September 2008 - Infovis

PhD position in Collaborative Visual Analytics @ University of Fribourg, Switzerland
by Enrico Bertini 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

---------------------------------------------- PhD position in Collaborative Visual Analytics ---------------------------------------------- Within the scope of the SNF project "Humanitics: Visual Analytics for All", we are currently looking for a highly motivated, enthusiastic and open-minded PhD student. The project is a collaboration between the University of Fribourg and the United Nations in Geneva. Its goal is to support UN people in performing collaborative visual data analysis through web-based interactive visualization. Visual analytics is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. The student will study current practices and develop interactive visualization tools to support collaborative knowledge discovery, consolidation, and communication. The PhD thesis will be built over the analysis, design, development and evaluation of prototypes, managing real world data and being in direct touch with humanitarian users. Ideal candidates should have a Master in Computer Science (or related fields) and experience with some or all of the following: - Information visualization (or user interface design) - Human-computer interaction - Evaluation of interactive systems Proficiency in English and good programming skills are also required (experience with web-based UI programming is a plus). Dates and Salary ----------------- The PhD will start as soon as possible from the 1st of January 2009, with a compensation of roughly 3500 to 4000 swiss francs net a month (1 swiss francs = 1 dollar). Location --------- The Department of Informatics of the University of Fribourg comprises about 60 researchers, PhD students and professors. In the heart of Switzerland (between the German and French side) and Europe, the Department offers high quality research and education in three languages: German, French and English. The Department is composed of several research groups that focus on specific domains. Amongst these research groups, the DIVA group (Document, Image and Voice Analysis) will be specifically involved in this project. Fribourg is a lively city organized around students and in a strategic location between Bern and Lausanne, with easy access to ski resorts in winter and beautiful mountains and lakes in summer. Application ------------ Send your candidature by email to <Denis dot Lalanne ((@)) unifr dot ch> and <Enrico dot Bertini ((@)) unifr dot ch>. Attach to the email a resume and a short description of your master thesis. If available, please highlight any published research papers and/or any experience in developing/evaluating interactive tools.

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CFP: 1st Int'l Workshop on Visual Interfaces to the Social and the Semantic Web (VISSW 2009)
by Thai, Vinhtuan 23 Sep '08

23 Sep '08

[apologies if you've already seen this call elsewhere...] CALL FOR PAPERS -------------------------------- 1st International Workshop on Visual Interfaces to the Social and the Semantic Web (VISSW 2009) In conjunction with IUI 2009 Sanibel Island, Florida 8th February 2009 http://www.smart-ui.org/events/vissw2009/ OBJECTIVES The advent of the Social Web (Web 2.0) and the Semantic Web has resulted in even more data created, published and consumed by users. This vast amount of data is available in various formats (text, image, video, etc.), can be presented on different platforms, and most importantly, contains linkages between different entities on the Web. The ability to easily integrate vast amounts of data from across the Social and Semantic Web raises significant and exciting research challenges, not least of which how to provide effective access to and navigation across heterogeneous data sources. However, the need for intelligent and visual human interfaces to this evolving Web is not limited simply to the modalities of searching and browsing (important as these are). As the Web continues to evolve from a read-mainly to a read-write medium, and the level of social interaction supported on the Web increases, there is also a pressing need to support end-users who engage in a wide range of online tasks, such as publishing and sharing their own data on the Web. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from different fields, such as Human-Computer Interaction, Information Visualization, Semantic Web, and Personal Information Management, to discuss latest research results and challenges in designing, implementing, and evaluating intelligent interfaces supporting access, navigation and publishing of different types of contents on the Social and Semantic Web. In addition, the workshop also serves as an opportunity for researchers to gain feedback on their work as well as to identify potential collaborations with their peers. TOPICS Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Visual interfaces supporting exploration and/or navigation of unstructured or structured data on the Web * Visualizing and interacting with semi-structured/linked data on the Semantic Web or the Social Semantic Desktop * Ontology-based visualization of & interaction with collections of data * Novel paradigms to interact with textual data, photos, music, videos on mobile devices * Lightweight components for casual users to publish/share their own contents on the Web * Real-world use cases * Lessons learned from intelligent interfaces built to interact with Web-based contents SUBMISSIONS We welcome three types of submissions: * Full papers which should be between 6 and 10 pages. * Short papers and position papers which should be up to 5 pages. * Demo papers - 2 page description with a screenshot of the working prototype or preferrably a link to an online demo. Submissions must be in PDF format and prepared according to the IUI format. Papers will be peer-reviewed by three independent reviewers. Papers can be submitted via the EasyChair system: http://www.easychair.org/conferences?conf=vissw2009 IMPORTANT DATES * Paper submission deadline: 14th November, 2008 * Notication of acceptance: 7th December, 2008 * Camera-ready paper submission deadline: 14th December, 2008 ORGANIZERS * Siegfried Handschuh, DERI Galway, Ireland * Tom Heath, Talis Information Ltd, UK * VinhTuan Thai, DERI Galway, Ireland PROGRAM COMMITTEE (To be extended) * Lora Aroyo, VU Amsterdam, NL * Chris Bizer, FU Berlin, DE * Duane Degler, Design for Context, US * Alan Dix, University of Lancaster, UK * Martin Dzbor, The Open University, UK * Gus Gollings, RMIT, Australia * Michael Hausenblas, Joanneum Research, AT * Georgi Kobilarov, FU Berlin, DE * Knud Möller, DERI Galway, IE * Enrico Motta, The Open University, UK * Eyal Oren, VU Amsterdam, NL * Alexandre Passant, DERI Galway, IE * Nadeem Shabir, Talis, UK * Carlo Torniai, Simon Fraser University, CA CONTACT US If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the workshop organizers at: vissw2009 at easychair dot org

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Visual Analytics Evaluation- Special Issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) - DEADLINE EXTENSION
by Plaisant, Catherine 15 Sep '08

15 Sep '08

DEADLINE EXTENSION The official deadline was extended till SEPTEMBER 19th ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Special Issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) on Visual Analytics Evaluation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - FINAL Call for Papers Guest Editors: Catherine Plaisant, Georges Grinstein and Jean Scholtz Submissions Due: September 12, 2008 Author Notification: December 15, 2009 Final Versions Due: January 30, 2009 Publication: May/June 2009 Issue of IEEE CG&A Visual analytics (VA) is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. Assessing the effectiveness of visual analytics technology is challenging because VA tools often combine several disparate components, both low and high level, integrated in complex interactive systems used by analysts. These components include analytical reasoning, visual representations, computer human interactions, data representations and algorithms, tools for collaboration and especially for communicating the results of their usage. Users' activities can be exploratory and can take place over days, weeks or months. Users may not follow a predefined or even linear work flow. Users may work alone or in groups. To understand these complex behaviors, evaluation efforts can be targeted at the component level, the system level, and the work environment level, and require realistic data and tasks. Traditional evaluation metrics such as task time completion, number of errors, or recall and precision are insufficient to quantify the utility of visual analytics tools, and new research is needed to improve our visual analytics evaluation methodology. We invite submissions in all areas related to the Evaluation of Visual Analytics. Topics include, but are not limited to * Evaluation metrics and tools * Insight characterization and measures * Benchmark task and data set development * Methodology of longitudinal case studies * Characterization of the challenges of VA evaluation * Survey of existing VA evaluation methodologies * Lessons learned from specific evaluation activities * Automation of evaluation * Synthetic data set generation and usage Articles should be no more than 10 magazine pages, where a page is 750 words and an image counts as 200 words. Citations should consist of the 12 most relevant references. Background can be provided for non-expert readers in sidebars. Color images can be interspersed through the article and should be limited to a total of 10. Visit CG&A style and length guidelines at http://www.computer.org/cga/author.html. If your article is expanded from a workshop or conference paper: please provide in your cover letter please a citation to the Original publication, then briefly summarize (50 words or less) what new material you have added for this submission (at least 25%). This must include new results or insights, not just additional description. Please submit your paper using the online manuscript submission service at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cs-ieee. When uploading your paper, please select the appropriate special issue title under the category "Manuscript Type." Also include complete contact information for all authors and coauthors in the submission. If you have any questions about submitting your article, please contact Manuscript Assistant Alkenia Winston at cga-ma(a)computer.org. Please direct any correspondence prior to submission the guest editors: Email: plaisant(a)cs.umd.edu; grinstein(a)cs.uml.edu; jean.scholtz(a)pnl.gov Phone: (301) 405-2768 - Catherine Plaisant Phone: (978) 934-3627 - Georges Grinstein URL AT IEEE: http://www.computer.org/portal/site/cga/menuitem.d7ca5f6240761a228b093c1 08bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=cga_level1&path=cga/content&file=cfpMayJun09. xml&xsl=article.xsl&

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Visual Analytics Evaluation- Special Issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) - FINAL CALL
by Plaisant, Catherine 08 Sep '08

08 Sep '08

------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Special Issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) on Visual Analytics Evaluation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - FINAL Call for Papers Guest Editors: Catherine Plaisant, Georges Grinstein and Jean Scholtz Submissions Due: September 12, 2008 Author Notification: December 15, 2009 Final Versions Due: January 30, 2009 Publication: May/June 2009 Issue of IEEE CG&A Visual analytics (VA) is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces. Assessing the effectiveness of visual analytics technology is challenging because VA tools often combine several disparate components, both low and high level, integrated in complex interactive systems used by analysts. These components include analytical reasoning, visual representations, computer human interactions, data representations and algorithms, tools for collaboration and especially for communicating the results of their usage. Users' activities can be exploratory and can take place over days, weeks or months. Users may not follow a predefined or even linear work flow. Users may work alone or in groups. To understand these complex behaviors, evaluation efforts can be targeted at the component level, the system level, and the work environment level, and require realistic data and tasks. Traditional evaluation metrics such as task time completion, number of errors, or recall and precision are insufficient to quantify the utility of visual analytics tools, and new research is needed to improve our visual analytics evaluation methodology. We invite submissions in all areas related to the Evaluation of Visual Analytics. Topics include, but are not limited to * Evaluation metrics and tools * Insight characterization and measures * Benchmark task and data set development * Methodology of longitudinal case studies * Characterization of the challenges of VA evaluation * Survey of existing VA evaluation methodologies * Lessons learned from specific evaluation activities * Automation of evaluation * Synthetic data set generation and usage Articles should be no more than 10 magazine pages, where a page is 750 words and an image counts as 200 words. Citations should consist of the 12 most relevant references. Background can be provided for non-expert readers in sidebars. Color images can be interspersed through the article and should be limited to a total of 10. Visit CG&A style and length guidelines at http://www.computer.org/cga/author.html. If your article is expanded from a workshop or conference paper: please provide in your cover letter please a citation to the Original publication, then briefly summarize (50 words or less) what new material you have added for this submission (at least 25%). This must include new results or insights, not just additional description. Please submit your paper using the online manuscript submission service at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cs-ieee. When uploading your paper, please select the appropriate special issue title under the category "Manuscript Type." Also include complete contact information for all authors and coauthors in the submission. If you have any questions about submitting your article, please contact Manuscript Assistant Alkenia Winston at cga-ma(a)computer.org. Please direct any correspondence prior to submission the guest editors: Email: plaisant(a)cs.umd.edu; grinstein(a)cs.uml.edu; jean.scholtz(a)pnl.gov Phone: (301) 405-2768 - Catherine Plaisant Phone: (978) 934-3627 - Georges Grinstein

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STIP: RUDOLF ARNHEIM SCHOLARSHIP IN THE FIELD OF MEDIA.ART.HISTORIES
by Image Science 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

RUDOLF ARNHEIM SCHOLARSHIP IN THE FIELD OF MEDIA.ART.HISTORIES The Department for Image Science is pleased to announce a half-tuition scholarship for the Master of Arts (MA) course starting in Nov. 2008! > Rudolf Arnheim Scholarship for Media Art Histories: The Department for Image Science offers this scholarship as an encouragement to concentrate on the further development of the scientific work of the recently deceased art historian and cognition psychologist Rudolf Arnheim and his significance for the history of Media Art. Closing date for submission: Sept. 30th, 2008. Further Information: http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/mediaarthistories www.virtualart.at www.mediaarthistories.org => FIRST INTERNATIONAL MASTER OF MEDIA.ART.HISTORIES (International Faculty, low residency, parallel to employment, English language) The postgraduate program MediaArtHistories conveys the most important developments of contemporary art through a network of renowned international theorists, artists and curators like: Steve DIETZ, Erkki HUHTAMO, Lev MANOVICH, Christiane PAUL, Paul SERMON, Edward SHANKEN, Jens HAUSER, Sean CUBITT, Christa SOMMERER, Gerfried STOCKER, Knowbotic Research, Frieder NAKE, Oliver GRAU and many others. http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/studium/medienkunstgeschichte/06318/index.php Artists and programmers give new insights into the latest and most controversial software, interface developments and their interdisciplinary and intercultural praxis. Keywords are: Strategies of Interaction & Interface Design, Social Software, Immersion & Emotion and Artistic Invention. Using online databases and other modern aids, knowledge of computer animation, net art, interactive, telematic and genetic art as well as the most recent reflections on nano art, CAVE installations, augmented reality and wearables are introduced. Historical derivations that go far back into art and media history are tied in intriguing ways to digital art. Important approaches and methods from Image Science, Media Archaeology and the History of Science & Technology will be discussed. => DANUBE UNIVERSITY KREMS – located in the UNESCO world heritage Wachau is the first public university in Europe which specializes in advanced continuing education offering low-residency degree programs for working professionals and lifelong learners. With its new modular courses the DEPARTMENT FOR IMAGE SCIENCE at Danube University Krems offers an educational program unique in Europe. Without interrupting their career, students have the opportunity to learn through direct, hands-on experience, social learning in small groups and contacts with labs and industry. They gain key qualifications for the contemporary art and media marketplace. http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/studium/medienkunstgeschichte/10365/index.php The Center in Monastery Göttweig, where most MediaArtHistories courses take place, is housed in a 14th century building, remodeled to fit the needs of modern research in singular surroundings. International experts analyze the image worlds of art, science, politics and economy and elucidate how they originated, became established and how they have stood the test of time. The innovative approach at the Department for Image Science is reinforced by praxis-oriented study. Contact: Sabine Weber, MSc. Department for Image Science Danube University Krems Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Str. 30, A-3500 Krems Tel: +43(0)2732 893-2569 sabine.weber(a)donau-uni.ac.at www.donau-uni.ac.at/dis

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