Donna Cox

IntelliBadge TM : Towards Providing Location-Aware Value-Added Services at Academic Conferences.

This paper contains details on a project aimed to provide location-aware value- added services to the participants of an academic conference. The major characteristic of this project is the fusion of RFID technology, database management, data mining, real-time information visualization, and interactive web application technologies into an operational integrated system deployed at a major public conference. The developed system tracks conference attendees, analyzes the tracking data in real-time and provides various services to the attendees, such as a real-time snapshot of the conference events attendance, the ability to locate friends in the convention center, and the ability to search for events of interest. The results of this experiment were revealing in terms of both the potential of the developed technology and the conference dynamics.

Spatial and temporal dynamics of animals and the host-density threshold in epizootiology

Abstract The concept of a host-density threshold, commonly discussed in theoretical epidemiology and epizootiology, is based on simple theoretical models and several vague definitions. We computed a more complex model on a supercomputer to study the temporal and spatial dynamics of an insect population and its microsporidian disease. Results demonstrated that the threshold is sensitive to initial prevalence of the disease, intragenerational temporal dynamics, and spatial dynamics of the host. The threshold also depends on whether pathogen persistence, an increase in prevalence, an increase in density of infected hosts, or an epidemic is being predicted. To improve epizootiological theory, models with greater realism must be studied and the concept must include general temporal and spatial scales.

Visualization of injection molding

Scientific visualization, a computer-generated graphical represen tation of scientific information, provides a global view of simula tion results and helps identify discrepencies between the real and simulated world. This article outlines the scientific visualization method and its application to the study of injection molding flows.

Crops In Silico: Generating Virtual Crops Using an Integrative and Multi-scale Modeling Platform

Multi-scale models can facilitate whole plant simulations by linking gene networks, protein synthesis, metabolic pathways, physiology, and growth. Whole plant models can be further integrated with ecosystem, weather, and climate models to predict how various interactions respond to environmental perturbations. These models have the potential to fill in missing mechanistic details and generate new hypotheses to prioritize directed engineering efforts. Outcomes will potentially accelerate improvement of crop yield, sustainability, and increase future food security. It is time for a paradigm shift in plant modeling, from largely isolated efforts to a connected community that takes advantage of advances in high performance computing and mechanistic understanding of plant processes. Tools for guiding future crop breeding and engineering, understanding the implications of discoveries at the molecular level for whole plant behavior, and improved prediction of plant and ecosystem responses to the environment are urgently needed. The purpose of this perspective is to introduce Crops in silico (cropsinsilico.org), an integrative and multi-scale modeling platform, as one solution that combines isolated modeling efforts toward the generation of virtual crops, which is open and accessible to the entire plant biology community. The major challenges involved both in the development and deployment of a shared, multi-scale modeling platform, which are summarized in this prospectus, were recently identified during the first Crops in silico Symposium and Workshop.

Caricature, Readymades and Metamorphosis: Visual Mathematics in the Context of Art

Mathematical homotopies, metamorphosis and computer animation provide excellent avenues for the creation of innovative, phantasmagoric art forms. Unfortunately, mathematical and computer art forms remain outside of the mainstream fine-art world in the United States. Issues regarding visual mathematics and mainstream art in relation to the art market and popular culture are discussed by this author, in context of her computer-animation work, which was created as an artistic commentary on ‘high’ versus ‘low’ art. This interdisciplinary collaborative animation, Venus & Milo, which involves topological homotopy, filmmaking techniques and caricatural humor, is described.

Use of collaborative virtual environments in the mine countermeasures mission

We describe our work on the development and use of collaborative virtual environments to support planing, rehearsal, and execution of tactical operations conducted as part of mine countermeasures missions (MCM). Utilizing our VR-based visual analysis tool, Cave5D, we construct interactive virtual environments based on graphical representations of bathymetry/topography, above-surface imags, in-water objects, and environmental conditions. The data sources may include archived data stores and real-time inputs from model simulations or advanced observational platforms. The Cave5D application allows users to view, navigate, and interact with time-varying data in a fully 3D context, thus preserving necessary geospatial relationships crucial for intuitive analysis. Collaborative capabilities have been integrated into Cave5D to enable users at many distributed sites to interact in near real-time with each other and with the data in a many-to-many session. The ability to rapidly configure scenario-based missions in a shared virtual environment has the potential to change the way mission critical information is used by the MCM community.

The visible radio: process visualization of a software-defined radio

In this case study, a data-oriented approach is used to visualize a complex digital signal processing pipeline. The pipeline implements a frequency modulated (FM) software-defined radio (SDR). SDR is an emerging technology where portions of the radio hardware, such as filtering and modulation, are replaced by software components. We discuss how an SDR implementation is instrumented to illustrate the processes involved in FM transmission and reception. By using audio-encoded images, we illustrate the processes involved in radio, such as how filters are used to reduce noise, the nature of a carrier wave, and how frequency modulation acts on a signal. The visualization approach used in this work is very effective in demonstrating advanced topics in digital signal processing and is a useful tool for experimenting with the software radio design.

Express it!: An Interactive System for Visualizing Expressiveness of Conductor's Gestures

A conductor provides a single unified vision of how to interpret and perform music. However, perceiving a conductors musical intention and expression is quite challenging as they convey information to performers with subtle, nuanced, and highly individualized gestures. This artwork visualizes the conductors gestures in order to give the audience a better understanding of its expressivity. To represent the expressivity of the gestures, we created motion profiles over eight frames, at 30 frames per second, and compared them to previously modeled gestures using three motion factors, called Weight, Space and Time from related concepts in Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Based on this, we have created a real-time, interactive visualization that is driven by the motion factor parameters. The visualization receives the input video stream, and it is transformed into a representation of the three motion factors extracted from the real-time conducting gestures.

Visualization of an F3 tornado within a simulated supercell thunderstorm

Visualization feature extraction algorithms locate tracer particles at critical points in the evolution. Derivative stream tubes track the motion of these virtual weightless particles and show airflow geometry in and around the tornado. Stream tubes are orange when rising and blue when falling. The tornado is represented as spheres rising in the updraft and colored by pressure. The tilting cones represent wind speed and direction at the ground plane and show the interaction of warm and cold air around the developing tornado.

Artist Round Tables

Taking the Planetary Collegium as their starting point, members of the round table address research issues as they relate to the development of practice and theory in the context of collaborative criticism and inquiry across a wide field of knowledge and experience. The Collegium network is worldwide, in terms of its meeting and conference locations, the cultural identity of its members, and its ambition to develop nodes based on and complementary to its unique procedures and method-ologies. The Collegium emerges from 10 years of experience with CAiiA-STAR in gathering doctoral and post-doctoral researchers of high calibre whose work transcends orthodox subject boundaries, and whose practices are at the leading edge of their fields. We are living in a time of crisis for universities, museums and corporations, a time in which old cultural and academic structures need to be replaced by research organisms fitted to our telematic, post-biological society. The Collegium combines the physical, face-to-face transdisciplinary association of individuals with the nomadic, trans-cultural requirements of a networking community. The panelists, all members of the Collegium at various stages in its development, present their personal visions of the direction future research might take and the structures needed to support it.