Visual analytics for supply network management: system design and evaluation

We propose a visual analytic system to augment and enhance decision-making processes of supply chain managers. Several design requirements drive the development of our integrated architecture and lead to three primary capabilities of our system prototype. First, a visual analytic system must integrate various relevant views and perspectives that highlight different structural aspects of a supply network. Second, the system must deliver required information on-demand and update the visual representation via user-initiated interactions. Third, the system must provide both descriptive and predictive analytic functions for managers to gain contingency intelligence. Based on these capabilities we implement an interactive web-based visual analytic system. Our system enables managers to interactively apply visual encodings based on different node and edge attributes to facilitate mental map matching between abstract attributes and visual elements. Grounded in cognitive fit theory, we demonstrate that an interactive visual system that dynamically adjusts visual representations to the decision environment can significantly enhance decision-making processes in a supply network setting. We conduct multi-stage evaluation sessions with prototypical users that collectively confirm the value of our system. Our results indicate a positive reaction to our system. We conclude with implications and future research opportunities.The authors would like to thank the participants of the 2015 Businessvis Workshop at IEEE VIS, Prof. Benoit Montreuil, and Dr. Driss Hakimi for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of the software; Prof. Manpreet Hora for assisting with and Georgia Tech graduate students for participating in the evaluation sessions; and the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions. The study was in part supported by the Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award # K9305. (K9305 - Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award)Accepted manuscrip

The design-by-adaptation approach to universal access: learning from videogame technology

This paper proposes an alternative approach to the design of universally accessible interfaces to that provided by formal design frameworks applied ab initio to the development of new software. This approach, design-byadaptation, involves the transfer of interface technology and/or design principles from one application domain to another, in situations where the recipient domain is similar to the host domain in terms of modelled systems, tasks and users. Using the example of interaction in 3D virtual environments, the paper explores how principles underlying the design of videogame interfaces may be applied to a broad family of visualization and analysis software which handles geographical data (virtual geographic environments, or VGEs). One of the motivations behind the current study is that VGE technology lags some way behind videogame technology in the modelling of 3D environments, and has a less-developed track record in providing the variety of interaction methods needed to undertake varied tasks in 3D virtual worlds by users with varied levels of experience. The current analysis extracted a set of interaction principles from videogames which were used to devise a set of 3D task interfaces that have been implemented in a prototype VGE for formal evaluation

DRLViz: Understanding Decisions and Memory in Deep Reinforcement Learning

We present DRLViz, a visual analytics interface to interpret the internal memory of an agent (e.g. a robot) trained using deep reinforcement learning. This memory is composed of large temporal vectors updated when the agent moves in an environment and is not trivial to understand due to the number of dimensions, dependencies to past vectors, spatial/temporal correlations, and co-correlation between dimensions. It is often referred to as a black box as only inputs (images) and outputs (actions) are intelligible for humans. Using DRLViz, experts are assisted to interpret decisions using memory reduction interactions, and to investigate the role of parts of the memory when errors have been made (e.g. wrong direction). We report on DRLViz applied in the context of video games simulators (ViZDoom) for a navigation scenario with item gathering tasks. We also report on experts evaluation using DRLViz, and applicability of DRLViz to other scenarios and navigation problems beyond simulation games, as well as its contribution to black box models interpretability and explainability in the field of visual analytics

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Understanding Computer Role-Playing Games: A Genre Analysis Based on Gameplay Features in Combat Systems

A game genre as diverse as that of computer role-playing games is difficult to overview. This poses challenges or both developers and researchers to position their work clearly within the genre. We present an overview of the genre based on clustering games with similar gameplay features. This allows a tracing of relations between subgenres through their gameplay, and connecting this to concrete game examples. The analysis was done through using gameplay design patterns to identify gameplay features and focused upon the combat systems in the games. The resulting cluster structure makes use of 321 patterns to create 37 different subgenre classifications based solely on gameplay features. In addition to the clusters, we identify four categories of patterns that help designers and researchers understand the combat systems in computer role-playing games

Using High-Rising Cities to Visualize Performance in Real-Time

For developers concerned with a performance drop or improvement in their software, a profiler allows a developer to quickly search and identify bottlenecks and leaks that consume much execution time. Non real-time profilers analyze the history of already executed stack traces, while a real-time profiler outputs the results concurrently with the execution of software, so users can know the results instantaneously. However, a real-time profiler risks providing overly large and complex outputs, which is difficult for developers to quickly analyze. In this paper, we visualize the performance data from a real-time profiler. We visualize program execution as a three-dimensional (3D) city, representing the structure of the program as artifacts in a city (i.e., classes and packages expressed as buildings and districts) and their program executions expressed as the fluctuating height of artifacts. Through two case studies and using a prototype of our proposed visualization, we demonstrate how our visualization can easily identify performance issues such as a memory leak and compare performance changes between versions of a program. A demonstration of the interactive features of our prototype is available at https://youtu.be/eleVo19Hp4k.Comment: 10 pages, VISSOFT 2017, Artifact: https://github.com/sefield/high-rising-city-artifac