Systems Visualization

Systems Visualization Spring 2012 Class

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:43:00 -0400

The Spring 2012 batch of Systems Visualization course at MIT started on February 10th. There was overwhelming response from the students - 45 students showed up for the first class.

This is the third time Systems Visualization course is being taught under the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT. Each semester has seen more students gravitating towards this course. The course is designed and taught by lecturer V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai.

Lecture 12

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:40:53 -0400

The class of 4th May was an optional session where students were given the opportunity to review their final project work with Dr. Ayyadurai and others. The final project presentations are due on May 11th and 18th, and the students who attended this session used today’s class time to receive feedback on the project work they have done thus far. A number of students took advantage of this class to make significant improvements to their project.

Lecture 11

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:40:00 -0400

The class on 04/27/12 dealt with visualization of large scale ecological systems including marine and land.

Hauke Kite-Powell & Di Jin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute gave an exciting presentation on the topic “Food Web Models and Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management”. Some of the slides from the class are shown below.

The class thanks Kite-Powell and Jin for their enlightening presentation.

The class then discussed the link between economic model and fishery model, in an attempt to learn how large scale complex systems are visualized.

Lecture 10

Tue, 08 May 2012 20:01:00 -0400

The class of 04/20/12 discussed legal system and communication dynamics of social
media. Senior attorney John Bradley led this class. Some of the topics he brought to students’ attention included:

Impact of Libel law on material published on Internet
Definition of Slander in the context of blogging and web pages
Evolution of law to handle new developments in today’s world of social media

The class thanks Mr. Bradley for his lecture.

Today’s lecture was an eye-opening experience for the students, especially in view of blogging, web publishing and social media networking being in common use and the legal implications of writing about another person in these media.

Lecture 9

Tue, 08 May 2012 18:56:00 -0400

On 04/13/12 the class held a collaborative drawing session. The system selected for this session was the “System of Presidential Elections”.

The class joined in a lively discussion and worked together to present a vibrant visualization of the system of presidential election, using chalk and board as the medium.

Here are some snap shots from the visualization that resulted from the collaborative effort of the class.

Lecture 8

Tue, 08 May 2012 18:05:00 -0400

Friday April 6th’s lecture was the last of the series on key elements of Systems Visualization: Systems Theory, Ontological Data Representation, Visual Metaphors, The Message, and Narrative Storytelling. The class also reviewed the paper on Event Tunnel.

The Key Elements of a Story are:

Setting

Characterization

Plot

Conflict

Climax

Resolution

Theme

Point of view

The class learned that the most important aspect is the Conflict. They also learned that underlying the visualization is a core Conflict one need to discover and emphasize through his/her message and metaphor, where and when possible. This Conflict makes the audience of the visualization “interested” in the system being presented and drawing them into the story.

In discussing the Event Tunnel paper, the goal was to demonstrate that complex systems can have different “modes” or patterns, that provide clues to different conclusions of the Story. Th class shared Chaiwoo-Lee’s healthcare mobile again, and the different configurations system and visual metaphor created, to elicit different modes/conclusions.

Lecture 7

Tue, 08 May 2012 18:03:00 -0400

The class of March 23rd was on visualization of large-scale networks. Some examples of large-scale networks include Social Networks, Biological Networks and Economic Networks.

Large-scale networks are massively complex networks that contain a large number of nodes and edges. We discussed the use of Pivot Graphs to visualize connections across large-scale networks.

The students proceeded to develop Pivot Graphs to visualize system of interconnected systems, interconnecting all the systems of the class into one complex system of systems. Here are some of the Pivot Graphs students presented.

Zach Banks

Chase G. Lambert

Andy D. Kalenderian

Rachna C. Nandwani

The class goes into spring break next week.

Welcome to MIT Sys Viz Class Blog

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:10:00 -0400

Welcome!

This is a pioneering new course within MIT’s Comparative Media Studies, which defines a new and emerging field in visualization: Systems Visualization. Systems Visualization provides a foundation for integrating the disparate fields of visualization such as data visualization, information visualization, flow visualization, scientific visualization, etc. through an over-arching integrative systems approach. The course is a core element of MIT’s Media and Organizational Biomimetics Initiative (MOBI). This new course is part of a long history of innovative educational and research work on visualization at MIT.

The Systems Visualization course aims to teach MIT students on how to communicate the interaction and behavior of complex systems in ways that are understandable to a wider audience. Continue to read below about activities of the current Systems Visualization class @ MIT.

Lecture 7

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Friday March 23rd’s lecture was the last of the series on key elements of Systems Visualization: Systems Theory, Ontological Data Representation, Visual Metaphors, The Message, and Narrative Storytelling. The class also reviewed the paper on Event Tunnel.

The Key Elements of a Story are:

Setting

Characterization

Plot

Conflict

Climax

Resolution

Theme

Point of view

The class goes to spring break next week.

Lecture 6

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:00:00 -0400

We began the class with students presenting various visual metaphors. Here are some of the examples that students presented.

Then we proceeded to learn the Principles of Visual Design as well as formal representation of Graphs and Trees to represent systems of systems. Here are some of the examples from today’s class.

Lecture 5

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:00:00 -0400

In the class of March 9th, we discussed Visual Metaphors. We reviewed what makes system visualization different from other fields of visualization. Systems visualization uses multiple methods of visualization from multiple fields. The class learned about integrating visual metaphors, systems theory and story telling with scientific data visualization. Scientific visualization is just one part of systems visualization. In the class, we began by discussing how systems visualization differs from scientific visualization. In particular, the incorporation of visual metaphor, story telling and systems theory. Up until this class, students had an understanding of systems theory. Today’s class was about visual metaphor and its power, as used by advertisers to draw the reader into a story. we reviewed important visual metaphors from advertising such as the popular ads shown below.

Lecture 4

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:00:00 -0500

On March 2nd, the fourth of lecture of Systems Visualization course was conducted. The main topics of this class were definition of Systems of Systems and Interconnection of Systems.

In the world of systems, the class learned, each system could be linked to another system in some manner. For example, a store is a connected system of various separate systems such as consumers (purchasing goods), manufacturers (presenting the goods they made), warehousing (transporting the goods they store), Money registers (billing, collecting money, packing) etc. Furthermore, a number of the interconnected systems could form a larger system (the store in the above example) which is then called as System of Systems.

The students will take their previous assignment of systems drawings to identify the interconnected sub-systems within their systems and how these systems co-exist together and interact with each other to form a larger System of Systems.

Assignment was to interconnect each student’s system with systems of other students. Here are some examples of what they came up with, along with the creator’s name.

Andy D. Kalenderian

Erika M. Bildsten

Edward Benson

Nabil Laoudji

Rocky Acosta

Lecture 3

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500

The third class of Systems Visualization was held on February 24th. This class reviewed the assignments submitted by students.

The class then discussed data representation in Systems Visualization. The term Ontology was defined as part of this discussion.

For the assignment for class, students had to select a complex system of interest and provide the initial sketches using open and feedback systems discussed earlier. Here are some examples of the students’ assignments(along with the name of the student who created it).

Rocky Acosta

Christopher P. Merrill

Pak Yan Yuen

Vincent James Lee

Timothy Kaler

Lecture 2

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:01:00 -0500

February 17th was the second class of Systems Visualization Fall 2012 batch. Today’s class reviewed the components of a system - input, process & output, internal processes, feedback, storage, disturbance, and control. Then the discussion moved on to various types of systems - Open System, Complex System, Control system and Feedback-loop System.

Open systems have input, process and output. A simple example of open system is a light switch. Then we discussed feedback system which has not only input, process & output, but also feedback mechanism, comparison to a goal, and a controller which seeks to minimize the difference between output and the goal, providing input to the process to achieve the goal.

We reviewed the Challenger Disaster and Edward Tufte’s criticism of Morton Thiokol Engineers that they did not do their job in the proper visual representation of data. A healthy debate ensued in the class on whether Tufte was right or if the engineers did their job relative to the visual representation of data.

Lecture 1

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500

The first class started with introductions and information about resources such as STELLAR. After completing the formalities, class moved into interesting discussion on What is a System. In light of the definition of System, the class discussed traditional Indian medicine system and Western medicine system.

In looking at these two systems, we discussed Open Systems without feedback and then Systems with feedback and controls.

Final Project Presentation

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:41:00 -0500

On December 9, 2011, students of Systems Visualization Fall 2011 batch presented their final projects. The hard work of students were evident in the quality of projects presented. There were many notable presentations for their content, theme and goal. Three judges reviewed the three-half hour long presentation and graded each student along four aspects of systems visualization - system complexity, story telling, visual metaphor and data representation.

Many staff members of CMS department attended the presentation. Room E14-633 was a great venue and MIT A/V team’s support with sound system and video recording was very helpful.

Final scores are being tabulated and top performers will be announced soon!

Lecture 11: Preparing the final project

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:38:55 -0500

The class reconvened on December 2nd after previous week’s Thanksgiving break. As the students are preparing their final project, this class was dedicated to present their work in-progress to their classmates and get feedback to improve the quality of their work.

The class started with announcements, which included:

Key dates: Final project presentation on Dec 9th / Submission of final project on Dec 12th / Announcement of grades on Dec 14th
Project presentation will be held in room E14-633
Five judges will grade the presentations: two judges from the faculty, two external judges and one student from the past semester
Presentations will be judged in five categories: Best in Systems Theory, Best in Story Telling, Best in Visual Metaphor, Best in Data Utilization and Best Overall

After announcements, students were asked to form two groups and present their project to the group. Each student was given one minute to present and five minutes for the rest of the group to provide feedback. Some students took good advantage of this opportunity to get great ideas from their classmates and improve the quality of their work.

Lecture 10: Data sets and legal system

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:12:00 -0500

After the Veteran’s day holiday last Friday, the class convened on Nov 18th for the tenth lecture of Systems Visualization. Today’s class included two sessions led by two individuals from organizations outside MIT.

First session was led by Matt Carroll who is a reporter with Boston Globe. A seasoned journalist focusing on large collection on data and database, Matt spoke about data available in public domain as well as data accessible through organizations such as Boston Globe. He presented many large data sets regarding a variety of different topics. Some of the data sets Matt presented are:

Sale of lottery tickets in Massachusetts
Spending of campaign funds by politicians of the Commonwealth
Expense statements of certain individuals accused of fraud while working for the Commonwealth
Data available from IRS regarding income and tax across the country

Second session was led by John Bradley, Esq., a senior defense litigation attorney with many years of experience working with the state and federal courts of Massachusetts. John gave a high-level overview of how the legal system works. He then proceeded to explain the legal definition of ‘Slander’ and ‘Libel’, especially in the context of visualization that students develop for public presentation which may contain information about other individuals or organizations. He explained few examples of actual legal cases involving slander and libel.

The students got very interested in both sessions and actively interacted with the guest presenters.

Lecture 9: Story of Wall Street revisited

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:46:54 -0500

We started lecture 9 with a review of the core concept of Systems Visualization. We recollected that Systems Visualization is an integration of few key elements viz. Story Telling, Visual Metaphors, Systems Theory and Data & Information Visualization.

Within this context, we went back to the story of Wall Street using the visual metaphor of a vacuum cleaner which sucks up money of individual citizens on Main Street, including their savings, debts and taxes, and brings it over to Wall Street. We also had Shekhar Shastri, who worked on Wall Street, attend our course who gave us his input as we did the drawing.

The key input from a data standpoint that we understood as we did these drawings is that as the money gets brought over to Wall Street and Wall Street has two components to deal with the money - the Buy side and the Sell side. The Buy side is where the money is received. Buy side, for example, includes venture capitalists, pension fund managers etc. These people are responsible for taking money from individual citizens & other entities and then putting that money to work to get return on it. When they put the money to work, they work with the Sell side. The Sell side typically include analysts, investment bankers and consultants. Today, the entire business model on Sell side is based on commissions on flow. The more money that flows through them, the more money they make. Herein lies the problem with Wall Street because, in some ways, they do not care what they sell as long as they sell volumes. $60 trillion worth of products on the Sell side is basic products like stocks, bonds & loans. However, $600 trillion worth are sold through derivative products which includes options, credit swaps and CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligations).

Next, we focused on showing how CDO, a derivative product, is an example of what caused the entire collapse. The goal of Wall Street is to perpetuate the flow of money that can go through their system. When they see the volume of deals drop, they innovate with new products - derivative products. And therein lies the problem because when they innovate, there is always a lag when the government can catch up to measure if what Wall street innovate is really viable. That lag is what caused the collapse.

Thus, lecture 9 was a good exercise combining all four components of systems visualization. In this exercise:

We used the metaphor of vacuum cleaner
The metaphor of two streets - Main street & Wall street
we narrated the process so people could understand the story
We shared data on the volume that is processed through the system
And from a systems standpoint, we concluded that any system has to achieve some level of the goal and output

Lecture 8: Story Telling

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:05:00 -0400

The eighth class of Systems Visualization was on October 28th. Today we discussed Story Telling. Systems Visualization is being defined as a new field through these classes. Unlike scientific visualization or other types of visualization, systems visualization consists of multiple elements. One element is data and information visualization. another element is visual design and visual metaphors. A third element is knowledge representation using ontologies. A fourth element is systems theory and the interconnection across elements. Finally, systems visualization demands Story Telling. The story telling element serves to connect the author of the visualization and the viewer emotionally in an interactive process where the visualization emerges from a collaborative experience of interacting with the systems visualization. This lecture we focused on story telling and proceeded to do a live drawing visualization of how Wall Street operates. Class discussed three papers on story telling they had read as part of their assignment. Then the class proceeded to the lecture on eight elements of story telling. The eight elements of story telling are:

Setting
Characterization
Plot
Conflict
Climax
Resolution
Theme
Point of view

The entire class participated in blackboard drawing of how Wall Street operates. Here is a picture of the drawing in progress: