DevLan/vispubs huggingface dataset:
SpiralView: Towards Security Policies Assessment through Visual Correlation of Network Resources with Evolution of Alarms
Authors: Enrico Bertini, Patrick Hertzog, Denis Lalanne
Published at VAST, 2007

This article presents SpiralView, a visualization tool for helping system administrators to assess network policies. The tool is meant to be a complementary support to the routine activity of network monitoring, enabling a retrospective view on the alarms generated during and extended period of time. The tool permits to reason about how alarms distribute over time and how they correlate with network resources (e.g., users, IPs, applications, etc.), supporting the analysts in understanding how the network evolves and thus in devising new security policies for the future. The spiral visualization plots alarms in time, and, coupled with interactive bar charts and a users/applications graph view, is used to present network data and perform queries. The user is able to segment the data in meaningful subsets, zoom on specific related information, and inspect for relationships between alarms, users, and applications. In designing the visualizations and their interaction, and through tests with security experts, several ameliorations over the standard techniques have been provided.
Stories in GeoTime
Authors: Ryan Eccles, Thomas Kapler, Robert Harper 0002, William Wright
Published at VAST, 2007

A story is a powerful abstraction used by intelligence analysts to conceptualize threats and understand patterns as part of the analytical process. This paper demonstrates a system that detects geo-temporal patterns and integrates story narration to increase analytic sense-making cohesion in GeoTime. The GeoTime geo-temporal event visualization tool was augmented with a story system that uses narratives, hypertext linked visualizations, visual annotations, and pattern detection to create an environment for analytic exploration and communication, thereby assisting the analyst in identifying, extracting, arranging and presenting stories within the data The story system lets analysts operate at the story level with higher-level abstractions of data, such as behaviors and events, while staying connected to the evidence. The story system was developed and evaluated in collaboration with analysts.
Sunfall: A Collaborative Visual Analytics System for Astrophysics
Authors: Cecilia R. Aragon, Stephen J. Bailey, Sarah S. Poon, Karl J. Runge, Rollin C. Thomas
Published at VAST, 2007

Computational and experimental sciences produce and collect ever- larger and complex datasets, often in large-scale, multi-institution projects. The inability to gain insight into complex scientific phenomena using current software tools is a bottleneck facing virtually all endeavors of science. In this paper, we introduce Sunfall, a collaborative visual analytics system developed for the Nearby Supernova Factory, an international astrophysics experiment and the largest data volume supernova search currently in operation. Sunfall utilizes novel interactive visualization and analysis techniques to facilitate deeper scientific insight into complex, noisy, high-dimensional, high-volume, time-critical data. The system combines novel image processing algorithms, statistical analysis, and machine learning with highly interactive visual interfaces to enable collaborative, user-driven scientific exploration of supernova image and spectral data. Sunfall is currently in operation at the Nearby Supernova Factory; it is the first visual analytics system in production use at a major astrophysics project.
TextPlorer: An application supporting text analysis
Authors: Chi-Chun Pan, Anuj R. Jaiswal, Junyan Luo, Anthony C. Robinson
Published at VAST, 2007

TexPlorer is an integrated system for exploring and analyzing large amounts of text documents. The data processing modules of TexPlorer consist of named entity extraction, entity relation extraction, hierarchical clustering, and text summarization tools. Using a timeline tool, tree-view, table-view, and concept maps, TexPlorer provides an analytical interface for exploring a set of text documents from different perspectives and allows users to explore vast amount of text documents efficiently.
Thin Client Visualization
Authors: Stephen G. Eick, M. Andrew Eick, Jesse Fugitt, Brian Horst, Maxim Khailo, Russell A. Lankenau
Published at VAST, 2007

We have developed a Web 2.0 thin client visualization framework called GeoBoosttrade. Our framework focuses on geospatial visualization and using scalable vector graphics (SVG), AJAX, RSS and GeoRSS we have built a complete thin client component set. Our component set provides a rich user experience that is completely browser based. It includes maps, standard business charts, graphs, and time-oriented components. The components are live, interactive, linked, and support real time collaboration.
University of British Columbia & Simon Fraser University - The Bricolage
Authors: William Chao, Daniel Ha, Kevin I.-J. Ho, Linda T. Kaastra, Minjung Kim, Andrew Wade, Brian D. Fisher
Published at VAST, 2007

This abstract presents abricolageapproach to the 2007 VAST contest. The analytical process we used is presented across four stages of sensemaking. Several tools were used throughout our approach, and we present their strengths and weaknesses for specific aspects of the analytical process. In addition, we review the details of both individual and collaborative techniques for solving visual analytics problems.
University of British Columbia & Simon Fraser University - The Bricolage
Authors: William Chao, Daniel Ha, Kevin I.-J. Ho, Linda T. Kaastra, Minjung Kim, Andrew Wade, Brian D. Fisher
Published at VAST, 2007

This abstract presents a bricolage approach to the 2007 VAST contest. The analytical process we used is presented across four stages of sensemaking. Several tools were used throughout our approach, and we present their strengths and weaknesses for specific aspects of the analytical process. In addition, we review the details of both individual and collaborative techniques for solving visual analytics problems.
Us vs. Them: Understanding Social Dynamics in Wikipedia with Revert Graph Visualizations
Authors: Bongwon Suh, Ed H. Chi, Bryan A. Pendleton, Aniket Kittur
Published at VAST, 2007

Wikipedia is a wiki-based encyclopedia that has become one of the most popular collaborative on-line knowledge systems. As in any large collaborative system, as Wikipedia has grown, conflicts and coordination costs have increased dramatically. Visual analytic tools provide a mechanism for addressing these issues by enabling users to more quickly and effectively make sense of the status of a collaborative environment. In this paper we describe a model for identifying patterns of conflicts in Wikipedia articles. The model relies on users' editing history and the relationships between user edits, especially revisions that void previous edits, known as "reverts". Based on this model, we constructed Revert Graph, a tool that visualizes the overall conflict patterns between groups of users. It enables visual analysis of opinion groups and rapid interactive exploration of those relationships via detail drill- downs. We present user patterns and case studies that show the effectiveness of these techniques, and discuss how they could generalize to other systems.
VAST 2007 Contest - Analysis with nSpace and GeoTime
Authors: Lynn Chien, Annie Tat, Thomas Kapler, Patricia Enns, Winniefried Kuan, William Wright
Published at VAST, 2007

GeoTime and nSpace are two interactive visual analytics tools that support the process of analyzing massive and complex datasets. The two tools were used to examine and interpret the 2007 VAST contest dataset. This paper describes how the capabilities of the tools were used to facilitate and expedite every stage of the analysis.
VAST 2007 Contest - Blue Iguanodon
Authors: Georges G. Grinstein, Catherine Plaisant, Sharon J. Laskowski, Theresa A. O'Connell, Jean Scholtz, Mark A. Whiting
Published at VAST, 2007

Visual analytics experts realize that one effective way to push the field forward and to develop metrics for measuring the performance of various visual analytics components is to hold an annual competition. The second visual analytics science and technology (VAST) contest was held in conjunction with the 2007 IEEE VAST symposium. In this contest participants were to use visual analytic tools to explore a large heterogeneous data collection to construct a scenario and find evidence buried in the data of illegal and terrorist activities that were occurring. A synthetic data set was made available as well as tasks. In this paper we describe some of the advances we have made from the first competition held in 2006.
VAST 2007 Contest Data Analysis Using NdCore and REGGAE
Authors: Lynn Schwendiman, Jonathan McLean, Jonathan Larson
Published at VAST, 2007

ATS Intelligent Discovery analyzed the VAST 2007 contest data set using two of its proprietary applications, NdCore and REGGAE (Relationship Generating Graph Analysis Engine). The paper describes these tools and how they were used to discover the contest's scenarios of wildlife law enforcement, endangered species issues, and ecoterrorism.
VAST 2007 Contest Interactive Poster: Data Analysis Using NdCore and REGGAE
Authors: Lynn Schwendiman, Jonathan McLean, Jonathan Larson
Published at VAST, 2007

ATS intelligent discovery analyzed the VAST 2007 contest data set using two of its proprietary applications, NdCore and REGGAE (relationship generating graph analysis engine). The paper describes these tools and how they were used to discover the contest's scenarios of wildlife law enforcement, endangered species issues, and ecoterrorism.
VAST 2007 Contest TexPlorer
Authors: Chi-Chun Pan, Anuj R. Jaiswal, Junyan Luo, Anthony C. Robinson, Prasenjit Mitra, Alan M. MacEachren, Ian Turton
Published at VAST, 2007

TexPlorer is an integrated system for exploring and analyzing vast amount of text documents. The data processing modules of TexPlorer consist of named entity extraction, entity relation extraction, hierarchical clustering, and text summarization tools. Using time line tool, tree-view, table-view, and concept maps, TexPlorer provides visualizations from different aspects and allows analysts to explore vast amount of text documents efficiently.
VAST to Knowledge: Combining tools for exploration and mining
Authors: Loretta Auvil, Xavier Llorà, Duane Searsmith, Kelly Searsmith
Published at VAST, 2007

The investigation of the VAST Contest collection provided a valuable test for text mining techniques. Our group has focused on creating analytical tools to unveil relevant patterns and to aid with the content navigation in such text collections. Our results show how such an approach, in combination with visualization techniques, can ease the discovery process especially when multiple tools founded on the same approach to data mining are used in complement to and in concert with one another.
VisPad: Integrating Visualization, Navigation and Synthesis
Authors: Yedendra Babu Shrinivasan, Jarke J. van Wijk
Published at VAST, 2007

We present a new framework - VisPad - to support the user to revisit the visual exploration process, and to synthesize and disseminate information. It offers three integrated views. The data view allows the user to interactively explore the data. The navigation view captures the exploration process. It enables the user to revisit any particular state and reuse it. The knowledge view enables the user to record his/her findings and the relations between these findings.
Visual Analysis of Controversy in User-generated Encyclopedias
Authors: Ulrik Brandes, Jürgen Lerner
Published at VAST, 2007

Wikipedia is a large and rapidly growing Web-based collaborative authoring environment, where anyone on the Internet can create, modify, and delete pages about encyclopedic topics. A remarkable property of some Wikipedia pages is that they are written by up to thousands of authors who may have contradicting opinions. In this paper we show that a visual analysis of the "who revises whom"- network gives deep insight into controversies. We propose a set of analysis and visualization techniques that reveal the dominant authors of a page, the roles they play, and the alters they confront. Thereby we provide tools to understand how Wikipedia authors collaborate in the presence of controversy.
Visual Analysis of Dynamic Networks with Geological Clustering
Authors: Adel Ahmed, Xiaoyan Fu, Seok-Hee Hong 0001, Quan Hoang Nguyen, Kai Xu 0003
Published at VAST, 2007

Many dynamic networks have associated geological information. Here we present two complementing visual analysis methods for such networks. The first one provides an overview with summerized information while the second one presents a more detailed view. The geological information is encoded in the network layout, which is designed to help maintain user's mental map. We also combined visualization with social network analysis to facilitate knowledge discovery, especially to understand network changes in the context overall evolution. Both methods are applied to the "History of the FIFA World Cup Competition" data set.
Visual Analytics Approach to User-Controlled Evacuation Scheduling
Authors: Gennady L. Andrienko, Natalia V. Andrienko, Ulrich Bartling
Published at VAST, 2007

Application of the ideas of visual analytics is a promising approach to supporting decision making, in particular, where the problems have geographic (or spatial) and temporal aspects. Visual analytics may be especially helpful in time-critical applications, which pose hard challenges to decision support. We have designed a suite of tools to support transportation-planning tasks such as emergency evacuation of people from a disaster- affected area. The suite combines a tool for automated scheduling based on a genetic algorithm with visual analytics techniques allowing the user to evaluate tool results and direct its work. A transportation schedule, which is generated by the tool, is a complex construct involving geographical space, time, and heterogeneous objects (people and vehicles) with states and positions varying in time. We apply task-analytical approach to design techniques that could effectively support a human planner in the analysis of this complex information H. 1.2 [User/Machine Systems]: Human information processing - Visual Analytics; 1.6.9 [Visualization]: information visualization.
Visual Analytics on Mobile Devices for Emergency Response
Authors: SungYe Kim, Yun Jang, Angela K. Mellema, David S. Ebert, Timothy W. Collins
Published at VAST, 2007

Using mobile devices for visualization provides a ubiquitous environment for accessing information and effective decision making. These visualizations are critical in satisfying the knowledge needs of operators in areas as diverse as education, business, law enforcement, protective services, medical services, scientific discovery, and homeland security. In this paper, we present an efficient and interactive mobile visual analytic system for increased situational awareness and decision making in emergency response and training situations. Our system provides visual analytics with locational scene data within a simple interface tailored to mobile device capabilities. In particular, we focus on processing and displaying sensor network data for first responders. To verify our system, we have used simulated data of The Station nightclub fire evacuation.
Visual Analytics with Jigsaw
Authors: Carsten Görg, Zhicheng Liu, Neel Parekh, Kanupriya Singhal, John T. Stasko
Published at VAST, 2007

This article briefly introduces the Jigsaw system and describes how we used it in analysis activities for the VAST '07 Contest. Jigsaw is a visual analytic system that provides multiple coordinated views to show connections between entities that are extracted from a collection of documents.
WireVis: Visualization of Categorical, Time-Varying Data From Financial Transactions
Authors: Remco Chang, Mohammad Ghoniem, Robert Kosara, William Ribarsky, Jing Yang 0001, Evan A. Suma, Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Daniel A. Kern, Agus Sudjianto
Published at VAST, 2007

Large financial institutions such as Bank of America handle hundreds of thousands of wire transactions per day. Although most transactions are legitimate, these institutions have legal and financial obligations in discovering those that are suspicious. With the methods of fraudulent activities ever changing, searching on predefined patterns is often insufficient in detecting previously undiscovered methods. In this paper, we present a set of coordinated visualizations based on identifying specific keywords within the wire transactions. The different views used in our system depict relationships among keywords and accounts over time. Furthermore, we introduce a search-by-example technique which extracts accounts that show similar transaction patterns. In collaboration with the Anti-Money Laundering division at Bank of America, we demonstrate that using our tool, investigators are able to detect accounts and transactions that exhibit suspicious behaviors.
A Taxonomy of Clutter Reduction for Information Visualisation
Authors: Geoffrey P. Ellis, Alan J. Dix
Published at InfoVis, 2007

Information visualisation is about gaining insight into data through a visual representation. This data is often multivariate and increasingly, the datasets are very large. To help us explore all this data, numerous visualisation applications, both commercial and research prototypes, have been designed using a variety of techniques and algorithms. Whether they are dedicated to geo-spatial data or skewed hierarchical data, most of the visualisations need to adopt strategies for dealing with overcrowded displays, brought about by too much data to fit in too small a display space. This paper analyses a large number of these clutter reduction methods, classifying them both in terms of how they deal with clutter reduction and more importantly, in terms of the benefits and losses. The aim of the resulting taxonomy is to act as a guide to match techniques to problems where different criteria may have different importance, and more importantly as a means to critique and hence develop existing and new techniques.
AdaptiviTree: Adaptive Tree Visualization for Tournament-Style Brackets
Authors: Desney S. Tan, Greg Smith, Bongshin Lee, George G. Robertson
Published at InfoVis, 2007

Online pick'em games, such as the recent NCAA college basketball March Madness tournament, form a large and rapidly growing industry. In these games, players make predictions on a tournament bracket that defines which competitors play each other and how they proceed toward a single champion. Throughout the course of the tournament, players monitor the brackets to track progress and to compare predictions made by multiple players. This is often a complex sense making task. The classic bracket visualization was designed for use on paper and utilizes an incrementally additive system in which the winner of each match-up is rewritten in the next round as the tournament progresses. Unfortunately, this representation requires a significant amount of space and makes it relatively difficult to get a quick overview of the tournament state since competitors take arbitrary paths through the static bracket. In this paper, we present AdaptiviTree, a novel visualization that adaptively deforms the representation of the tree and uses its shape to convey outcome information. AdaptiviTree not only provides a more compact and understandable representation, but also allows overlays that display predictions as well as other statistics. We describe results from a lab study we conducted to explore the efficacy of AdaptiviTree, as well as from a deployment of the system in a recent real-world sports tournament.
Animated Transitions in Statistical Data Graphics
Authors: Jeffrey Heer, George G. Robertson
Published at InfoVis, 2007

In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of animated transitions between common statistical data graphics such as bar charts, pie charts, and scatter plots. We extend theoretical models of data graphics to include such transitions, introducing a taxonomy of transition types. We then propose design principles for creating effective transitions and illustrate the application of these principles in &lt;i&gt;DynaVis&lt;/i&gt;, a visualization system featuring animated data graphics. Two controlled experiments were conducted to assess the efficacy of various transition types, finding that animated transitions can significantly improve graphical perception.
Browsing Zoomable Treemaps: Structure-Aware Multi-Scale Navigation Techniques
Authors: Renaud Blanch, Eric Lecolinet
Published at InfoVis, 2007

Treemaps provide an interesting solution for representing hierarchical data. However, most studies have mainly focused on layout algorithms and paid limited attention to the interaction with treemaps. This makes it difficult to explore large data sets and to get access to details, especially to those related to the leaves of the trees. We propose the notion of zoomable treemaps (ZTMs), an hybridization between treemaps and zoomable user interfaces that facilitates the navigation in large hierarchical data sets. By providing a consistent set of interaction techniques, ZTMs make it possible for users to browse through very large data sets (e.g., 700,000 nodes dispatched amongst 13 levels). These techniques use the structure of the displayed data to guide the interaction and provide a way to improve interactive navigation in treemaps.
Casual Information Visualization: Depictions of Data in Everyday Life
Authors: Zachary Pousman, John T. Stasko, Michael Mateas
Published at InfoVis, 2007

Information visualization has often focused on providing deep insight for expert user populations and on techniques for amplifying cognition through complicated interactive visual models. This paper proposes a new subdomain for infovis research that complements the focus on analytic tasks and expert use. Instead of work-related and analytically driven infovis, we propose casual information visualization (or casual infovis) as a complement to more traditional infovis domains. Traditional infovis systems, techniques, and methods do not easily lend themselves to the broad range of user populations, from expert to novices, or from work tasks to more everyday situations. We propose definitions, perspectives, and research directions for further investigations of this emerging subfield. These perspectives build from ambient information visualization (Skog et al., 2003), social visualization, and also from artistic work that visualizes information (Viegas and Wattenberg, 2007). We seek to provide a perspective on infovis that integrates these research agendas under a coherent vocabulary and framework for design. We enumerate the following contributions. First, we demonstrate how blurry the boundary of infovis is by examining systems that exhibit many of the putative properties of infovis systems, but perhaps would not be considered so. Second, we explore the notion of insight and how, instead of a monolithic definition of insight, there may be multiple types, each with particular characteristics. Third, we discuss design challenges for systems intended for casual audiences. Finally we conclude with challenges for system evaluation in this emerging subfield.