Visual parameter optimisation for biomedical image processing

Background: Biomedical image processing methods require users to optimise input parameters to ensure high quality output. This presents two challenges. First, it is difficult to optimise multiple input parameters for multiple input images. Second, it is difficult to achieve an understanding of underlying algorithms, in particular, relationships between input and output. Results: We present a visualisation method that transforms users’ ability to understand algorithm behaviour by integrating input and output, and by supporting exploration of their relationships. We discuss its application to a colour deconvolution technique for stained histology images and show how it enabled a domain expert to identify suitable parameter values for the deconvolution of two types of images, and metrics to quantify deconvolution performance. It also enabled a breakthrough in understanding by invalidating an underlying assumption about the algorithm. Conclusions: The visualisation method presented here provides analysis capability for multiple inputs and outputs in biomedical image processing that is not supported by previous analysis software. The analysis supported by our method is not feasible with conventional trial-and-error approaches

Making machine intelligence less scary for criminal analysts: reflections on designing a visual comparative case analysis tool

A fundamental task in Criminal Intelligence Analysis is to analyze the similarity of crime cases, called CCA, to identify common crime patterns and to reason about unsolved crimes. Typically, the data is complex and high dimensional and the use of complex analytical processes would be appropriate. State-of-the-art CCA tools lack flexibility in interactive data exploration and fall short of computational transparency in terms of revealing alternative methods and results. In this paper, we report on the design of the Concept Explorer, a flexible, transparent and interactive CCA system. During this design process, we observed that most criminal analysts are not able to understand the underlying complex technical processes, which decrease the users' trust in the results and hence a reluctance to use the tool}. Our CCA solution implements a computational pipeline together with a visual platform that allows the analysts to interact with each stage of the analysis process and to validate the result. The proposed Visual Analytics workflow iteratively supports the interpretation of the results of clustering with the respective feature relations, the development of alternative models, as well as cluster verification. The visualizations offer an understandable and usable way for the analyst to provide feedback to the system and to observe the impact of their interactions. Expert feedback confirmed that our user-centred design decisions made this computational complexity less scary to criminal analysts

A theoretical basis for using virtual worlds as a personalised process visualisation approach

Communication processes are vital in the lifecycle of BPM projects. With this in mind, much research has been performed into facilitating this key component between stakeholders. Amongst the methods used to support this process are personalized process visualisations. In this paper, we review the development of this visualization trend, then, we propose a theoretical analysis framework based upon communication theory. We use this framework to provide theoretical support to the conjecture that 3D virtual worlds are powerful tools for communicating personalised visualisations of processes within a workplace. Meta requirements are then derived and applied, via 3D virtual world functionalities, to generate example visualisations containing personalized aspects, which we believe enhance the process of communcation between analysts and stakeholders in BPM process (re)design activities

Process visualization techniques for multi-perspective process comparisons

Organizations executing similar business processes need to understand the differences and similarities in activities performed across work environments. Presently, research interest is directed towards the potential of visualization for the display of process models, to support users in their analysis tasks. Although recent literature in process mining and comparison provide several methods and algorithms to perform process and log comparison, few contributions explore novel visualization approaches. This paper analyses process comparison from a design perspective, providing some practical visualization techniques as anal- ysis solutions (/to support process analysis). The design of the visual comparison has been tackled through three different points of view: the general model, the projected model and the side-by-side comparison in order to support the needs of business analysts. A case study is presented showing the application of process mining and visualization techniques to patient treatment across two Australian hospitals

Visualization of trends in subscriber attributes of communities on mobile telecommunications networks

Churn, the decision for a subscriber to leave a provider, is frequently of interest in the telecommunications industry. Previous research provides evidence that social influence can be a factor in mobile telecommunications churn. In our work, presented at ASONAM, we presented a system, called ChurnVis, to visualize the evolution of mobile telecommunications churn and subscriber actions over time. First, we infer a social network from call detail records. Then, we compute components based on an overlay of this social network and churn activity. We compute summaries of the attributes associated with the subscribers and finally, we visualize the components in a privacy preserving way. The system is able to present summaries of thousands of churn components in graphs of hundreds of millions of edges. One of the drawbacks of the original approach was that churn components were sometimes very large, leading to over-aggregation in the summary data. In this extension of the ASONAM paper, we adapt the ChurnVis approach to operate on the output of a community finding algorithm and present new results based on this adaptation.Science Foundation Irelan

The linguistic construction of world : an example of visual analysis and methodological challenges

In this article we discuss common approaches to using data visualizations within the field of digital humanities. We argue that by assigning equal importance to the development, as well as the usage of a visualization framework, researchers can question dogmatic “best-practice” norms for data visualizations which may prevent them from developing visualizations that can be used to find emergent phenomena within the underlying data. We then focus on the question, how visualizations re-constitute language by using diagrammatic operations. Also of big importance working with digital visualizations is the technological background influencing the tools built with and the effect on the interpretation of the data. As an example approach, we present our visualization framework called “geocollocations” which can be used as an interactive tool to detect words that typically collocate with toponyms based on the data of various text corpora

Entwicklung einer 6-Achsen-Industrierobotersteuerung und Erprobung des gesamten Handhabungssystems

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