Design and Specifications of a Visualization Tool for Dynamic Network Analysis (VITA-DNA) Marcus Lem, MD, MHSc, FRCPC Health Canada Ben Houston Exocortex Corp.

Outline Background Objectives Requirements Demonstration Provocation Questions Discussion

Background Proliferation of internal and external governmental committees related pandemic influenza preparedness and planning Senior management requirement to understand organization Operational requirement to utilize time and resources efficiently Visualization required as communication tool

VITA- 

Visual Interface for Text Analysis (VITA) Meta-search engine Interactive, 3D interface for knowledge discovery among documents. Search documents related to a question and identify and visualize relationships between documents Could also be used to identify and visualize relationships between individuals and organizations

VITA Advantages: Core Platform Functionality Modern platform:  Professional-grade GUI  Extensible via Python, Java and/or Microsoft.NET Multi-layered network data types:  Versioned  Scalable  Fast  Custom attributes Serialization options:  XML  Compressed matrix Plug-in support for:  Import/export  Analysis  Visualization  Workflow GUIs

Pandemic Influenza Committee Organizational Structure

Pandemic Influenza Committee VITA Visualization Identified: Unplanned redundancies Isolated groups which required linkage Hubs / highly-connected individuals Superstructure / hypernodes Recognized potential utility in context of Communicable Disease Control However visualization ultimately not adopted by senior management (shifting RRs, policy cycle, complexity)

VITA-DNA - Ideal Capabilities Enable the analysis of disparate multi-modal data sets. Ability to manipulate disparate data sets in new and novel manners Provide useful information to form intelligence to support effective decision making Development of tools and techniques that facilitate the discovery of salient information within data, e.g. data mining (Varga and Young 2007)

Objective 1: Model Outbreaks of Communicable Diseases Organize the data in meaningful ways  Study the propagation patterns of communicable diseases  Determine who is at risk  Help reduce the severity/extent of the outbreaks  Respect the confidentiality of those involved  (Jacobson et. Al. 2005)

Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak - Shirley & Rushton, 2005

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Objective 2: Develop Tool for Risk Assessment and Priority Setting Reliable understanding of threats Consolidated risk assessment and rating of threat scenarios Analysis of capability gaps, and setting of investment priorities Foresight and future security visioning Vulnerability assessment Risk analysis in the context of a risk management process (DRDC – Centre for Security Science, CRTI – Call for Proposals )

VITA- 

VITA-DNA Requirements Stand-alone application for the analysis and visualization of multi-layered (communicable disease) networks Search engine function not needed Analysis to work off of a custom data base Ability to customize elements and appearance of analysis and visualization Ability to specify connections (DB) Ability to visually manipulate data (and record explorations / changes) (Ability to put data and analysis in context)

VITA-DNA: Overall Objectives Analyze and define risk / vulnerability Quantify risk / vulnerability Indicate possible interventions Assist in the evaluation of the interventions

Demonstration

Aim of Provocation Session Questions: 1) Does VITA-DNA have the attributes and potential to be a useful visualization tool in multiple sectors? 2) What other objectives and requirements should be included? 3) What aspects of the visualization need to be improved? 4) Are there experimental designs that we could use to test its utility?

Text description of connections Toronto Star, Sat. Sept. 27, 2003.

All possible combinations

Geographic reference

Questions/ Discussion? ?