Dynamic Composite Data Physicalization Using Wheeled Micro-Robots

This paper introduces dynamic composite physicalizations, a new class of physical visualizations that use collections of self-propelled objects to represent data. Dynamic composite physicalizations can be used both to give physical form to well-known interactive visualization techniques, and to explore new visualizations and interaction paradigms. We first propose a design space characterizing composite physicalizations based on previous work in the fields of Information Visualization and Human Computer Interaction. We illustrate dynamic composite physicalizations in two scenarios demonstrating potential benefits for collaboration and decision making, as well as new opportunities for physical interaction. We then describe our implementation using wheeled micro-robots capable of locating themselves and sensing user input, before discussing limitations and opportunities for future work

River Discharge, in State of the Climate in 2008

The global mean temperature in 2008 was slightly cooler than that in 2007; however, it still ranks within the 10 warmest years on record. Annual mean temperatures were generally well above average in South America, northern and southern Africa, Iceland, Europe, Russia, South Asia, and Australia. In contrast, an exceptional cold outbreak occurred during January across Eurasia and over southern European Russia and southern western Siberia. There has been a general increase in land-surface temperatures and in permafrost temperatures during the last several decades throughout the Arctic region, including increases of 1° to 2°C in the last 30 to 35 years in Russia. Record setting warm summer (JJA) air temperatures were observed throughout Greenland

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Scenario drivers (1970-2050): Climate and hydrological alterations

This study was carried out to support and enhance a series of global studies assessing contemporary and future changes in nutrient export from watersheds (Global Nutrient Export from Watersheds (NEWS)). Because hydrography is one of the most important drivers in nutrient transport, it was essential to establish how climatic changes and direct human activities (primarily irrigation and reservoir operations) affect the hydrological cycle. Contemporary and future hydrography was established by applying a modified version of a global water balance and transport model (WBMplus) driven by present and future climate forcing, as described in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios (1970-2050). WBMplus represents a major upgrade to previous WBM implementations by incorporating irrigational water uptake and reservoir operations in a single modeling framework. Contemporary simulations were carried out by using both observed climate forcings from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia (CRU) data sets and from Global Circulation Model (GCM) simulations that are comparable to the future simulations from the same GCM forcings. Future trends in three key human activities (land use, irrigation, and reservoirs operation for hydropower) were taken from the Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment (IMAGE). The reservoir operation required establishing a realistic distribution of future reservoirs since the IMAGE model provided only the hydropower potentials for the different future scenarios

U.S. River Discharge for 2008 in State of the Climate in 2008

The global mean temperature in 2008 was slightly cooler than that in 2007; however, it still ranks within the 10 warmest years on record. Annual mean temperatures were generally well above average in South America, northern and southern Africa, Iceland, Europe, Russia, South Asia, and Australia. In contrast, an exceptional cold outbreak occurred during January across Eurasia and over southern European Russia and southern western Siberia. There has been a general increase in land-surface temperatures and in permafrost temperatures during the last several decades throughout the Arctic region, including increases of 1° to 2°C in the last 30 to 35 years in Russia. Record setting warm summer (JJA) air temperatures were observed throughout Greenland

HISTOLOGICAL CHANGES FOLLOWING OVARIECTOMY IN MICE : I. dba HIGH TUMOR STRAIN

1. In dba mice ovariectomized at birth the vagina, uterus, and mammary glands showed a gradual recovery from the castrate state, and finally reached the stage which they presumably can attain only under the influence of estrogenic hormones. Tumors of the mammary glands developed in 37 animals, of 75 examined, between the ages of 14 and 28 months (3 adenomas and 34 carcinomas). 2. As ovarian regeneration had not taken place the probability that estrogen originated in some other organ in the absence of the ovaries is suggested. 3. The consistent nodular hyperplasia of the suprarenal cortex and close morphological similarity of cells of these nodules to lutein-like cells of the ovaries points to the abnormal suprarenals as possible sources of the estrogenic hormones

Revisiting Bertin Matrices: New Interactions for Crafting Tabular Visualizations

We present Bertifier, a web app for rapidly creating tabular visualizations from spreadsheets. Bertifier draws from Jacques Bertin's matrix analysis method, whose goal was to “simplify without destroying” by encoding cell values visually and grouping similar rows and columns. Although there were several attempts to bring this method to computers, no implementation exists today that is both exhaustive and accessible to a large audience. Bertifier remains faithful to Bertin's method while leveraging the power of today's interactive computers. Tables are formatted and manipulated through crossets, a new interaction technique for rapidly applying operations on rows and columns. We also introduce visual reordering, a semi-interactive reordering approach that lets users apply and tune automatic reordering algorithms in a WYSIWYG manner. Sessions with eight users from different backgrounds suggest that Bertifier has the potential to bring Bertin's method to a wider audience of both technical and non-technical users, and empower them with data analysis and communication tools that were so far only accessible to a handful of specialists

SoccerStories: A Kick-off for Visual Soccer Analysis

This article presents SoccerStories, a visualization interface to support analysts in exploring soccer data and communicating interesting insights. Currently, most analyses on such data relate to statistics on individual players or teams. However, soccer analysts we collaborated with consider that quantitative analysis alone does not convey the right picture of the game, as context, player positions and phases of player actions are the most relevant aspects. We designed SoccerStories to support the current practice of soccer analysts and to enrich it, both in the analysis and communication stages. Our system provides an overview+detail interface of game phases, and their aggregation into a series of connected visualizations, each visualization being tailored for actions such as a series of passes or a goal attempt. To evaluate our tool, we ran two qualitative user studies on recent games using SoccerStories with data from one of the world's leading live sports data providers. The first study resulted in a series of four articles on soccer tactics, by a tactics analyst, who said he would not have been able to write these otherwise. The second study consisted in an exploratory follow-up to investigate design alternatives for embedding soccer phases into word-sized graphics. For both experiments, we received a very enthusiastic feedback and participants consider further use of SoccerStories to enhance their current workflow

Low Ply Drawings of Trees

We consider the recently introduced model of \emph{low ply graph drawing}, in which the ply-disks of the vertices do not have many common overlaps, which results in a good distribution of the vertices in the plane. The \emph{ply-disk} of a vertex in a straight-line drawing is the disk centered at it whose radius is half the length of its longest incident edge. The largest number of ply-disks having a common overlap is called the \emph{ply-number} of the drawing. We focus on trees. We first consider drawings of trees with constant ply-number, proving that they may require exponential area, even for stars, and that they may not even exist for bounded-degree trees. Then, we turn our attention to drawings with logarithmic ply-number and show that trees with maximum degree $6$ always admit such drawings in polynomial area.Comment: This is a complete access version of a paper that will appear in the proceedings of GD201

Defragmenting the Module Layout of a Partially Reconfigurable Device

Modern generations of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) allow for partial reconfiguration. In an online context, where the sequence of modules to be loaded on the FPGA is unknown beforehand, repeated insertion and deletion of modules leads to progressive fragmentation of the available space, making defragmentation an important issue. We address this problem by propose an online and an offline component for the defragmentation of the available space. We consider defragmenting the module layout on a reconfigurable device. This corresponds to solving a two-dimensional strip packing problem. Problems of this type are NP-hard in the strong sense, and previous algorithmic results are rather limited. Based on a graph-theoretic characterization of feasible packings, we develop a method that can solve two-dimensional defragmentation instances of practical size to optimality. Our approach is validated for a set of benchmark instances.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, 1 table, Latex, to appear in "Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms" as a "Distinguished Paper