BallotMaps: Detecting name bias in alphabetically ordered ballot papers

The relationship between candidates’ position on a ballot paper and vote rank is explored in the case of 5000 candidates for the UK 2010 local government elections in the Greater London area. This design study uses hierarchical spatially arranged graphics to represent two locations that affect candidates at very different scales: the geographical areas for which they seek election and the spatial location of their names on the ballot paper. This approach allows the effect of position bias to be assessed; that is, the degree to which the position of a candidate’s name on the ballot paper influences the number of votes received by the candidate, and whether this varies geographically. Results show that position bias was significant enough to influence rank order of candidates, and in the case of many marginal electoral wards, to influence who was elected to government. Position bias was observed most strongly for Liberal Democrat candidates but present for all major political parties. Visual analysis of classification of candidate names by ethnicity suggests that this too had an effect on votes received by candidates, in some cases overcoming alphabetic name bias. The results found contradict some earlier research suggesting that alphabetic name bias was not sufficiently significant to affect electoral outcome and add new evidence for the geographic and ethnicity influences on voting behaviour. The visual approach proposed here can be applied to a wider range of electoral data and the patterns identified and hypotheses derived from them could have significant implications for the design of ballot papers and the conduct of fair elections

Rectangular Hierarchical Cartograms for Socio-Economic Data

We present rectangular hierarchical cartograms for mapping socio-economic data. These density-normalising cartograms size spatial units by population, increasing the ease with which data for densely populated areas can be visually resolved compared to more conventional cartographic projections. Their hierarchical nature enables the study of spatial granularity in spatial hierarchies, hierarchical categorical data and multivariate data through false hierarchies. They are space-filling representations that make efficient use of space and their rectangular nature (which aims to be as square as possible) improves the ability to compare the sizes (therefore population) of geographical units. We demonstrate these cartograms by mapping the Office for National Statistics Output Area Classification (OAC) by unit postcode (1.52 million in Great Britain) through the postcode hierarchy, using these to explore spatial variation. We provide rich and detailed spatial summaries of socio-economic characteristics of population as types of treemap, exploring the effects of reconfiguring them to study spatial and non-spatial aspects of the OAC classification

Visualization of uncertainty and analysis of geographical data

A team of five worked on this challenge to identify a possible criminal strucutre within the Flitter social network. Initially we worked on the problem individually, deliberately not sharing any data, results or conclusions. This maximised the chances of spotting any blunders, unjustified assumptions or inferences and allowed us to triangulate any common conclusions. After an agreed period we shared our results demonstrating the visualization applications we had built and the reasoning behind our conclusions. This sharing of assumptions encouraged us to incorporate uncertainty in our visualization approaches as it became clear that there was a number of possible interpretations of the rules and assumptions governing the challenge. This summary of the work emphasises one of those applications detailing the geographic analysis and uncertainty handling of the network data. ©2009 IEEE

Visualisation of Origins, Destinations and Flows with OD Maps

We present a new technique for the visual exploration of origins (O) and destinations (D) arranged in geographic space. Previous attempts to map the flows between origins and destinations have suffered from problems of occlusion usually requiring some form of generalisation, such as aggregation or flow density estimation before they can be visualized. This can lead to loss of detail or the introduction of arbitrary artefacts in the visual representation. Here, we propose mapping OD vectors as cells rather than lines, comparable with the process of constructing OD matrices, but unlike the OD matrix, we preserve the spatial layout of all origin and destination locations by constructing a gridded two‐level spatial treemap. The result is a set of spatially ordered small multiples upon which any arbitrary geographic data may be projected. Using a hash grid spatial data structure, we explore the characteristics of the technique through a software prototype that allows interactive query and visualisation of 105‐106 simulated and recorded OD vectors. The technique is illustrated using US county to county migration and commuting statistics

Characterising Farms by the Movement of Animals through Them

We describe a pilot study that arose from a workshop of domain and visualisation experts, and present preliminary work in which we begin to visually characterise holdings (farms) by the movement of cattle through them. This ongoing study suggests that this is a useful approach for helping DEFRA understand risk of disease spread

Designing an Exploratory Visual Interface to the Results of Citizen Surveys

Surveys are used by public authorities to monitor the quality and reach of public services and provide information needed to help improve them. The results of such surveys tend to be used in internal reports, with highly-aggregated summaries being released to the public. Even where data are released, many citizens do not have the capability to explore and interpret them. This o ffers limited scope for citizens to explore the results and use them to help hold service providers to account - objectives that are increasingly important in public service provision. We work closely with an English local authority to develop an innovative interactive interface to a citizen survey to demonstrate what can be achieved by applying a visual approach to the exploration of such data. In so doing we (a) make a case for web-based interactive visualisation to make this kind of information accessible both internally to those working in local government and externally to citizens in a way that is not achieved through a regular Open Data release or existing applications; (b) use techniques from both cartography and information visualization to inform the design of fluid visual interactions that enable diverse users - from the casual citizen browser to those interested in more in-depth analysis - to view, compare and interpret the survey outputs from a wide variety of perspectives; and (c) document experiences and reactions to the provision of information in this form, with log analysis playing a role in this exercise. Our reflections on our successes and otherwise will inform future exploratory interface design to help citizens access information and hold public service providers to account

Genetic Background Can Result in a Marked or Minimal Effect of Gene Knockout (GPR55 and CB2 Receptor) in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Models of Multiple Sclerosis

PMCID: PMC379391