[@OKFNau] Introduction -- Simon Cropper (sorry for cross-posting if you are on the main okfn.org list)

Wed Jun 18 00:38:14 UTC 2014

Hi Simon, 
Where is the data on food nutrition?

Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)________________________________________

 NoFibs.com.au - Open Data Reporter InfoAus.net - Founder and Developer  Open Knowledge Foundation Australia - Open Spending Ambassador

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 01:17:03 +1000
From: simoncropper at fossworkflowguides.com
To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [@OKFNau] Introduction -- Simon Cropper (sorry for cross-posting if you are on the main okfn.org list)

    ### Sorry for cross posting if you are on the main okfn.org list.

    Hello everyone,

    This is an introduction to myself, my experience, my skills and my
    interests.

    I am a scientist with 20+ years experience in pushing-and-pulling
    biological, financial and retail data (now colloquially called data
    wrangling, data munging and data analysis  ). I have programmed in both the
    Windows and Linux platforms, and used a variety of packages and
    software languages to wrangling the data I need into a usable format
    for further analysis. Currently looking for new opportunities
    (euphemism for out-of-work  ) and
    looking for ways to keep my brain active. 

    I have provided some links to my on-line profile and blog site.

    I have interests in conservation, taxonomy/nomenclature, GIS,
    photography and food. I am an active coder as well.

    Historically I used Visual Foxpro to conduct most of my
    wrangling/munging/analysis, leaning heavily on SQL and hand crafted
    algorithms to collate, group and summarize data. Since Microsoft
    withdrew support for Visual Foxpro, I have been on the hunt for
    tools to replace the data manipulation capabilities of this package
    -- at present I am actively teaching myself Python (doing alright at
    the moment; see my GitHub
    repository) and the playing around with a variety of modules
    available to manage large datasets (e.g. pandas, petl). Although
    well versed in the use of a variety of relational databases and a
    variety of programming languages, I am also good at using Excel and
    other spreadsheets to conduct work on smaller datasets.

    In the last few years I have also been actively involved in using
    Open Source GIS to conduct geospatial analysis (e.g. geocoding
    datasets). Although teething on gvSIG I am also interested in QGIS
    due to its integration with Python.

    Although I have a biological bent in my career and years of
    knowledge on datasets in Australia, I have a variety of interests.
    One that I am interested in exploring is food. I have located a
    large dataset of food available in Australia and it's composition
    (e.g. protein, carbs, vitamins, fat, etc) -- it is available under a
    CC-BY-SA license. I am interested in exploring this dataset in more
    detail. I have a range of questions that interests me but wonder if
    others might want to help tease out some other useful information
    from this dataset.

    Some questions I am interested in attempting to answer...

    Q. Of the 50 odd nutrients documented in this dataset what are the
    foods with the most and least amount present. For example, what
    foods are high in Calcium that could be used as suitable natural
    alternative to milk?

    Q. If you compare examples of a variety of well known diets (Paleo,
    Atkins, Mediterranean, whole-foods, Vegan, Vegetarian), how do they
    vary? What nutritional components differ? 

    As I am exploring some new tools in Python, I have thought of doing
    this analysis using Pandas or something similar. The code would be
    integrated into iPython Notebooks so others could view the
    methodology and augment where necessary, and managed in a GitHub
    repository.

    Bye-and-bye, I have been an active exponent of open source software,
    open content and open data. I am very interested in copyright and
    copyleft licensing as a means of ensuring information is readily
    available to the broader public.
    -- 
Cheers Simon

   Simon Cropper - Open Content Creator
   W: http://www.simonchristophercropper.com

   Free and Open Source Software Workflow Guides
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   bash / Python    http://www.fossworkflowguides.com/scripting  

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