Lattice-Based Technique to Visualize and Compare Regional Terrorism Using the Global Terrorism Database

Order-theoretic lattices and their visualizations are proposed as a means of exploring and analyzing databases. The max-complete lattice is formed and the significance of lattice nodes and of the top node are demonstrated. These novel visualizations serve as a useful complement to well-known charting techniques such as bar charts and may extend the knowledge gained from critical databases. The Carver2 dataset is used as an illustrative example, highlighting the formation of the max-complete lattice from the original dataset and the computational advantage provided by compressing the lattice using only its irreducible elements. Regional information from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which has been extensively analyzed and visualized using well-known methods, is visualized using max-complete lattices, and juxtaposing the GTD lattice visualizations with corresponding bar charts demonstrates their complementary nature.