(Churn ~ Contract + MonthlyCharges + TotalCharges + TechSupport + MultipleLines + InternetService, data=customers, family="binomial")


# Calculate the Pseudo R2 for the logistic regression.


regression1 %>%
  PseudoR2()

#  Split data into 70% train and 30% test datasets.
#  Train the same logistic regression on only "train" data.

#  Split data into 70% train and 30% test datasets.


set.seed(645)

customer_split <- initial_split(customers, prop=0.7)
train_customers <- training(customer_split)
test_customers <- testing(customer_split)

# Train the same logistic regression on only "train" data.

regression_train <- glm(Churn ~ Contract + MonthlyCharges + TotalCharges + TechSupport + MultipleLines + InternetService, data=train_customers, family="binomial")
#regression_test <- glm(Churn ~ Contract + MonthlyCharges + TotalCharges + tenure + TechSupport, data=test_customers)



#  For "test" data, make prediction using the logistic regression trained in Question 2.
#  With the cutoff of 0.5, predict a binary classification ("Yes" or "No") based on the cutoff value, 
#  Create a confusion matrix using the prediction result.

#. For "test" data, make prediction using the logistic regression trained in Question 2.

str(regression_train)
prediction <- regression_train %>%
  predict(newdata = test_customers, type = "response")
 
 


# With the cutoff of 0.5, predict a binary classification ("Yes" or "No") based on the cutoff value, 


#train_customers <- train_customers %>%
#  mutate(Churn=if_else(Churn=="0", "No", "Yes"))



The last code creates the decision tree.


train_cust_dtree <- rpart(Churn ~ ., data=train_customers, method = "class")
rpart.plot(train_cust_dtree, cex=0.8)

Check the sensitivity and specificity of the classification tree, we create a confusion matrix for ROC charts. ROC Charts are receiver operating characteristic curves that have the diagnostic ability of a binary classifier system as its threshold.

set.seed(1304)

train_cust_dtree_over <- ovun.sample(Churn ~., data=train_customers, method="over", p = 0.5)$data
train_cust_dtree_under <- ovun.sample(Churn ~., data=train_customers,  method="under", p=0.5)$data
train_cust_dtree_both <- ovun.sample(Churn ~., data=train_customers, method="both", p=0.5)$data

table(train_customers$Churn)
table(train_cust_dtree_over$Churn)
table(train_cust_dtree_under$Churn)
table(train_cust_dtree_both$Churn)

train_cust_dtree_over_A <- rpart(Churn ~ ., data = train_cust_dtree_over, method="class")
rpart.plot(train_cust_dtree_over_A, cex=0.8)

customers_dtree_prob <- train_cust_dtree_over_A %>%
  predict(newdata = test_customers, type = "prob")

#  Create a confusion matrix using the prediction result.


head(customers_dtree_prob)

table(customers_dtree_prob)

customers_dtree_class <- train_cust_dtree_over_A %>%
  predict(newdata = test_customers, type = "class")

table(customers_dtree_class)

test_customers <- test_customers %>%
    mutate(.fitted = customers_dtree_prob[, 2]) %>%
    mutate(predicted_class = customers_dtree_class)


confusionMatrix(as.factor(test_customers$predicted_class), as.factor(test_customers$Churn), positive = "1")
#===================================================================


#  Based on prediction results in Question 3, draw a ROC curve and calculate AUC.


roc <- roc(test_customers, x=.fitted, class=Churn, pos_class=1, neg_clas=0)

plot(roc)
auc(roc)

plot(roc) +
    geom_line(data = roc, color = "red") +
    geom_abline(slope = 1) +
    labs(title = "ROC Curve for Classification Tree")

Using R to Create Maps for GIS Shape File

If you are new to the R programming language, like I am, you may not realize that ESRI GIS Shape files, which are used to do map layering with Latitude and Longitude coordinates, can be plotted in R. You will need to load the following packages:

library(rgdal) Bindings for Geospatial Data Package

library(rgeos): Interface to Geometry Engine

library(maptools) Spatial Tools

library(ggplot2): Popular plotting package

Coding requires pointing the R code to the directory of the shape files and other dependencies. The following data is from a GIS documents (Shapefiles and dependencies) for geospatial layers from Antarctica.

file.exists('../GIS/gis_osm_natural_a_free_1.shp')
map <- readOGR(dsn="../GIS",layer="gis_osm_natural_a_free_1",verbose=FALSE)
map_wgs84 <- spTransform(map, CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84"))
#str(map_wgs84)
#summary(map_wgs84)
write.csv(map_wgs84, "../GIS/gis_osm_natural_a_free_2.csv", row.names=TRUE)
summary(map_wgs84)
plot(map_wgs84, axes=TRUE)

Machine Learning with Azure ML Studio

Directions on How to Build the Predictive Model In Microsoft Azure ML

  • Sign in to Microsoft Azure using your login credentials in the  Azure portal 
  • Create a workspace for you to store your work
    • In the upper-left corner of Azure portal, select + Create a resource.
    • Use the search bar to type Machine Learning.
    • Select Machine Learning.
    • In the Machine Learning pane, select Create to begin.
    • You will provide the following information below to configure your new workspace:
      • Subscription – Select the Azure subscription that you would like to use.
      • Resource group – Create a name for your resource group which will hold resources for your Azure solution.
      • Workspace name – Create a unique name that identifies your workspace.
      • Region – select the region closest to the users to reduce latency
      • Storage account – created by default
      • Key Vault – created by default
      • Application insights – created by default
    • When you have completed configuring the workspace, select Review + Create.
    • Review the settings and make any additional changes or corrections. Lastly, select Create. When deployment of workspaces has completed you will see the message “Your deployment is Complete”. Please see the visual below as a reference. 
  • To Launch your workspace, click Go to resource
  • Next, Click the blue Launch Studio button which is under Manage your Machine Learning Lifecycle. Now you are ready to begin!!!!
  • Click on Experiments in the left panel
  • Click on NEW in the lower left corner 
  • Select Blank Experiment. The new experiment is created with a default name. You can change the name at the top of the page. 
  • Upload the data above into Ml studio
    • Drag the datasets on to the experiment canvas. (We uploaded preprocessed data
    • If you would like to see what the data looks like, click on the outpost port at the bottom on the dataset and select Visualize. Given this data we are going to try and predict if there the IoT sensors have communication errors. 
  • Next, prepare the data
    • Remove unnecessary columns /data
      • Type “Select Columns” in the Search box  and select Select Columns in the Dataset  module, then drag and drop it on the canvas. This allows you to exclude any columns that you do not want in the model. 
      • Connect Select Columns in Dataset to the Data on the canvas.
    • Choose and Apply a Learning Algorithm
      • Click on Data Transformation in the left column 
        • Next, click on the drop down Manipulation 
        • Drag the Select Edit the Metadata (use this to change the metadata that is associated with columns inside the dataset. This changes the metadata inside Azure Machine Learning that tells the downstream components how to use the selected columns.)
      • Split the data 
        • Then, click on the drop down Sample and Split.
        • Choose Split Data and add it to the canvas and connect it to Edit the Metadata.
        • Click on Split Data and find the Fraction of rows in the output dataset and set it to .80. You are splitting the data to train the model using 80% of the data and test the model using 20% of the data.
  • Then you train the data 
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Choose the drop down under Initialize Model
    • Choose the drop down under Anomaly Detection 
    • Click on PCA- Based Anomaly Detection and add this to the canvas and connect with the Split data.  
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Choose the drop down under Initialize Model
    • Choose the drop down under Anomaly Detection 
    • Click on One-Class Support Vector machine and add this to the canvas and connect with the Split data.  
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Then, choose the drop down under Train
    • Click on Tune Model Hyperparameters and add this to the canvas and connect with the Split Data.
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Then, choose the drop down under Train
    • Click on Train Anomaly Detection Model
  • Then score the model 
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Then, choose the drop down – Score
    • Click on Score Model
  • Normalize the data
    • Choose the drop down under Data Transformation
    • Then, choose the drop down under Scale and Reduce
    • Click on Normalize Data
  • Evaluate the model – this will compare the one-class SVM and PCA – based anomaly detectors.
    • Choose the drop down under Machine Learning
    • Then, choose the drop down under Evaluate
    • Click on Evaluate Model
  • Click Run at the bottom of the screen to run the experiment. Below is how the model should look. Please click on the link to use our experiment (Experiment Name: IOT Anomaly Detection) for further reference.  This link requires that you have a Azure ML account.  To access the gallery, click the following public link:  https://gallery.cortanaintelligence.com/Experiment/IOT-Anomaly-Detection

Derek MooreErica Davis, and Hank Galbraith, authors.

Anomaly and Intrusion Detection in IoT Networks with Enterprise Scale Endpoint Communication – Pt 2

Derek MooreErica Davis, and Hank Galbraith, authors.

Part two of a series of LinkedIn articles based on Cognitive Computing and Artificial Intelligence Applications

Background

Several high profile incidents of ransomware attacks have called attention to IoT networks security. An assessment of security vulnerabilities and penetration testing have become increasingly important to sufficient design. Most of this assessment and testing takes place at the software and hardware level. However, a more broad approach is vital to the security of IoT networks. The protocol and traffic analysis is of importance to structured dedicated IoT networks since communication and endpoints are tracked and managed. Understanding all the risks posed to these types of network allows for more complete risk management plan and strategy. Beside network challenges, there are challenges to scalability, operability, channels and also the information being transmitted and collected with such networks. In IoT networks, looking for vulnerabilities spans the network architecture, endpoint devices and services, where services include the hardware, software and processes that build an overall IoT architecture. Building a threat assessment or map, as part of an overall security plan, as well as, updating it on a schedule basis allows security professionals and stakeholders to manage for all possible threats to the architecture. Whenever possible, creating simulations of possible attack vectors, understanding the behavior of such attacks and then creating models will help build upon a overall security management plan.

Open ports, SQL injection flaws, unencrypted services, insecure network interfaces, buffer overflow risks, lack of firewall protocols, authorization settings, web interface insecurity are among some of the types of vulnerabilities in an IoT network and devices.

Where is the location of a impending attack? Is it occurring at the device, server or service? Is it occurring in the location where the data is stored or while the data is in transit? What type of attacks can be identified? Types of attacks include distributed denial of service, man-in-the-middle, ransomware, botnets, spoofing, account penetrations, etc.

Business Use Case

For this business use case research study, a fictional company was created. The company is a national farmland and agricultural cooperative that supplies food to local and state markets. Part of the company’s IT infrastructure is an IoT network that uses endpoint devices for monitoring and controlling temperature, humidity and moisture for the company’s large agricultural farmlands. This network has over 2000 IoT devices in operations on 800 acres. Any intrusion into the network by a rogue service or bad actor could have consequences in regards to delivering fresh produce with quality and on time. The network design in the simulation below is a concept of this agricultural network. Our team created a simulation network using Cisco Packet Tracer, a tool which allows users to create and simulate package traffic throughout a computerized network at multiple ISO levels.

Simulated data was generated for using the packet tracer simulator to track and build. In the simulation network below using multiple routers, switches, servers and IoT devices for packets such as TCP, UDP, RIPv4 and ICMP, for instance.

Network Simulation

Below is a simulation of packet routing throughout the IoT network.

Cisco Packet Tracer Simulation for IoT network.  Packet logging to test anomaly detection deep learning models.

Problem Statement

Our fictional company will be the basis of our team’s mock network for monitoring for intrusions and anomaly. Being a simulated IoT network, it contains only a few dozen IoT enabled sensors and devices such as sprinklers, temperature and water level sensors, and drains. Since our model will be designed for large scale IoT deployment, it will be trained on publicly available data, while the simulated data will serve as a way to score the accuracy of the model. The simulation has the ability to generate the type of threats that would create anomalies. It is important to distinguish between an attack and a known issue or event (see part one of this research for IoT communication issues). The company is aware of those miscommunications and has open work orders for them. The goal is for our model is to be able to detect an actual attack on the IP network by a bad actor. Although miscommunication is technically an anomaly, it is known by the IT staff and should not raise an alarm. Miscommunicating devices are fairly easy to detect, but to a machine learning or deep learning model, it can be a bit more tricky. Creating a security alarm for daily miscommunication issues that originate from the endpoints, would constitute a prevalence of false positives (FP) in a machine learning confusion matrix.

No alt text provided for this image

A running simulation

Project Significance and Implementation

In today’s age of modern technology and the internet, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to protect enterprise networks against malicious attacks. Not only are malicious actors becoming more advanced with the methodologies of their attacks, but also the number IoT devices that live and operate in a business environment is ever increasing. It needs to be a top priority for any business to create an IT business strategy that protects the company’s technical architecture systems and core intellectual property. When accessing all potential security weakness, you must decompose the network model and define trust zones within the IoT architecture.

This application was designed to use Microsoft Azure Machine Learning analyze and detect anomalies in large data sets collected from all devices on the business’ network. In an actual implementation of this application, there would be a constant data flow running through our predictive model to classify traffic as Normal, Incorrect Setup, Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS attack), Data Type Probing, Scan Attack, or Man in the Middle. Using a supervised learning method to iteratively train our model, the application would grow increasingly more cognitive, and accurate at identifying these network traffic patterns correctly. If this system were to be fully implemented, there would need to also be actions for each of these classification patterns. For instance, if the model detected a DDOS attack coming from a certain device, the application would automatically send shutdown commands to the device, thus isolating it from the network and containing the attack. When these actions occur, there would be logs taken, and notifications automatically sent to appropriate IT administrators and management teams, so that quick and effective action could be taken. Applications such as the one we have designed are already being used throughout the world by companies in all sectors. Crowdstrike for instance, is a cyber technology company that produces Information Security applications with machine learning capabilities. Cyber technology companies such as Crowdstrike have grown ever more popular over the past few years as the number of cyber attacks have increased. We have seen first hand how advanced these attacks can be with data breaches on the US Federal government, Equifax, Facebook, and more. The need for advanced information security applications is increasing daily, not just for large companies, but small- to mid-sized companies as well. While outsourcing information security is an easy choice for some companies, others may not have the budget to afford such technology. That is where our application gives an example of the low barrier to entry that can be attained when using machine learning applications, such as Microsoft Azure ML or IBM Watson. Products such as these create relatively easy interfaces for IT Security Administrators to take the action into their own hands, and design their own anomaly detection applications. In conclusion, our IOT Network Anomaly Detection Application is an example of how a company could design and implement it’s own advanced cyber security defense applications. This would better enable any company to protect it’s network devices, and intellectual property against the ever growing malicious attacks.

Methodology

For this project, our team acquired public data from Google, Kaggle and Amazon. For the IoT model, preprocessed data was selected for the anomaly detection model. Preprocessed data from the Google open data repository was collected to test and train the models. R Studio programming served as an initial data analysis and data analytics process to determine Receiver Operating Characters (ROC) and Area Under the Curve (AUC) and evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the models for scoring the predictability of the response variables. In R, predictability was compared between with logistic regression, random forest, and gradient boosting models. In the preprocessed data, a predictor (normality) variable was used for training and testing purposes. After the initial data discovery stage, the data was processed by a machine learning model in Azure ML using support vector machine and principal component analysis pipelines for anomaly detection. The response variable has the following values:

  • Normal – 0
  • Wrong Setup – 1
  • DDOS – 2
  • Scan Attack – 4
  • Man in the Middle – 5

The preprocessed dataset for intrusion detection for network-based IoT devices includes ultrasonic sensors using Arduino microcontrollers and Node MCU, a low-cost open source IoT platform that can run on the ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module used to send data.

The following table represents data from the ethernet frame which is part of the TCP/IP packet that is transmitted from a source device to a destination device for network communication.  The following dataset is preprocessed according to the network intrusion detection based system.

The following table represents data from the ethernet frame which is part of the TCP/IP packet that is transmitted from a source device to a destination device for network communication. 

Source:  Google.com

Source: Google.com

In the next article, we’ll be exploring the R code and Azure ML trained anomaly detection models in greater depth.

Anomaly and Intrusion Detection in IoT Networks with Enterprise Scale Endpoint Communication

This is part one of a series of articles to be published on LinkedIn based on a classroom project for ISM 647: Cognitive Computing and Artificial Intelligence Applications taught by Dr. Hamid R. Nemati at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Bryan School of Business and Economics.

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to be one of the most innovative and exciting areas of technology in the last decade. IoT are a collection of devices that reside in the world that collect data from the environment around it or through mechanical, electrical, thermodynamic or hydrological processes. These environments could be the human body, geological areas, the atmosphere, etc. The networking of IoT devices has been more prevalent in the many industries for years including the gas, oil and utilities industry. As companies create demand for higher sample read rates of data from sensors, meters and other IoT devices and bad actors from foreign and domestic sources have become more prevalent and brazen, these networks have become vulnerable to security threats due to their increasing ubiquity and evolving role in industry. In addition to this, these networks are also prone to read rate fluctuations that can produce false positives for anomaly and intrusion detection systems when you have enterprise scale deployment of devices that are sending TCP/IP transmissions of data upstream to central office locations. This paper focuses on developing an application for anomaly detection using cognitive computing and artificial Intelligence as a way to get better anomaly and intrusion detection in enterprise scale IoT applications.

This project is to use the capabilities of automating machine learning to develop a cognitive application that addresses possible security threats in high volume IoT networks such as utilities, smart city, manufacturing networks. These are networks that have high communication read success rates with hundreds of thousands to millions of IoT sensors; however, they still may have issues such as:

  1. Noncommunication or missing/gap communication.
  2. Maintenance Work Orders
  3. Alarm Events (Tamper/Power outages)

In large scale IoT networks, such interruptions are normal to business operations. Certainly, noncommunication is typically experienced because devices fail, or get swapped out due to a legitimate work order. Weather events and people, can also cause issues with the endpoint device itself, as power outages can cause connected routers to fail, and tampering with a device, such as people trying to do a hardwire by-pass or removing a meter.

The scope of this project is to build machine learning models that address IP specific attacks on the IoT network such as DDoS from within and external to the networking infrastructure. These particular models should be intelligent enough to predict network attacks (true positive) versus communication issues (true negative). Network communication typical for such an IoT network include:

  1. Short range: Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Z-ware, NFC.
  2. Long range: 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE, 5G.
  3. Protocols: IPv4/IPv6, SLIP, uIP, RLP, TCP/UDP.

Eventually, as such machine learning and deep learning models expand, these types of communications will also be monitored.

Scope of Project

This project will focus on complex IoT systems typical in multi-tier architectures within corporations. As part of the research into the analytical properties of IT systems, this project will focus primarily on the characteristics of operations that begin with the collection of data through transactions or data sensing, and end with storage in data warehouses, repositories, billing, auditing and other systems of record. Examples include:

  1. Building a simulator application in Cisco Packet Tracer for a mock IoT network.
  2. Creating a Machine Learning anomaly detection model in Azure.
  3. Generating and collecting simulated and actual TCP/IP network traffic data from open data repositories in order to train and score the team machine learning model.

Other characteristics of the IT systems that will be researched as part of this project, include systems that preform the following:

  1. Collect, store, aggregate and transport large data sets
  2. Require application integration, such as web services, remote API calls, etc.
  3. Are beyond a single stack solution.

Next: Business Use Cases and IoT security

Derek MooreErica Davis, and Hank Galbraith, authors.