Stress-Minimizing Orthogonal Layout of Data Flow Diagrams with Ports

We present a fundamentally different approach to orthogonal layout of data flow diagrams with ports. This is based on extending constrained stress majorization to cater for ports and flow layout. Because we are minimizing stress we are able to better display global structure, as measured by several criteria such as stress, edge-length variance, and aspect ratio. Compared to the layered approach, our layouts tend to exhibit symmetries, and eliminate inter-layer whitespace, making the diagrams more compact

A generic algorithm for layout of biological networks

BackgroundBiological networks are widely used to represent processes in biological systems and to capture interactions and dependencies between biological entities. Their size and complexity is steadily increasing due to the ongoing growth of knowledge in the life sciences. To aid understanding of biological networks several algorithms for laying out and graphically representing networks and network analysis results have been developed. However, current algorithms are specialized to particular layout styles and therefore different algorithms are required for each kind of network and/or style of layout. This increases implementation effort and means that new algorithms must be developed for new layout styles. Furthermore, additional effort is necessary to compose different layout conventions in the same diagram. Also the user cannot usually customize the placement of nodes to tailor the layout to their particular need or task and there is little support for interactive network exploration.ResultsWe present a novel algorithm to visualize different biological networks and network analysis results in meaningful ways depending on network types and analysis outcome. Our method is based on constrained graph layout and we demonstrate how it can handle the drawing conventions used in biological networks.ConclusionThe presented algorithm offers the ability to produce many of the fundamental popular drawing styles while allowing the exibility of constraints to further tailor these layouts.publishe

Application of Approximate Pattern Matching in Two Dimensional Spaces to Grid Layout for Biochemical Network Maps

Background For visualizing large-scale biochemical network maps, it is important to calculate the coordinates of molecular nodes quickly and to enhance the understanding or traceability of them. The grid layout is effective in drawing compact, orderly, balanced network maps with node label spaces, but existing grid layout algorithms often require a high computational cost because they have to consider complicated positional constraints through the entire optimization process. Results We propose a hybrid grid layout algorithm that consists of a non-grid, fast layout (preprocessor) algorithm and an approximate pattern matching algorithm that distributes the resultant preprocessed nodes on square grid points. To demonstrate the feasibility of the hybrid layout algorithm, it is characterized in terms of the calculation time, numbers of edge-edge and node-edge crossings, relative edge lengths, and F-measures. The proposed algorithm achieves outstanding performances compared with other existing grid layouts. Conclusions Use of an approximate pattern matching algorithm quickly redistributes the laid-out nodes by fast, non-grid algorithms on the square grid points, while preserving the topological relationships among the nodes. The proposed algorithm is a novel use of the pattern matching, thereby providing a breakthrough for grid layout. This application program can be freely downloaded from http://www.cadlive.jp/hybridlayout/hybridlayout.html

Exploring the effects of colouring graph diagrams on people of various backgrounds

Colour is one of the primary aesthetic elements of a visualization. It is often used successfully to encode information such as the importance of a particular part of the diagram or the relationship between two parts. Even so, there are few investigations into the human reading of colour coding on diagrams from the scientific community. In this paper we report on an experiment with graph diagrams comparing a black and white composition with two other colour treatments. We drew our subjects from engineering, art, visual design, physical education, tourism, psychology and social science disciplines. We found that colouring the nodes of interest reduced the time taken to find the shortest path between the two nodes for all subjects. Engineers, tourism and social scientists proved significantly faster with artist/designers just below the overall average speed. From this study, we contribute that adding particular colour treatments to diagrams increases legibility. In addition, preliminary work investigating colour treatments and schemes indicates potential for future gains. © 2014 Springer-Verlag

Is there just one dyslexic reader? Evidence for the existence of distinct dyslexic sub-groups.

Purpose of Review. It is generally agreed that there are individual differences in the severity of the reading deficit in dyslexia. The purpose of this review is to discuss whether recent research strengthens claims that there are also qualitative differences in the type of reading impairment that individual dyslexic children experience. Recent Findings. Recent research suggests that surface dyslexia exists in larger numbers than has previously been assumed and that different subtypes of surface dyslexia exist in English as well as in Hebrew. Bilinguals with surface dyslexia in English also show the hallmarks of surface dyslexia when reading a more transparent orthography. The developmental reading impairments that have been observed in children with phonological dyslexia and in children with letter position dyslexia can also be found in several different orthographies and are quite distinct from those seen in surface dyslexia. Summary. Surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia and letter position dyslexia represent qualitatively different types of developmental reading impairments and can all be seen in both opaque and more transparent alphabetic orthographies

An ultrasonic recognition system for flexible manufacturing

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D82599 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo