Communicating Sustainable Design through Visual Dynamics

My thesis is the exploration of dynamic methods to eff ectively visualize and communicate sustainable designpractices. Every site consists of temporal conditions (climate, vegetation growth, hydrology, comfort, aesthetics)that require dynamic representation of it’s progressive state. By understanding both the quantitative and qualitivemeasures of a site’s content, designers can begin to create guidelines and adaptive responses to the changingconditions. Th is can be achieved by fi rst understanding the intergrated relationship of those conditions, as oneelement has a direct or indirect impact on another. Th e design, in turn, cannot be a static implimentation butrather an evolutionary application

Quantitative Perspectives on Fifty Years of the Journal of the History of Biology

Journal of the History of Biology provides a fifty-year long record for examining the evolution of the history of biology as a scholarly discipline. In this paper, we present a new dataset and preliminary quantitative analysis of the thematic content of JHB from the perspectives of geography, organisms, and thematic fields. The geographic diversity of authors whose work appears in JHB has increased steadily since 1968, but the geographic coverage of the content of JHB articles remains strongly lopsided toward the United States, United Kingdom, and western Europe and has diversified much less dramatically over time. The taxonomic diversity of organisms discussed in JHB increased steadily between 1968 and the late 1990s but declined in later years, mirroring broader patterns of diversification previously reported in the biomedical research literature. Finally, we used a combination of topic modeling and nonlinear dimensionality reduction techniques to develop a model of multi-article fields within JHB. We found evidence for directional changes in the representation of fields on multiple scales. The diversity of JHB with regard to the representation of thematic fields has increased overall, with most of that diversification occurring in recent years. Drawing on the dataset generated in the course of this analysis, as well as web services in the emerging digital history and philosophy of science ecosystem, we have developed an interactive web platform for exploring the content of JHB, and we provide a brief overview of the platform in this article. As a whole, the data and analyses presented here provide a starting-place for further critical reflection on the evolution of the history of biology over the past half-century.Comment: 45 pages, 14 figures, 4 table

SynVisio: A Multiscale Tool to Explore Genomic Conservation

Comparative analysis of genomes is an important area in biological research that can shed light on an organism's internal functions and evolutionary history. It involves comparing two or more genomes to identify similar regions that can indicate shared ancestry and in turn conservation of genetic information. Due to rapid advancements in sequencing systems, high-resolution genome data is readily available for a wide range of species, and comparative analysis of this data can offer crucial evolutionary insights that can be applied in plant breeding and medical research. Visualizing the location, size, and orientation of conserved regions can assist biological researchers in comparative analysis as it is a tedious process that requires extensive manual interpretation and human judgement. However, visualization tools for the analysis of conserved regions have not kept pace with the increasing availability of information and are not designed to support the diverse use cases of researchers. To address this we gathered feedback from experts in the field, and designed improvements for these tools through novel interaction techniques and visual representations. We then developed SynVisio, a web-based tool for exploring conserved regions at multiple resolutions (genome, chromosome, or gene), with several visual representations and interactive features, to meet the diverse needs of genome researchers. SynVisio supports multi-resolution analysis and interactive filtering as researchers move deeper into the genome. It also supports revisitation to specific interface configurations, and enables loosely-coupled collaboration over the genomic data. An evaluation of the system with five researchers from three expert groups coupled with a longitudinal study of web traffic to the system provides evidence about the success of our system's novel features for interactive exploration of conservation

Sensemaking with learning analytics visualizations: Investigating dashboard comprehension and effects on learning strategy

In the provision of just-in-time feedback, student-facing learning analytics dashboards (LADs) are meant to aid decision-making during the process of learning. Unlike summative feedback received at its conclusion, this formative feedback may help learners pivot their learning strategies while still engaged in the learning activity. To turn this feedback into actionable insights however, learners must understand LADs well enough to make accurate judgements of learning with them. For these learners, LADs could become an integral part of their self-regulatory learning strategy. This dissertation presents a multifaceted examination of learners’ sensemaking processes with LADs designed to support self-regulatory learning. The in-situ studies detailed therein examine learners’ understanding of the data visualized in LADs and the effects of this understanding on their performance-related mental models. Trace data, surveys, semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews, and retrospective cued recall methods were used to identify why, when, and how learners used LADs to guide their learning. Learners’ qualitative accounts of their experience explained and contextualized the quantitative data collected from the observed activities. Learners preferred less complex LADs, finding them more useful and aesthetically appealing, despite lower gist recall with simpler visualizations. During an early investigation of how LADs were used to make learning judgments in situ, we observed learners’ tendency to act upon brief LAD interactions. This inspired us to operationalize gist as a form of measurement, describing learners’ ability to make sense of a LAD after a brief visual interrogation. Subsequent comparisons of the accuracy and descriptiveness of learners’ gist estimates to those of laypeople repeatedly showed that laypeople were more apt than learners to produce accurate and complete gist descriptions. This dissertation culminates in a final study examining the evolution of learners’ mental models of their performance due to repeated LAD interaction, followed by a discussion of the contextual factors that contributed to what was observed. Trends observed across this work suggest that learners were more apt to “get the gist” with LAD after repeated interaction. This dissertation contributes a novel method for evaluating learners’ interpretation of LADs, while our findings offer insight into how LADs shape learners’ sensemaking processes

Visualizing Natural Image Statistics

Natural image statistics is an important area of research in cognitive sciences and computer vision. Visualization of statistical results can help identify clusters and anomalies as well as analyze deviation, distribution and correlation. Furthermore, they can provide visual abstractions and symbolism for categorized data. In this paper, we begin our study of visualization of image statistics by considering visual representations of power spectra, which are commonly used to visualize different categories of images. We show that they convey a limited amount of statistical information about image categories and their support for analytical tasks is ineffective. We then introduce several new visual representations, which convey different or more information about image statistics. We apply ANOVA to the image statistics to help select statistically more meaningful measurements in our design process. A task-based user evaluation was carried out to compare the new visual representations with the conventional power spectra plots. Based on the results of the evaluation, we made further improvement of visualizations by introducing composite visual representations of image statistics

The Use of Low-Cost Technologies for the Promotion of Cultural Heritage Sites. The Case Study of Veleia

In the Cultural Heritage field, thanks to the recent development of digital technologies, a large variety of sites and artifacts could benefit from their free access and promotion through the web. But despite these achievements, the high costs that are generally connected with their use often limit their widespread. As a consequence, during the last two decades, scientific research is developing new tools and methodologies aimed at overcoming this problem. In particular, for example, researches in the field of image-based technologies and the development of open-source algorithms and software aimed at helping the processing, management and visualization of 3d data through the web represent remarkable attempts to extend the use of digital technologies in the Cultural Heritage field. This contribution shows the main steps of a project aimed at testing low-cost technologies within the multi-scalar digitization process of sites and artifacts. Thus these technologies still cannot provide analogous results in terms of definition and accuracy that it is possible to achieve using more expensive technologies (e.g. range-based technologies), they can supply low-resolution reality-based 3d models and effective representations that can be easily accessed through the web, with evident benefits in cultural contents sharing and promotion. Within a multi-scalar approach, the building of these kinds of models represents the first step of a process that, starting from low-resolution acquisitions, can improve the detail and definition of 3d digital models of artifacts by gradually adopting different methodologies and technologies. As a consequence, this approach can provide evident benefits on the achievement of different communication purposes, ranging from simple visualizations for popular aims to accurate and faithful digital replicas that can be fruited by different and changing users. Moreover, the adoption of this approach is particularly important within education processes aimed at training expert operators able to speed and therefore to further reduce costs connected with the digitization of Cultural Heritage

Three Dimensional Cartography for a Theater Production

This report documents the planning, design, and implementation of the Three Dimensional Cartography for a Theater Production project. This project’s client was Professor Chris Beach, a professor of Theater Arts at the University of Redlands. Professor Beach was interested in implementing 3D cartographic geovisualizations into a theater production he was co-writing. These geovisualizations were meant to be presented alongside actors on stage to a live audience. The datasets visualized include antique USGS topographic maps, National Park Service maps, orthographic photos and prehistoric petroglyphic cartographic representations. The process of implementing this project involved gathering raw data from internet sources, formatting them so they could be utilized on a 3D platform, and exporting animation tracks created from the data as videos. This project used ArcGIS software to create dynamic 3D cartographic representations that were visually appealing and engaging to an audience

South American subduction zone processes : Visualizing the spatial relation of earthquakes and volcanism at the subduction zone

Etelä-Amerikan alityöntövyöhyke on yksi parhaista esimerkeistä alityöntövyöhykkeistä, jossa merellinen ja mantereinen laatta liikkuvat toisiaan kohti. Lisäksi se on jakautunut useisiin lohkoihin, joissa alityöntövyöhyke käyttäytyy eri tavalla, erityisesti uppoavan laatan vajoamiskulman vaihdellessa normaalista matalaan. Tämä vaikuttaa vulkaaniseen toimintaan. Tiedon jakaminen on muuttumassa yhä visuaalisemmaksi, siksi tämä työ keskittyy Etelä- Amerikan alityöntövyöhykkeen, sekä siellä esiintyvien maanjäristysten ja vulkaanisten prosessien visualisoimiseen. Visualisoinnin avulla suurten tietomäärien välittäminen on nopeampaa, helpommin ymmärrettävää, ja usein myös kiinnostavampaa kuin suurten tekstitiedostojen lukeminen. Tutkimalla Etelä-Amerikan alityöntövyöhykettä on mahdollista oivaltaa uusia asioita alityöntövyöhykkeistä. Eräs erityisen kiinnostuksen kohde on tulivuorten ja maanjäristysten suhde alityöntövyöhykkeeseen, toisin sanoen: kuinka kaukana, ja millä syvyydellä hautavajoamasta ne voivat esiintyä. Python ohjelmointikielellä luotiin helposti ymmärrettäviä, kopioitavia ja muunneltavia malleja, kuvia ja animaatioita Jupyter Notebook ohjelmistolla. Maanjäristyksiä varten käytettiin USGS:ltä saatavaa tiedostoa ajalta tammikuu 1960 – joulukuu 2017, tulivuoritoimintaa varten Smithsonian laitokselta tiedostoa, joka kattaa Holoseenin. Kolme pääasiallista mallia luotiin: 1) animaatio kaikista maanjäristyksistä kronologisesti, jossa pylväsdiagrammit esittelevät niiden jakautumista joka toisella leveysasteella pylväsdiagrammin avulla ja niiden sijainti ja magnitudi näkyvät kartalla, 2) läpileikkauskuva alityöntövyöhykkeiden seismisestä rakenteesta tiettyjen leveyspiirien välillä, ja 3) staattinen kuva, jossa voidaan esitellä maanjäristysten tai tulivuoritoiminnan tiettyä erityispiirrettä ja sen jakautumista Etelä- Amerikassa kartan avulla, sekä pylväsdiagrammeilla. Visualisoinnit osoittavat selvästi eron normaalin ja matalan alityönnön välillä, erityisesti vulkaaniseen toimintaan liittyen. Ne myös osoittavat tulivuoritoiminnan ja järistysten jakaantumisen selkeästi, tulivuoritoiminnan keskittyessä normaalin ja siirtymävaiheisen alityönnön alueilla. Järistyksiä esiintyy 0 – 650 km syvyydellä, ja 0 -1300 km etäisyyksillä hautavajoamasta. Järistysten esiintyminen suurissa syvyyksissä on edelleen keskeinen tutkimuksen aihe, sillä syvistä järistyksistä tiedetään vain vähän ja tutkimus on hankalaa. Myös alueella esiintyvät seismiset tauot (seismic gap) 300 – 500 km syvyydellä ovat tutkimusyhteisössä kiinnostava aihe. Visualisoinnit ovat tehokkaita suurten tietoaineistojen välittämisessä tavalla, jossa tieto on helposti ymmärrettävässä muodossa, ja havaintojen tekeminen on nopeaa. Tuotetut mallit sopivat hyvin jaettaviksi muulle tiedeyhteisölle ja kouluihin, erityisesti niiden helpon sovellettavuuden ja muokattavuuden vuoksi