1. Real-Time Cities: an Introduction to Urban Cybernetics Harvard Design School: SCI 0646900 Spring 2014 Deutsch, Owen Exercise #2: Case Studies in Data Analysis (5 Ways to Make a Story out of Numbers)

2. Stories from Data: Small Global Progress through Representation 1 | Mapping Conflict in Aleppo 2 | Global Economic Dynamic Project 3 | NICT Daedalus Cyber-Attack Visualization 4 | Mapping the Rise of Civic Tech 5 | Pathline Genetic Research Platform

3. “Hyperlocal Neighborhood Maps Reveal the Chaos in Aleppo” Mapping the Conflict in Aleppo, Syria -First Mile Geo, through Caerus Associates and anonymous surveyors 1 | Mapping Conflict in Aleppo

5. What is the raw data? Survey responses given by residents of Aleppo, coded by neighborhood. Questions are on subjects such as: public services, sense of security, checkpoint locations, and opinions on what authority is viewed as legitimate. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? Caerus Associates provide survey forms for anonymous field researchers, who then upload their data to a platform created by First Mile Geo. First Mile Geo aggregates the responses and creates interactive maps representing how the conflict is developing on a humanitarian level. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The previous maps shown are some examples of how this information is visualized. An accompanying written report was released this month by First Mile Geo exploring the data in greater depth. Indexes are also compiled of vulnerability of different neighborhoods, with “vulnerability” as defined by the viewer of the data according to customizable metrics.

6. 1 | Mapping Conflict in Aleppo How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? This information better informs the international community as to what territory different factions control, what distress various neighborhoods may be in, and greater trends in the ongoing conflict. The information may also be of value to Aleppo residents with internet access, and in the delivery of aid. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? Aleppo residents have the opportunity to share information with outside observers, where such data sharing may be otherwise impossible to organize in a repressive environment. Participants are not endangered by sharing this information, but retain some ability to communicate observations and opinions about the conditions they face.

7. “A New Web Tool for Visualizing Complex Economic Relations” -The Global Economic Dynamics Project 2 | Global Economic Dynamics Project

9. What is the raw data? Economic indicators such as: GDP, consumption, trade, government budgets, inflation, employment, and migration for multiple countries over the past decade, as provide by sources such as the OECD and international banks. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The Global Economic Dynamic project converts these data to an interactive diagram, which can be presented as a slideshow for anyone interested in exploring how national economies interact, or communicating this information to others in an understandable form. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? Diagrams and charts are the visual outcome of this data analysis. More substantially, overarching narratives of comparative economics can be produced, which can be used by consultants, academic institutions, or anyone with an interest in globalization.

10. 2 | Global Economic Dynamics Project How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? Users of this site should be able to make better sense out of a vast amount of economic data than they would have been able to with more typical representations. As with any data, selective representations could also help advance one argument over another. Datasets used might still be interpreted in different ways which are obscured by the level of abstraction, but the objective of is the site is to present a global economic view, not to parse economic data on individual countries. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? The agency resulting from this visualization may be limited to those who are already comfortable enough with certain economic concepts to derive meaning from it without further explanation, but this is still to a broader set of people than would be the case with less accessible representations. The interactivity of representation also means that the data behind it is not overly simplified or rigid, but instead is adaptable to its user’s purposes.

11. “NCIT Daedalus: 3D Real-Time Cyber-Attack Alert Visualization” -The National Institue of Information and Communications Technology (Japan) 3 | NICT Daedalus Cyber-Attack Visualization

13. What is the raw data? The raw data consists of 190,000 IP addresses in Japan, which IP addresses are uses or unused, the networks these addresses are organized into, and any virus within these networks and the trajectory of its infection. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology represents these data with the Daedalus Cyber-Attack Alert System, which monitors any attacks in real time and enables network security specialists to explore these threats through an interface which is notexclusively textual. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The stills shown on the previous slides illustrate how the Daedalus Alert System displays that a threat has been identified, and how a number of simultaneous threats might be tracked from a single vantage point.

14. 3 | NICT Daedalus Cyber-Attack Visualization How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? Network security specialists may not gain access to any new information by using this system, and some data may be initially more abstracted than is convenient for someone with a deep understanding of network security, but for a supervisor or other party interested in a broader view of the scale of threats a network must respond to, the Daedalus System could still be an informative tool. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? For those with commercial use for this system, the agency gained would be that of greater understanding and confidence of a network’s resilience to infection. The Daedalus Cyber-Attack Alert System will also be made free of use to educational institutions, which could result in a greater number of people becoming interested in internet security, especially if this model is further replicated and adapted.

15. “The Emergence of Civic Tech: Investments in a Growing Field” “A new report from Knight Foundation offers a first-of-its-kind analysis…” 4 | Mapping the Rise of Civic Tech

17. What is the raw data? The raw data are: name of an organization or agency within the field of civic tech, date of founding, mission, and funding sources and amounts. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? These data are organized into a thematic diagram illustrating organizations with a shared general purpose, their relative sizes, and where more information can be found, so that a user of the data has a more general sense of the civic tech landscape. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The outcome of this information is the above-mentioned interactive diagram, and an accompanying report by the Knight Foundation, as shown in the previous slides.

18. 4 | Mapping the Rise of Civic Tech How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? This distillation of raw data, which no site user is likely to be entirely aware of, provides a unique perspective on an emerging field, consisting of a number of organizations which themselves represent emerging methods of engagement. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? Anyone interested in civic engagement, either for the sake of interest or for becoming involved in the organizations profiled (or starting one’s own) is likely to gain a better understanding of where to begin exploring this field.

19. “Pathline: Connecting Designers with Scientists” “A tool for comparative functional genomics”- by the Broad Institute 5 | Pathline Genetic Research Platform

21. What is the raw data? The self-description of Pathline states that it, “supports analysis of three types of biological data at once: functional data such as gene activity measurements; pathway data that presents a series of reactions within a cellular process; and phylogenetic data describing ancestral relationships between species.” What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The Pathline visualization tool simplifies genetic data through diagrams developed in collaboration with the researchers using said data. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? Genetic pathways and their functions and outcomes are presented in a way that is more understandable even to researchers with substantial expertise in the field.

22. 5 | Pathline Genetic Research Platform How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? Although researchers have access to the same data, more intuitive visualizations of these data directly leads to simpler and more productive research, illustrating that even complex concepts fully understood only by specialists can still be made more operable through collaboration with non-specialists. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? This information may not be of use to a general audience, but this is necessarily the case for researchers to gain agency from it. Supposedly information which would have taken 30 minutes to understand previously can now be understood almost at once, and discoveries have already been made of gene properties by using this tool.