Infoviz

—Many scholars relate visualization of data and art from different points of view. In this survey we collect some key concepts linking art and visualization to see what can art practices and approaches bring to the information visualization, and what are the main differences between information visualization and artistic visualization.

"La costruzione del tempo" pone l’attenzione sugli aspetti rappresentazionali dell’infografica, fornendo il sussidio di un ampio apparato iconografico. Il lettore può comprendere l’evoluzione storica di questa forma di rappresentazione, la cui origine – nonostante
il suo attuale rilievo vista la sconfinata disponibilità di dati – è molto antica. E anche in questo il testo ha un valore di natura progettuale.
Il lettore, infatti, può trovarvi esempi che vanno oltre le estetiche contemporanee, molto condizionate dai linguaggi tecnologici, e cogliere nel passato esempi inediti, originali, e forse anche di inattesa efficacia sulla capacità delle infografiche di supportare ragionamenti.

We investigate whether presenting data in a VR visualization or as a physicalization impacts understanding and recollection. Two equivalent representations of the same data set, one in physical form and one in VR, were created. Participants answered understanding questions while they had access to the model, and were subsequently asked about the data after the model was removed. We recorded time needed to answer understanding questions and correctness rates for recollection questions. The results favour the conclusion that the virtual representation and the technical VR setup significantly inhibit participants' ability to work with the data set. Reflecting on our study setup and participants' comments, we discuss recommendations for future studies aiming at a systematic and comprehensive comparison of the differences in interacting with purely virtual and with physical data representations.

Creating physicalizations requires a high amount of decision taking, in particular in selecting and staging the data to be conveyed, which can be challenging. We give insight into the process of conceptualizing and building physical representations of data. Based on our practical experiences, we discuss preliminary recommendations on how to approach design of physicalizations.

Visualization of scientific information extends the possibility to explore how the science is
organized and does change over the time. Particularly classified data include a great potential of
discovering the structure and dynamics of specified domain. The authors applied tested and
previously presented conception of ACM CCS (Computing Classification System) classification
mapping into a sphere surface. Classified documents form pattern according to their semantic
similarity. Two main goals of obtained visualizations were determined. It could be mainly used as
multiperspective analytical tool of original classification and its structure. Classification sphere also
might be considered as an ergonomic interface for exploring scientific resources as well as
information retrieval. Obtained graphical representations deliver quantitative material for analysis of
classification development and dynamics. The authors try to find reliable tools to evaluate it. They
constructed an appropriate interface and surveyed the distinct groups of users, who were asked
about key aspects of visualization layout and their changes. Results of our study allow to evaluate
visualization of classification thereby to improve proposed methodology as well as to discover a
new semantic features and laws in visual layout.

The Knowledge Engineering Suite is an ontology production method, based on relationship networks, for knowledge representation inside specific contexts. The production of these ontologies has three basic steps, since catching the client data, knowledge base creation, and information retrieval and consult interfaces for the final users. During the knowledge base creation process, data verification is required, for nonconformity identification on the produced ontological network. Because it has a tabular interface, the verification step has some limitations about data vision, and consequently the tool usability, making the work for tracking errors or missing data uncomfortable, and susceptible to more errors. To make easier the vision of the created ontologies, in the real shape they are planned, it was implemented a software to viewing these new created ontologies, so the work for data error tracking became more efficient. Such software offers filtering and data selection resources too, to give a way to isolate common groups, when the Knowledge Engineer is looking for nonconformities. This software and its functions are described here.

"The representation of characters’ intentions in a
story is of great importance for media scholars and analysts,
and it is susceptible of applicative scenarios within the media
industry. In this paper, we introduce an interactive system for
the visualization of a story analysis based on a plan-based
representation of the characters’ intentions. The system relies on
an ontology of drama and builds upon the unrestricted annotation
provided by narrative enthusiasts and media students. The system
is able to build the mapping between a library of plans and the
users’ annotation, and to visualize the contributions of the several
characters’ intentions to the whole plot. The system was tested
on the analysis of a short movie."

These research studies compare two methods for ontology creation and their corresponding tools. The main objective of this work is the building of a graphical editor for ontology construction, based on software usability criteria. This comparison shows which methods used in previous tools will remains in the new editor, and what new tools can be developed for enhancing the ontology management made using the old one. The use of graphics and diagrams helps in the discovery of new knowledge, from information received from various sources, being the Internet or databases. This new type of editor improves the visualization of relations between the terms of ontologies and thereby improves the efficiency of its construction for commercial application systems. In addition, this form of information representation, based on these diagrams, will allow information systems based on ontologies to identify - automatically -concepts, hidden elements, the flow time between the events of cause and consequences and the meaning of relations between the captured information. The Ontojuris project has the purpose given above, and it is described on this paper. The project consists of a multilingual information system for legal information retrieval associated with an ontology editor, called Knowledge Engineering Suite. The system accepts queries in one language, and allows information retrieval based on similarity of documents, written in one of several languages. The multilingual ontology editor works with the concept of Universal Words (UW’s). The UWs are universal representations of things and objects, and it is developed inside the UNL Project (being UNL an acronym for Universal Networking Language) and allows the query expansion in a multilingual way. Query expansion can improve searching process, required by user, by including additional terms which have similar meaning to the original query. In this study, we proposed a new expansion method which is based on domain ontology and UWs, to achieve better performance for a multilingual information retrieval. So, the Ontojuris project aims to facilitate access to information on legislation in the area of Intellectual Property Law, Consumer Rights and Electronic Law in the consortium formed by researches in Brazil, Chile, Spain and Argentina.