From September 26 till October 1, we organized the Data Driven Dynamical Network workshop in Les Houches, France. We brought together a group of people from a variety of scientific backgrounds to share insights in the collection, analysis, application and visualization of data driven dynamical networks.

Connecting the Dots

On 22 October, I gave a talk about Visualizing SocioPatterns at Connecting the Dots, a Network Visualization Symposium at Harvard University, organized by Samuel Arbesman, Michael Barnett, and Jukka-Pekka Onnela from the Harvard Medical School.

GLEaMviz Simulator v2.6

We recently released a new version -v2.6- of the GLEaMviz Simulator application in which we provide an improved visualization of the epidemic spreading. The following movie provides some examples of how this new visualization shows the number of new cases at the cell-level, instead of the less precise basin-level incidence representation used in the previous versions.

The user can now also select from a number of backdrop maps onto which the visualization is projected, details of which are shown in the following figure. The left option is based on the NASA Blue Marble map, while the other two provide a more neutral base onto which the cell-level cases can be inspected with greater visual accuracy.

Epidemic Planet

A new version of the Epidemic Planet exhibit, now with the new visualization of GLEaMviz Simulator v2.6, was shown in the Exhibition hall of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC10), that was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, from November 13th to 19th. The exhibit was hosted at the booth of the Indiana University, partner of the GLEaMviz project.

The Epidemic Planet is currently also shown in CosmoCaixa Mòbil – Tecnorevolución, a traveling exhibition by the Cosmo Caixa science museum that will set up show in a number of cities in Spain.

Our principal SocioPatterns paper has been published on PLoS ONE:

• Dynamics of Person-to-Person Interactions from Distributed RFID Sensor Networks.

We also recently published two papers on the Live Social Semantics experiment in which the SocioPatterns platform was used:

• Semantics, sensors, and the social web: The live social semantics experiments.

• The Live Social Semantics application: a platform for integrating face-to-face presence with on-line social networking.

Epidemic Planet poster

I am currently working on the next version of the Epidemic Planet installation, which will be exhibited at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in collaboration with the British Society for Immunology. In this new version, visitors will observe the evolution of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic since its early origin in Mexico, and will discover how the air traffic and commuting flows determined the spreading patterns of the flu worldwide, and how different intervention scenarios could have influenced this spreading. For more information see this post on gleamviz.org.

The Live Social Semantics project integrates real-time face-to-face social interaction detection using active RFID, with linked data from the semantic web, and data for social networking sites. This system was deployed at two conferences during the spring of 2009. This movie includes excerpts from the real-time visualisation during the Hypertext’09 conference and the online social network browsing tool.