Co-located single display collaborative learning for early childhood education

The benefits of collaborative learning are well documented. However, most of the research has been done with children beyond the ages of early childhood. This could be due to the common and erroneous belief that young children have not developed the capacity to work collaboratively toward a given aim. In this paper we show how small group co-located collaborative learning on a single display computer improves oral language, logical-mathematical and social skills in pre-school children. Considering that early childhood teachers have a responsibility to provide a supportive environment, teacher mediation is essential in order to achieve collaborative learning. Thus, teachers were trained in the use of the technology and strategies for effective collaborative learning. The study was implemented in 10 kindergarten classrooms with 268 children between the ages of 5 and 6 years old. A group of 5 kindergarten classrooms with equivalent characteristics participated as a comparison group. During the four-month intervention, children worked on collaborative activities at least twice a week. A quasi-experimental approach was used to assess the implementation, including pre- and post-testing. The data showed differences in the learning of oral language, logical-mathematical and social skills, with the experimental group demonstrating significantly greater achievement.     

A collaborative visual analytics suite for protein folding research

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is a crucial tool for understanding principles behind important biochemical processes such as protein folding and molecular interaction. With the rapidly increasing power of modern computers, large-scale MD simulation experiments can be performed regularly, generating huge amounts of MD data. An important question is how to analyze and interpret such massive and complex data.One of the (many) challenges involved in analyzing MD simulation data computationally is the high-dimensionality of such data. Given a massive collection of molecular conformations, researchers typically need to rely on their expertise and prior domain knowledge in order to retrieve certain conformations of interest. It is not easy to make and test hypotheses as the data set as a whole is somewhat “invisible” due to its high dimensionality. In other words, it is hard to directly access and examine individual conformations from a sea of molecular structures, and to further explore the entire data set. There is also no easy and convenient way to obtain a global view of the data or its various modalities of biochemical information.To this end, we present an interactive, collaborative visual analytics tool for exploring massive, high-dimensional molecular dynamics simulation data sets. The most important utility of our tool is to provide a platform where researchers can easily and effectively navigate through the otherwise “invisible” simulation data sets, exploring and examining molecular conformations both as a whole and at individual levels. The visualization is based on the concept of a topological landscape, which is a 2D terrain metaphor preserving certain topological and geometric properties of the high dimensional protein energy landscape. In addition to facilitating easy exploration of conformations, this 2D terrain metaphor also provides a platform where researchers can visualize and analyze various properties (such as contact density) overlayed on the top of the 2D terrain. Finally, the software provides a collaborative environment where multiple researchers can assemble observations and biochemical events into storyboards and share them in real time over the Internet via a client-server architecture.The software is written in Scala and runs on the cross-platform Java Virtual Machine. Binaries and source code are available at http://www.aylasoftware.org and have been released under the GNU General Public License.     

A middleware for a tabletop procedure-aware information display

In this article, we propose a middleware that supports a developer to build tabletop information display systems. We focus on an application that projects information close to a particular object on a table. To let a user focus on his/her primary task, the information is presented based on a current phase in a procedure, which we call procedure-awareness. Here, a current phase is recognized through the utilization of objects. The proposed middleware separates information from acquisition and presentation mechanisms: sensors for operational context recognition, sensors for object identification/tracking for “nearby presentation”, and projecting information near an object. A developer just needs to write a set of rules, i.e. application logic, that represent contents for particular operational contexts. Also, by implementing appropriate handlers, any content can be provided. We present the design and the implementation of the middleware and validate the expressiveness of application logics through prototype development.     

Review on tabletop true 3D display

Tabletop three‐dimensional (3D) display is an attractive display technology that allows multiple individuals around the table to view the reconstructed 3D objects simultaneously, which can be applied to a variety of application scenarios such as desktop conference and board games. In this review paper, the tabletop true 3D display has been characterized and classified into four categories based on the technologies of light field display, integral imaging, and volumetric 3D and holographic 3D displays. Moreover, the comparisons of these technologies are listed, and the prospect of the tabletop 3D display is discussed.     

A visual analytics agenda

Researchers have made significant progress in disciplines such as scientific and information visualization, statistically based exploratory and confirmatory analysis, data and knowledge representations, and perceptual and cognitive sciences. Although some research is being done in this area, the pace at which new technologies and technical talents are becoming available is far too slow to meet the urgent need. National Visualization and Analytics Center's goal is to advance the state of the science to enable analysts to detect the expected and discover the unexpected from massive and dynamic information streams and databases consisting of data of multiple types and from multiple sources, even though the data are often conflicting and incomplete. Visual analytics is a multidisciplinary field that includes the following focus areas: (i) analytical reasoning techniques, (ii) visual representations and interaction techniques, (iii) data representations and transformations, (iv) techniques to support production, presentation, and dissemination of analytical results. The R&D agenda for visual analytics addresses technical needs for each of these focus areas, as well as recommendations for speeding the movement of promising technologies into practice. This article provides only the concise summary of the R&D agenda. We encourage reading, discussion, and debate as well as active innovation toward the agenda for visual analysis.     

Lumisight Table: an interactive view-dependent tabletop display

A novel tabletop display provides different images to different users surrounding the system. It can also capture users' gestures and physical objects on the tabletop. The Lumisight Table approach is based on the optical design of a special screen system composed of a building material called Lumisty and a Fresnel lens. The system combines these films and a lens with four projectors to display four different images, one for each user's view. In addition, we need appropriate input methods for this display media. In the current state of the project, we can control computers by placing physical objects on the display or placing our hands over the display. This screen system also makes it possible to use a camera to capture the appearance of the tabletop from inside of the system. Our other main idea is to develop attractive and specialized applications on the Lumisight Table, including games and applications for computer-supported cooperative-work (CSCW) environments. The projected images can be completely different from each other, or partially identical and partially different. Users can share the identical parts as public information, because all users can see it. This article is available with a short video documentary on CD-ROM.     

Storage bins: mobile storage for collaborative tabletop displays

The ability to store resource items anywhere in the workspace and move them around can be critical for coordinating task and group interactions on a table. However, existing casual storage techniques for digital workspaces only provide access to stored items at the periphery of the workspace, potentially compromising collaborative interactions at a digital tabletop display. To facilitate this storage behavior in a digital tabletop workspace, we developed the storage bin mobile storage mechanism, which combines the space-preserving features of existing peripheral storage mechanisms with the capability to relocate stored items in the workspace. A user study explores the utility of storage bins on tabletop display collaboration.     

Graph signatures for visual analytics

We present a visual analytics technique to explore graphs using the concept of a data signature. A data signature, in our context, is a multidimensional vector that captures the local topology information surrounding each graph node. Signature vectors extracted from a graph are projected onto a low-dimensional scatterplot through the use of scaling. The resultant scatterplot, which reflects the similarities of the vectors, allows analysts to examine the graph structures and their corresponding real-life interpretations through repeated use of brushing and linking between the two visualizations. The interpretation of the graph structures is based on the outcomes of multiple participatory analysis sessions with intelligence analysts conducted by the authors at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The paper first uses three public domain data sets with either well-known or obvious features to explain the rationale of our design and illustrate its results. More advanced examples are then used in a customized usability study to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach. The study results reveal not only the limitations and weaknesses of the traditional approach based solely on graph visualization, but also the advantages and strengths of our signature-guided approach presented in the paper     

智能可视化与可视分析

可视化与可视分析已成为众多领域中结合人类智能与机器智能协同理解、分析数据的常见手段。人工智能可以通过对大数据的学习分析提高数据质量,捕捉关键信息,并选取最有效的视觉呈现方式,从而使用户更快、更准确、更全面地从可视化中理解数据。利用人工智能方法,交互式可视化系统也能更好地学习用户习惯及用户意图,推荐符合用户需求的可视化形式、交互操作和数据特征,从而降低用户探索的学习及时间成本,提高交互分析的效率。人工智能方法在可视化中的应用受到了极大关注,产生了大量学术成果。本文从最新工作出发,探讨人工智能在可视化流程的关键步骤中的作用。包括如何智能地表示和管理数据、如何辅助用户快速创建和定制可视化、如何通过人工智能扩展交互手段及提高交互效率、如何借助人工智能辅助数据的交互分析等。具体而言,本文详细梳理每个步骤中需要完成的任务及解决思路,介绍相应的人工智能方法（如深度网络结构）,并以图表数据为例介绍智能可视化与可视分析的应用,最后讨论智能可视化方法的发展趋势,展望未来的研究方向及应用场景。     

沉浸式所触即所得网络可视分析方法

沉浸式网络可视化在空间沉浸、用户参与、多维感知等方面具有天然的优势。受用户与日常物体交互方式所启发,基于所触即所得(WYTIWYG)的理念提出一种沉浸式网络可视分析方法来挖掘网络特征和关联模式。首先提出手势舒适度评估模型来指导手势动作设计,并引入窗口状态模型来优化手势识别稳定性。此外,将网络分析交互需求与手势动作语义绑定,定义沉浸式网络手势交互范式。与真实世界中抓取交互类似,用户可利用自然交互手势在沉浸式环境下执行移动、高亮、布局维度变换、边绑定等操作。最后,案例研究验证了方法的有效性。     

Mobile collaborative medical display system

Because of recent advances in wireless communication technologies, the world of mobile computing is flourishing with a variety of applications. In this study, we present an integrated architecture for a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based mobile medical display system that supports collaborative work between remote users. We aim to develop a system that enables users in different regions to share a working environment for collaborative visualization with the potential for exploring huge medical datasets. Our system consists of three major components: mobile client, gateway, and parallel rendering server. The mobile client serves as a front end and enables users to choose the visualization and control parameters interactively and cooperatively. The gateway handles requests and responses between mobile clients and the rendering server for efficient communication. Through the gateway, it is possible to share working environments between users, allowing them to work together in computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) mode. Finally, the parallel rendering server is responsible for performing heavy visualization tasks. Our experience indicates that some features currently available to our mobile clients for collaborative scientific visualization are limited due to the poor performance of mobile devices and the low bandwidth of wireless connections. However, as mobile devices and wireless network systems are experiencing considerable elevation in their capabilities, we believe that our methodology will be utilized effectively in building quite responsive, useful mobile collaborative medical systems in the very near future.     

Special focus on engineering visual analytics foreword

With an increasing amount of information available from complex systems, such as a software system, a medical device, and a transportation system, there is an urgent need for effective visual analytics     

An information-theoretic view of visual analytics.

Visual analytics is an emerging discipline that helps connect dots. It facilitates analytical reasoning and decision making through integrated and highly interactive visualization of complex and dynamic data and situations. Solving mysteries is only part of the game. Visual analytics must augment analyst and decision-maker capabilities to assimilate complex situations and reach informed decisions. In information theory, the information value carried by a message is the difference in information entropy before and after receipt of the message. Information entropy is a macroscopic measure of uncertainty defined on a frequency or probability distribution. The information-theoretical approach attempts to quantify discrepancies of the information content of distributions.     

An insight-based longitudinal study of visual analytics

Visualization tools are typically evaluated in controlled studies that observe the short-term usage of these tools by participants on preselected data sets and benchmark tasks. Though such studies provide useful suggestions, they miss the long-term usage of the tools. A longitudinal study of a bioinformatics data set analysis is reported here. The main focus of this work is to capture the entire analysts process that an analyst goes through from a raw data set to the insights sought from the data. The study provides interesting observations about the use of visual representations and interaction mechanisms provided by the tools, and also about the process of insight generation in general. This deepens our understanding of visual analytics, guides visualization developers in creating more effective visualization tools in terms of user requirements, and guides evaluators in designing future studies that are more representative of insights sought by users from their data sets     

Affording embodied cognition through touchscreen and above-the-surface gestures during collaborative tabletop science learning

International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning - This paper draws upon the theory of embodied cognition to provide a robust account of how gestural interactions with and around...     

Social interaction around a rural community photo display

Public displays of photographs are a common sight in community spaces, yet while much attention has been given recently to the use of digital photography in the home, the community domain remains underexplored. We describe the Wray Photo Display, a public situated display for community-generated photography in an English rural village, which aims to understand the community's use of photos for social purposes and the ways in which public display technology may support these social interactions. This article presents the techniques used in designing and evaluating the display as well as understanding the community and its use of photos, and our discussion of the issues and challenges presented by this study.     

A personal visual analytics on smartphone usage data

The percentage of individuals frequently using their smartphones in work and life is increasing steadily. The interactions between individuals and their smartphones can produce large amounts of usage data, which contain rich information about smartphone owners’ usage habits and their daily life. In this paper, a personal visual analytic tool is proposed to develop insights and discover knowledge of personal life in smartphone usage data. Four cooperated visualization views and many interactions are provided in this tool to visually explore the temporal features of various interactive events between smartphones and their users, the hierarchical associations among event types, and the detailed distributions of massive event sequences. In the case study, plenty of interesting patterns are discovered by analyzing the data of two smartphone users with different usage styles. We also conduct a one-month user study on several invited volunteers from our laboratory and acquaintance circle to improve our prototype system based on their feedback.     

The design,development, and deployment of a tabletop interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data

In this paper, we reflect on the design, development, and deployment of G-nome Surfer; a multi-touch tabletop user interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data. G-nome Surfer lowers the threshold for using advanced bioinformatics tools, reduces the mental workload associated with manipulating genomic information, and fosters effective collaboration. We describe our two-year-long effort from design strategy to iterations of design, development, and evaluation. This paper presents four main contributions: (1) a set of design requirements for supporting collaborative exploration in data-intensive domains, (2) the design, implementation, and validation of a multi-touch tabletop interface for collaborative exploration, (3) a methodology for evaluating the strengths and limitations of tabletop interaction for collaborative exploration, and (4) empirical evidence for the feasibility and value of integrating tabletop interaction in college-level education.