SOCIOSCAN
http://www.socioscan.net

SocioScan is a system for scanning and mapping of information that people exchange in virtual communication, particularly in chat rooms. The methodology is reminiscent of the medical test for the detection of sociopathic disorders, where a brain scanner is used to indicate in real time the mutations in the brain functions, based on the reactions to emotional words and/or images.

The project scans and visualizes people's communications in the chat rooms through a statistical analysis of the use of various keywords with emotional meaning in selected chat channels on the Internet. The output is a colorized clustering map, operating with: size, color and brightness, representing in real time the changes in the use of listed emotional words. The visual aesthetics of the map is similar to the image of the human brain, created by the PET (Positron emission tomography) scanner.

Thus the SocioScan project is scanning and mapping the intellect, emotions, the normality or/and sociopathy of the “global brain”.

For the project’s purpose a special IRC bot has been developed. It operates in the chat channels, indicating the use of key words with emotional resonance. The keywords are given to the bot in an advanced list in order to recognize them. The user can reinforce the activity of chat channels by spreading out sentences that include some words with emotional resonance and also to add words from the web interface.

Whenever the bot detects the use of one of the keywords, it streams a report to the server that visualizes in real time the statistic trough web interface. The visualization system of the project uses the Treemap algorithm - a space-constrained visualization of hierarchical structures, developed by the Human Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland.

SocioScan map also refers to the Map of the Market - the most powerful Internet based tool for spotting investment trends and opportunities on the stock market.

List of used and related concepts and technologies:

Sociopathic disorder - there is a lot of scientific research that reports and analyzes this kind of sociopathic behavior and highlights those characteristics concerning the project's area of interest:
"… The causes of sociopathic disorder have been narrowed to several factors through research. One of the primary causes of sociopathic behavior is believed to be neurological abnormalities mainly in the frontal lobe of the brain. This area of the brain is responsible for "self-control, planning, judgment, the balance of individual versus social needs, and many other essential functions underlying effective social intercourse" is also related to fear conditioning. The abnormal anatomy or chemical activity within this area of the brain may be caused by abnormal growth (possibly genetic), brain disease, or injury. This theory has been supported by much research using positron emission tomography (PET), which visually shows the metabolic activity of neurons within the brain”
" More recently (1997), PET brain imaging technology found that psychopaths differed from non psychopaths in the pattern of relative cerebral blood flow during processing of emotional words. Acquired personality changes due to brain injury are also accompanied by a decrease in the neural activity in the frontal area."
Renato M.E. Sabbatini
http://members.tripod.com/lheanna/sociopat.htm
http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n07/doencas/disease_i.htm

Positron emission tomography /PET scanner/ - used for research, scanning and real time mapping of the human brain, especially in individuals with sociopathic disorders. It will apply these models of mapping to chat communication because the informational network structures can be considered similar to the neurological nets that resemble brain structure.

The exchange of words with emotional meaning between chat users is similar to electrical impulses sent to neurons that build up the intellect of the host organism.
We can make an analogy between "chatter" and neuron if we perceive each of them as a unit that sends impulses (which can be words, topics, etc) to other units ("chatters" / neurons). Often chatters communicate simultaneously in more than one channel so one topic (impulse) can be transformed to another channel.

In order to detect sociopathic disorders, experts map the brain functions. They usually use a colored substance implanted in the human body which develops on several levels when the patients are examined, based on their reactions to terms with emotional value. A similar system is applied in the project, using external agents (bots) for detecting these keywords in chat channels and scanning the meanings that have been used.
Similar to the results of ascientific research which states that social background is not the main but a secondary cause to this disease, we can say that the social environment of the chatters, including their cultural, educational and language differences, are not the main cause for their high or low activity in the chat channels.

Through mapping the use of keywords in various chat rooms we can get an idea about appearance, development and end of a certain topic. This, on the other hand, can give us a certain understanding about the human behavior on the Internet, which is usually taken as limitless in the flow of information and communication.

Treemap - http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/treemap/
Treemap is a space-constrained visualization of hierarchical structures. It is very effective in showing attributes of leaf nodes using size and color coding.

Treemap enables users to compare nodes and sub-trees even at varying depth in the tree, and help them spot patterns and exceptions. Treemap was first designed by Ben Shneiderman during the 1990s. For more information, read the historical summary of treemaps, their growing set of applications, and the many other implementations. Treemaps are a continuing topic of research and application at the HCIL.

Map of the Market - http://www.smartmoney.com
Very successful and adequate informational tool based on Treemap and produced by SmartDataVision. Map of the Market creates a view of the performance of more than 600 stocks at once — and discover hidden market patterns with this award-winning stock tracking tool. Drill down for market performance, news, analyst earnings revisions, upgrades and downgrades on more than 2,000 stocks in 11 market sectors.

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