Department of Software Technology
Vienna University of Technology


Labeled 10 x 15 Self-Organizing Map of the Time Magazine Collection

Description of the Map

When analyzing the resulting map we find an organization of the various articles on the map according to their topical similarity. For example, we find artcle T315 entiteled Great Britain: ``The Price of Christine mapped onto unit (9/11) in the lower right area of the map. This article covers the Profumo - Keeler scandal in Great Britain and is part of a larger cluster of documents on British politics. Each article is related to the Profumo - Keeler scandal that article T315 is about, thus justifying the mapping of these 5 articles onto one unit. (The titles of thes earticles are T170 - Great Britain - What Ever Happened to Christine Keeler?; T342 - Great Britain - Goddess of the Gravel Pit, T354 - Great Britain - While the Prisoner Sketched in Jail, and T529 - Great Britain - Less than a Pound.) On the same unit we find 4 additional articles, namely T170, T342, T354 and T529. Since the is supposed to provide a topology-preserving mapping, we may expect articles on similar topics next to this unit as they should be located close to the articles on the Profumo - Keeler scandal in the high-dimensional feature space. To the left of unit (9/11), on unit (8/11), we find 2 articles, namely T388 entitled Great Britain - ``Sex & the Class War'' and T400: Great Britain - ``The Saga of Polish Peter'', which - as we may guess from the titles - are related directly to the scandal. Further to the left, on unit (7/11), we find another two articles, namely T152 - Great Britain: ``This Happy Breeding'' and T326: Great Britain: ``There'll always be an...''. As we can see, they are somehow related to the above mentioned scandal, however less directly, as they cover more the social and moral issues of sexuality and cliches about Great Britain, lacking the political aspects of the articles identified before.

Returning to unit (9/11) and taking a look at its other neighbors we find articles T324: Great Britain - ``The Time of the Trollop'' and T337: Great Britain - ``The Lost Leader'' on unit (9/10), again related to the Profumo - Keeler scandal, although this time focusing on the political impact. Further up the map, on unit (9/9) we find article T369 - Great Britain: ``And Then There Were Three'', reporting on Harold Macmillan's speech at the House of Commons and three scandals, including the Profumo - Keeler scandal. (Obviously, with only one article being mapped onto this unit, the quality of data representation is rather high, resulting in a very low input vector quantization error for this unit.) Even further up the row, on unit (9/8) we find two articles T105: Great Britain - ``The Other Harold'', reporting on the election of Harold Wilson as the new leader of the Labour Party against the Tories in the coming elections, and T196: Great Britain - ``Weekend in Washington'' on Harold Wilson's trip to Washington with respect to the upcoming elections. We thus see the topical cluster to cover more general aspects of politics in Great Britain. This shift continues with unit (9/7), covering the death of Labour Leader Hugh Gaitskel and potential follow-ups Harold Wilson and George Brown in article T063 as well as a report on opinion polls on the chances for a Labour government in article T341.

On the next unit up the row, (9/6) , we find a similar topic, but a shift in terms of geography, with article T331: Italy - ``Victory, of sorts, in Sicily'' reporting on elections in Sicily as well as national elections in Italy seven weeks before. We thus now have left the cluster on British politics and moved on to a cluster on Italian politics, with both being part of a larger cluster on politics and elections. This cluster on Italian politics again spreads across several units, covering, for example, coalition debates between Christian Democrat Premier Amintore Fanfani and the Socialist leader Pietro Nenni and the power of the Communist Party.

Again back to unit (9/11) we may continue our exploration of the map in the opposite direction, move down to unit (9/12). There we find article T398: Syria: ``Throwing away the Script'', which reports on an attempt of rebels led by Ex-Colonel Jassem Alwan to overthrow the ruling Baath Party of General Mohamed Hafez. This is the beginning of a cluster on the Middle East, covering the situation in Syria on the neighboring two units, followed by other political issues of the middle east on Egypt, Iraq, Jordania and Tunisia on all units in the lower right corner of the map.

Let us now move to a different topic, namely the political situation in Vietnam in the 1960's. We find article T418: South Viet Nam - ``The Crackdown'' on the religious conflicts in Vietnam to be mapped onto unit (1/14) in the lower left corner of the map, together with articles T390 and T434, all of which are related to Ngo Dinh Diem's crackdown on Buddhist monks. From this unit we may again start to explore the neighboring units to find documents on related topics. The units in the immediate neighborhood all deal more or less directly with the religious conflict in Vietnam, such as, for example, articles T320: South Viet Nam - ``The Religious Crisis'' and T396: South Viet Nam - ``The Buddhist Crisis'' on unit (0/14) to the left. This topic continues on unit (0/13) with articles T363, T334, T414 and T415 reporting on a series of suicides of Buddhist monks to protest against the regime of South Viet Nam's catholic president Ngo Dinh Diem. If we move from unit (1/14) to the right, we again find articles on the conflict in Vietnam, however, this time no more related to Ngh Dinh Diem, but rather to the Vietnam War, the invasion of the Viet Cong and US involvement. It starts with 3 articles ( T518, T533, T559) on the political situation before the actual war on unit (2/14). If we continue to the right, we find on neighboring unit (3/14) a set of 4 articles ( T029, T269, T313, T545) on the fighting in Vietnam. The focus of these articles is - as opposed to the neighboring unit - on troop movements and helicopter fights and missions in Vietnam, thus setting these articles apart from the ones discussed before, while still being part of the general topic on the situation in Vietnam. The exploration of this topic can be continued for one more unit to the right (article T202: South Viet Nam: ``A Wife is only a Wife but Every Red is a Foe'' on unit (4/14)), before reaching the cluster on Middle East politics encountered before on unit (5/14) with articles on the situation in Algeria with its Premier Ben Bella. However, we find more articles on the fighting in Vietnam one row above on units (2/13) - (4/13), next to articles on the religious conflicts on units (0/13) and (1/13) as discussed before. We thus find the cluster of articles on the situation in Vietnam to be represented by 10 units, 4 of which concentrate on the religious conflict, while the remainder is devoted to the Vietnam War.

In order to help us analyze the mappping produced by the we can use the labels automatically extracted by the technique. For example, we find the four units in th elower left corner of the map, i.e. (0/13), (1/13), (0/14), and (1/14), to be labeled with quite similar terms, namely viet, vietname, saigon, diem, dinh, monk, buddha, buddhist, catholic, priest religion, pagoda and so on. These labels clearly describe the topic of the articles on these 4 units, namely the religious conflicts in South Vietnam under the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. The units further to the right, which we already know to describe the war in Vietnam, are labeled with viet, cong, combat, helicopter, saigon, rocket, pilot, fire, troop, guerilla for unit (3/14), or south, vietnam, dinh, diem, viet, cong, geneva for unit (2/13), to pick just a few examples, which also describe this topic in a very accurate way. Please note, that both the fact that all of these units belong to one cluster about Vietnam, as well as the fact that there are two different sub-clusters, namely the religious conflicts and the war, are clear from the resulting labels that were automatically extracted from the 4382-dimensional feature space.

For the first example on British politics, we will take a closer look at units (9/10) and (9/11) in the lower right part of the map. On the latter we find labels like christine, keeler, profumo, ward, ivanov, listing the key players of the Profumo - Keeler scandal, namely Christine Keeler, John Profumo, Stephen Ward and Evgeny Ivanov. More names are provided on the second unit, where the labels christine, keeler, profumo, ward, ivanov, wilson, macmilla, debate, tory, common point at the political perspective of the affair by listing the name of Tory party leader Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson from the Labour party. When analyzing this map, we gradually moved to the left from unit (9/11) to units (8/11) and (7/11), stating, that the topic of the articles on these units gradually shifts from the scandal itself and its political dimension to the more social and moral aspects. This becomes immediately evident, if we take a look at the according labels of the two units. Unit (8/11) is labeled with christine, girl, prostitution, house, scandal, peter, polish, rent, diamond, class. Its neighbor (7/11) is labeled with briton, victorian, society, variety, moral, lecture, obsolete, virgin, sexuality, babylon, thus no longer directly related to the Profumo - Keeler affair, but dealing with the moral of the British society in general. We also noted in the first discussion of these units, that right beneath unit (9/11) the cluster of articles on the Profumo - Keeler affair (and the topic of British politics as such) is finished, and that we find articles on an entirely different topic in the unit below, (9/12). At that time we had to take a closer look at the articles to be able to describe the topic. Using the method we can now immediately identify the topic of the unit by taking a look at its labels, which are given as damascus, coup, baath, nasser, throw, radio, syrian, syria.

The Map

west berlin german nazi remind mourn fir hitler jewish jew

T108
T513
west poland miracl german refuge

T233
T405
T332
T383
reign princ pakistan painting jose franz

T412
indian val negotiat settleme delhi nehru rusk india round pakistan

T024
T461
T096
T242
civiliz colon guinea african portug

T407
customer join membersh tarif sol borrow sweden defensiv time suspend communit sensibl portug trad common market partner seven austria outer

T131
T115
charl common market bomb greater missil france effort therefor interest polari weight stag europ gaull

T072
T071
T085
T086
T045
nuclear multilat crew european mann all polari fleet britain europ submarin deterren contribu ship nato

T308
T126
T540
T317
washingt kenned crisi pull doubl standard committ repeat german bonn reinforc plu withdraw wagon nato division

T492
malaysia malayan mala brunei feder borneo singapor sukarno abdul malaya indonesi philippi rahman tunku

T335
T443
T389
T204
T203
T479
T094
T303
west cross east barrier relati german ulbricht wall christma berlin margaret berliner

T555
T264
T116
boat wir soviet izvestia son polish berlin stamp

T019
T093
T384
china crop water cloth gallon kong hong cotton

T281
T035
provinc communis leap pek chines china

T449
china demand india kremlin aggressi manifest lad madam bell imperial ulbricht chines congres mal delegat women

T353
england briton branch beaut brown mis artist emperor length helmet spear commissi waves stripp traditio oxford coin victoria bath sheet

T119
french univers south lin parliame north split speak superior compromi languag belgium

T312
deterren nato missil all nuclear submarin multilat nassau skybolt gaull france polari

T231
T287
T558
T017
T183
T213
indonesi chines afro solidar

T101
indonesi sukarno enjo product rioter student minor dutch chines

T256
T299
german vot heinrich chancell socialis ludwig cent alt adenauer erhard

T088
T263
T401
T241
T198
T145
decre coal gaull strik send miner

T143
T197
T154
soviet quarrel confront specul khrushch nikita suggest invit pek kremlin meet restles wav dat moscow ideologi jun dela moon

T275
T193
china moscow kremlin pek sino soviet chines khrushch stalin

T381
T153
T365
T364
T394
T473
T146
T351
T346
chen spac formosa

T511
T249
T399
T301
T064
T262
T311
T329
T034
T491
T345
T175
T516
T134
T472
fast idea german french design bonn tank

T117
T144
T541
france trad europ gaull common schroder tarif market

T367
T260
T199
T463
T504
michel gaull assemb reun france pompidou gaullist debr

T261
T172
T402
himalaya nehru snow crown hop india incom budget

T130
T174
T535
elect defeat india nehru food mot congres

T501
T304
T424
T413
network adenauer ita nato cancel russia pip ton

T047
T181
russia grain farm industr cent khrushch ton product virgin chemic

T018
T542
T156
T539
T177
soviet moscow nikita khrushch kremlin possibl ball retir research sourc either cryst expert

T244
soviet moscow nuclear khrushch negotiat treat berlin west russia agreemen pact undergro test

T380
T062
T392
T404
harri station gett cloth passenge train sho fals item japan

T084
telegrap french france principa hand princ

T293
T494
france grand pari bedroom lunch warrior gaull read book

T158
T323
T102
republic pompidou fourth gaull henri gaullist debr expres

T292
T357
neutral zon indonesi ghana nonalign cambodia burma invas chines india neutrali nehru delhi himalaya ceylon china provid indian

T054
T070
nehru neutral india lawyer fanfani seventh indian

T560
satellit dance demolish val dour teen secur overlook explan secretar purg stalinis liberali comrad czechosl destalin twist

T490
T276
himsel chairman paid fat regular cent get natural circl bother worker harder work field harvest

T195
nikita khrushch suit cheek

T135
T171
T495
T347
T426
T521
T032
khrushch nikita moscow secret wait trip airport comrad missil greet telephon shut giant cuban beard celebr fidel cable castro

T245
T229
T248
paul queen greec greek king karamanl

T330
T503
T552
karamanl nazi elizabet greek roy queen greec

T274
T386
leap leg

T431
T118
T279
T507
T129
T095
T097
T270
T471
T437
T217
T266
T220
T191
T222
T368
T528
T305
T257
T309
T251
T033
T478
gaull gaullist silver murderou taxi france villa munich interior refug

T180
democrat socialis nenni tot umbrella fanfani seat egg candidat limit japan

T523
left nenni democrat fanfani christia italian socialis chamber apertura amintor ita moro

T247
T278
T230
belgrad yugoslav tito tailor khrushch

T425
T445
T214
T147
T250
francisc franco madrid spanish spain ballot worker

T031
T496
T236
T235
T128
writer painter intellec poet nikita khrushch leningra evtushen

T042
T218
T194
T178
T155
seneg senghor

T272
T150
hous seat opposit dissolv king morocco roy hassan

T049
T306
T188
T284
african schem emperor ghana addi ababa kwam nkrumah africa nigeria ethiopia hail unity

T289
T286
moscow african educ africa russian wonder guinea ghanaian student bulgaria czech

T277
T556
T112
secret bomb spies agent marcher

T382
T234
nenni ita coalit giovanni socialis democrat christia pietro wing apertura moro

T530
T485
T348
democrat christia apertura socialis fanfani coalit pietro nenni ita region

T107
T043
twist budapest festiv hungar hungaria ball

T106
T460
T219
mis geneva australi

T553
T091
T113
T090
tast hustl written barb theoreti physic evil alleged spott jail stroll sentimen chao mutter painting museum indignan pav cop leningra

T020
french morn tough progres veteran blow midnight ghana auster compound sergeant embass gat

T057
exil moroccan spain spanish morocco

T225
T098
justic kwam ghanaian detent prejudic african dispatch conspir strident south accus ghana nkrumah amendmen

T549
T237
T502
presiden assassin union northern januar french rubber tall advance ambitiou choos faction regim sergeant packag variou puppet dutiful ticket disconte

T258
T487
adoula katanga leopoldv congo congoles tshomb mayor

T408
T190
T255
T297
leopoldv lumumba adoula congo congoles russian

T477
T524
region ita campaign seat cent ballot nenni democrat april moro christia

T331
mohamm shah contract iran teheran

T066
T282
T162
T319
sweden korean liquor hill

T137
T083
T173
T223
T356
water pearl gul fish camel rat sheik

T246
T136
burma mali

T050
husband wild river expres thunder acr built bedroom palm mosqu valle egypt hous sheik wives aswan

T551
outbreak does harass feast slav pilgrima citizen cros poland cardin ceylon

T406
T259
T036
tshomb katanga african guinea monk viet hotel tour guest tanganyi

T322
mois secess copper congo tshomb katanga leopoldv

T048
T065
T358
T058
T021
T100
mois elisabet congo katanga congoles adoula leopoldv tshomb katanges rout franc bank bridg

T082
T462
tor wilson harold britain wing hugh brown gaitskel labor

T063
T341
shah snow

T184
T030
nurs doctor primitiv patient jungl modern hospit

T120
T336
matur model king thailand

T534
T280
T543
burma

T422
T536
T111
jewish ticket warsaw david israel israeli gur

T307
T350
T298
neither forever smaller dilemma coalit turke justic

T527
T189
katanga tour guinea

T238
T537
leopoldv katanga elisabet tshomb town column soldier indian copper congo thant

T028
elect conserva britain unemploy labor cent poll tor macmilla

T179
T288
T265
T055
T040
T240
harold labor tor gaitskel macmilla britain view wilson

T196
T105
laotian kong lao red plain consolid barrag canada truc plateau talk loc sabotag vigorou mayb duel typical wak warsaw effort

T300
failur japan natur wind winter hunt suppl yugoslav spectacu water fuel greec outfit temperat frozen communit coal fish cold freez

T069
thailand princ cambodia

T561
T544
T519
T081
japan controve injur socialis walk conserva chairman committe fist brawl min track

T359
T514
council nazi jew israeli israel german jewish

T430
T446
T186
T161
south gener korean junta squeez korea park civilian chung referend seoul

T221
T176
chung south civilian korea park dictator heat junta

T562
T133
T160
elect hom slip tor labor prim dougla alec poster moderniz cottag highland string whitehal wilson

T512
T493
elect tor labor probab scottish outcom popular ridden westmins vot defeat lord exampl hailsham setback

T497
T526
T417
profumo harold macmilla secur secret agent cas heath magistra deni tor reveal scandal

T369
souvanna geneva red laotian pathet viet vientian plain lao jarr kong neutrali

T227
T226
T361
T243
T122
kong plain lao pathet laotian jarr neutrali souvanna phouma

T201
africa feder nigeria witness dock

T123
T476
austrian peopl conserva socialis coalit argu austria ministr

T318
T182
pek cairo africa aswan nasser yellow china chou

T550
T557
T025
frenchme public pari chou

T310
tourist girl number profess diseas elisabet eliminat pro budapest austrian cruis rom prostitu

T200
german

T370
T436
T385
christin keeler ward scotland daughter beat bear being languag upon judg contribu prohibit stephen decre dour treatmen kingdom adopt harsh

T355
common ivanov debat tor christin profumo keeler ward macmilla wilson

T324
T337
whit africa south black african verwoerd lao spear

T254
T538
south aparthei cap whit africa black rout african

T391
T475
T442
africa african blood light tre wav mother hear nigeria voic devil poetr poet tun your dark blu black

T438
africa whit feder southern rhodesia hom workmen welensk dut custom colon beer commerci

T099
kenya indian africa chou african asian

T149
coloni jomo nairobi silent announce overwhel spok kenya gre plu solemn chieftai beard kenyatta duncan assembl latter burn colon spear

T151
daughter disput chines southeas help husband smash belong benefit hir mainland malayan servant malaya

T444
briton victoria societ variet moral lectur obsolet virgin sexu bab

T326
T152
christin girl prostitu hous scand peter polish rent diamond clas

T388
T400
girl ivanov keeler profumo christin ward

T529
T342
T354
T315
T170
south hendrik sel denmark africa racist black orang preciou baffl rac large region whit reservat verwoerd

T525
whit african africa black verwoerd south raci cap trib aparthei jew

T110
T427
african rhodesia southern black whit wedd margaret sandy

T273
black african britain whit northern feder southern field secess rhodesia governor butler welensk

T224
T109
T192
africa kenyatta kenya nairobi feder somalia

T159
T321
african jomo kenyatta uhuru kenya whit forgiv

T546
T302
T403
kenya union independ new small thu nuclear popul indian assemb island equ grew ocean neverthe admiss consist giant manhatta vot

T563
egyptian suez egypt nasser pilot ship yemen can

T060
T068
tun officer again rebel colonel coup turke soldier damascu colleg syria insurrec

T059
T296
damascu coup baath nasser throw radio syrian revolt syria

T398
viet saigon catholic religiou priest blam monk diem buddhist quang

T414
T415
T363
T334
saigon palac viet buddhist brother dinh general diem minh

T480
T498
south vietname dinh diem viet cong geneva

T508
T464
T470
T228
south cong viet rhodesia

T053
T051
cong ugly northeas south grim primitiv swarm rescu wives flash rubber disappea victim sister jungl stall resort branch belt auto

T148
kenya kenyatta arab popul bella uhuru distribu loot island

T547
ail king arabia saudi doctor saud sick cream feis

T285
T185
egypt republic yemen yemeni badr saudi arabia nasser sall horn egyptian royalist imam

T138
T459
T333
T253
egypt yemen syria nasser jordan hussein egyptian

T295
T026
baathist damascu syria syrian iraq nasser baghdad coup baath are

T522
T509
saigon viet vietname crusad dinh diem monk buddha barricad blam thuc cong catholic religiou buddhist

T320
T396
south viet vietname dinh lodg cong saigon diem minh monk pagoda buddhist

T418
T390
T434
south duong cong vietname viet provinc diem chief junta saigon minh send pleas mcnamara

T559
T518
T533
fir troop guerrill machin cong south compan adviser viet combat helicopt pilot saigon rocket

T029
T545
T313
T269
cong south peasant viet committe deal ric accord system water ugly doing ros departme chairman anyth jam coupl bunch dragg

T202
ahm bella algerian algeria

T411
T267
T067
tunisia ridicul shelter hypocrit relation bella plotter algerian algeria

T061
T023
kassem arab iraq mountain iraqi kurdish

T294
abdul rebel iraqi are baath baghdad arab iraq nasser kassem

T087
T104
T121
king iraq egypt unity syria cairo syrian nasserit baath nasser arab jordan hussein

T140
T157
T163
T187
T215
T252
T268
T283
T239


Comments: rauber@ifs.tuwien.ac.at