In Terms of Geography

This map is a great application of the SOM idea made by Andre Skupin.

In Terms of Geography

"Description of Content:

Visualization of the geographic knowledge domain based on more than 22,000 conference abstracts submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (1993-2002). Landscape features express the degree of topical focus, with elevated areas corresponding to more well-defined, topical regions and low-lying areas corresponding to a mingling of various topics. Dominant terms are used as labels for topical regions.

Description of Unique Features:

The most unique aspect of this visualization is its combination of intense computation with geographic metaphors and cartographic design considerations. From a computational perspective, the use of a self-organizing map consisting of a large number of neurons (10,000) is fairly unique. The final map presented here aims to explore how far we can go in the design of map-like information visualizations. Its use of a range of label sizes (from very large to very small) on a large-format map and the omission of a legend are aimed at challenging traditional notions of interactivity, by encouraging viewers to vary their distance from the map and instigating discussion."

Catalysts for Thought-4-Emergent Folksonomy Maps

David Turnbull talks about Emergent Maps in his paper titled "Genetic Mapping: Approaches to the Spatial Topography of Genetics"
You can reach the abstract of this paper at:
http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/seminar_abstract.php?sem_ID=48

However these kinds of adaptive systems still rely on a central algorithm which, as an idea, is not compatible with the project of community based taxonomies or folksonomies. On the other hand folksonomies and emergent maps are not mutually exclusive either. One can design a mapping tool that would be based on a continuously evolving folksonomy, which might be called an emergent/dynamic folksonomy map.

Catalysts for Thought-3-Emergent Self Organizing Maps

In this project I want to explore a mapping system that would respond to the formation of a community around the principles that has been laid out by AgoraXchange.org. For that I consider applying Kohonen's method of ESOM (Emergent Self Organizing Maps.) Here is the definition of this method from his lab website, the Laboratory of Computer and Information Science Neural Networks Research Center.

http://www.cis.hut.fi/research/som-research/som.shtml

"The SOM is an algorithm used to visualize and interpret large high-dimensional data sets. Typical applications are visualization of process states or financial results by representing the central dependencies within the data on the map.

The map consists of a regular grid of processing units, "neurons". A model of some multidimensional observation, eventually a vector consisting of features, is associated with each unit. The map attempts to represent all the available observations with optimal accuracy using a restricted set of models. At the same time the models become ordered on the grid so that similar models are close to each other and dissimilar models far from each other."

Here are the links to some examples that was developed by using this method:

Personal knowledge mapping with K-SOM
http://www.k-som.com/index.php?id=16

Viscovery® SOMine® - Self-Organizing Maps
http://www.eudaptics.de/somine/index.php?sprache=en

Catalysts for Thought-2-AgoraXchange

"agoraXchange is an online community for designing a massive multi-player global politics game challenging the violence and inequality of our present political system. Phase I was launched as a commission for the Tate Online on 15 March 2004 and now contains a database of ideas for the rules, game environment, and site look-and-feel."

agoraXchange.org

Catalysts for Thought-1-The Intelligent Use of Space

The Intelligent Use of Space is the title of the paper written by David Kirsh where he talks about the influence of spatial organization on the efficiency of our everyday cognitive activities. However when I look at the world map I can not help myself but think we, as humans, still need to work a lot on that front. Would this be a visualization problem? Here in this project I will try to figure that out.