Mina Akaishi

Interaction design for scholarly writing: hypertext representations as a means for creative knowledge work

This paper presents our approach of using hypertext representations to support a scholar in the early stages of a scholarly writing process. We take D. A. Schoens model of design as a theoretical framework. Schoen views design as a reflective conversation with the materials of a situation, where the designer interacts with the materials, such as pen and sketch on a sheet of paper, in the reflection-in-action process. The designer acts and reflects almost simultaneously; acting on external representations, interpreting emerging representations, and reacting to them. We argue that a scholar needs to engage in two different types of representations in the reflection-in-action process: external representations for thinking about the problem, and representations for expressing a solution in a publishable form. The former does not necessarily precede the latter; rather, the two representations coevolve through the reflection-in-action process. Our approach uses hypertext representations as a means to interact with in the early stages of scholarly writing both for thinking about the problem and for expressing a solution. Hypertext representations have long been studied in their relation to supporting human intellectual work; our approach, however, is unique in providing the two representations with a specific concern for supporting reflection-in-action by applying the concept called ART (Amplifying Representational Talkback) as an interaction design principle. Based on this framework, we have developed ART014, a tool for scholarly writing. ART014 simultaneously supports two types of hypertext representations: a column-based network hypertext representation and a spatial hypertext representation. The two representations are located side by side, and integrated when an interaction with one representation is reflected in the visual presentation of the other. Although a user operates on the same set of objects through the two representations, the user expresses relationships among the objects independently in the two representations. We present a scenario to illustrate in detail how the design concepts underpinning ART014 supports scholarly writing. This paper then discusses our approach from three viewpoints by using the scenario: use of the two representations, engagement in reflection-in-action, and modes of authoring. The paper concludes with a description of future directions.

Time-tunnel: visual analysis tool for time-series numerical data and its extension toward parallel coordinates

Time-tunnel proposed by Akaishi et al. is a multidimensional data analysis tool. Time-tunnel visualizes any number of time series numerical data records as individual charts each of which is displayed on an individual rectangular plane called data-wing in a 3D virtual space. Through direct manipulations on a computer screen, the user easily puts more than two data-wings overlapped together to compare their charts in order to recognize the similarity or the difference among those data records. Simultaneously a radar chart among those data at any time point is displayed to recognize the similarity and the correlation among them. Since only one chart is displayed on one data-wing, so if there is a number of data records, the user has to prepare accordingly a huge number of data-wings and practically it becomes impossible to manipulate them. To deal with this problem, the authors enhanced the functionality of time-tunnel to enable it to display more than two charts on each data-wing. In other word, the authors made each data-wing have the functionality of the parallel coordinates. This paper proposes the usefulness of this enhancement of time-tunnel by showing data analysis examples.

Visualization for Changes in Relationships between Historical Figures in Chronicles

A huge number of historical documents that have been accumulated for a long time are currently being digitized. However, it is difficult for us to analyze and obtain insight into the past from such documents. This paper proposes an interactive visualization system to extract networks of historical figures from historical data and to show time-varying changes in their relationships. It enables users to explore changes in the structure of the network interactively. Moreover, it extracts characteristics of each relationship, such as hostile or friendly relations, and visualizes them on the network. It enables us to understand changes in past society better by exploring changes in relationships between people.

Narrative based Topic Visualization for Chronological Data

This paper proposes several methods visualizing topics in documents, (i) Word Colony represents the dependency relationships among term occurrences in a target document. It helps users get an overview of a document. Using Word Colony with pictures gives users a more intuitive impression, (ii) topic sequence is a concatenation of Word Colonies for segmented documents. It shows plots as a storys topic transitions. (Hi) topic matrix represents relations among topics based on latent contexts within a collection of documents. Several visualization techniques enable users to visualize topics in a document in different ways. It gives variations of viewpoint and triggers the creative imagination.

Discovering implicit relationships in a web of contexts

We propose a framework for discovering implicit relationships between descriptors and objects in large information bases. Typical examples of such information bases are large collections of Web pages, where the anchors play the role of descriptors for distant web pages, and the web pages themselves play the role of the described objects. Our approach assumes that the contents of the information base are organized into manageable subsets called contexts, each user setting up his(her) own web of contexts. While setting up a web of contexts, a user may create implicit relationships between descriptors and objects (relationships of which the user may not even be aware). We provide a framework for discovering such implicit relationships in a web of user-defined contexts; this is done based on extended notions of synonymy/homonymy using descriptor and object paths.

Topic Bridging by Identifying the Dynamics of the Spreading Topic Model

We propose topic bridging as a method for story generation support. In our research, a document is defined as a story fragment and a story is defined as a sequence of story fragments. Topic bridging suggests story fragments that can function as a bridge between the start topic and the goal topic to generate a story. To do this, we propose a topic dynamics model corresponding to the story that is based on a spreading activation model, which we call the spreading topic model. On the basis of this model, we defined the term context-dependent attractiveness to indicate the dynamic popularity of a term spreading through the term relations in a new concatenated story fragment. The term context-dependent attractiveness features the topic of the story fragment. We propose the topic bridging method to estimate the feature of the story fragment that bridges the topics of the start story fragment and the goal story fragment by solving the inverse problem of the term context-dependent attractiveness.

A framework for discovering implicit relationships in a context based information access space

We propose a framework for discovering implicit relationships among objects in large information bases. Our approach assumes that the contents of the information base are organized into manageable subsets called contexts, each user setting up his(her) own Web of contexts. While setting up a Web of contexts, a user may create implicit relationships among objects (relationships of which the user may not even be aware). We provide a framework for discovering such implicit relationships in a Web of user-defined contexts. We also describe an implementation of the proposed framework based on the 3D Meme Media System, IntelligentBox, a component-ware system developed at the Meme Media Laboratory.

A Meme Media Based Application Framework for Context-Driven Information Access

This paper introduces several information access methods constructed by Meme Media systems. A context-based information access space provides users with a component-based interactive 3D virtual environment for the information access based on the context model. A chronicle analysis tool provides several views of records from different viewpoints. To construct such systems, Meme Media system provides powerful environment. This paper shows several application frameworks and implementation examples.

A visual analysis tool for finding embedded relations in chronicles

In this paper, a visual analysis method for finding a variety of human networks in chronicles on the basis of different viewpoints is proposed. A vast amount of human experience records is stored all over the world. For understanding and using such chronicles effectively, it is necessary to find several relations embedded in records. In this paper, we propose a chronicle analysis tool (CAT), which provides several views of records from different viewpoints. For such purpose, we introduce the notion of chronicle data and a visual analysis framework for embedded relations in chronicles. On the basis of these notions, we describe a chronicle analysis tool and show a variety of historical human networks from different viewpoints as examples of its implementation.

Multiple Visualizations of the Personal Promotion Histories of Court Nobles in Japan

This paper proposes methods of visualizing the personal promotion records of Japanese government officials in medieval times.Our research is aimed at developing multiple visualization tools that facilitate discovery of exceptional promotions as a way of highlighting interesting or important factors behind historical events, or that enable comparison of various promotion patterns to aid in understanding the political background the period. We have developed the following tools for visualizing personal promotion records:(i) the Personal Promotion Graph (PPG-I) enables visualization of the promotional transition of court nobles in medieval Japan, and (ii) the Promotion Pattern Graph (PPG-II) shows various promotion patterns that help reveal typical patterns of promotion for court nobles in relation to a particular period or family. There are many techniques for visualizing data in different ways. These tools provide variations in viewpoints for analyzing the political background of the era and help trigger consideration of different scenarios.