Entry Name: Purdue-Guo-GC
VAST
Challenge 2014
Grand Challenge
Team Members:
Chen Guo, Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University, guo171@purdue.edu PRIMARY
Jing Xia, State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, xiajing@zjucadcg.cn
Jun Yu, Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University, yujun_2005@hotmail.com
Jieqiong Zhao, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, jieqiongzhao@purdue.edu
Jiawei Zhang, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, zhan1486@purdue.edu
Qiaoying Wang, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, wang1925@purdue.edu
Dr. Zhenyu (Cheryl) Qian, Interaction Design, Purdue University, qianz@purdue.edu (supervising faculty)
Shang Xu, Interaction Design, Purdue University, xu537@purdue.edu
Isaac Sheeley, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, isheeley@purdue.edu
Joseph Christopher, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, christ33@purdue.edu
Shehzad Afzal, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, safzal@purdue.edu
Dallas breunig, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, dbreunig@purdue.edu
Dr. Yingjie (Victor) Chen, Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University, victorchen@purdue.edu (supervising faculty)
Chen Wang,
Harbin Institute of Technology, chwang@hit.edu.cn (supervising faculty)
Dr. David Ebert, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University,
ebertd@ecn.purdue.edu
(supervising faculty)
Student Team:
YES
Analytic Tools Used:
AnnotatedTimeTree, Dodeca-Rings Map, and SMART
Approximately how many hours were spent working on this submission in total?
The total number of hours worked on this submission by our entire team is about 100.
May we post your submission in the Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2014 is complete?
YES
Video:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions
GC.1 - Summarize and describe the events of January, 2014 relating to the disappearance of the GAStech employees. Focus on the disappearance of the employees, and the events immediately before and afterward. The summary should include the following:
a. Who: Individuals and groups involved and their roles
b. What: A description of what happened over the time period
c. Where: Associate events with locations
d. When: Specific times of activities, particularly as it relates to planning and execution
e. Why: A description of the motives or motivations of the individuals or groups involved
f. How: What, if any, notable entities provided support for or facilitated the events that took place? These could be people, places, or things that helped those responsible for the disappearance in some way.
Do not reproduce the overview or MC1 materials concerning background knowledge, although you may reference this information if needed. Visualizations illustrating how you determined the summary points above are encouraged. Please limit your response to no more than five images and 500 words.
The overview events of January, 2014 relating to the disappearance of the GAStech employees is shown in Figure 1. There are five major events immediately before and after the disappearance.
Fig GC 1.1 Overview of events
Due to the water contamination event and the death of second POK leader Elian Karel, It has been a long history of POK protesting against GasTech since 1997. POK members have become more and more violent and held annual rallies since 2009. The security people in GAStech gathered together frequently from January 6th to January 19th and observed the four executives’ at night. Five security people - Loreto Bodrogi, Isia Vann, Varja Lagos, Minke Mies and Felix Resumir visited a car repair shop called Frydos Autosupply n' More very frequently after their shifts in the company. Several security people including Isia Vann, Loreto Bodrogi and Hennie Osvaldo always gathered at another security named Inga Ferro’s home after work (6pm ~ 11pm). They left Inga Ferro’s home, visited one executive’s home about 3:30am and then left at about 8am in the morning. On January 13th, an email sent among the six security people is entitled “ARISE - Inspiration for Defenders of Kronos”, which is similar with POK (Protectors of Kronos). Sten Sanjorge Jr, the president/CEO of GAStech, didn’t show up before January 17th. He had stayed at Chostus hotel for three days from January 17th to January 19th. It seems that he was visiting this GAStech headquarter from other city. There was a party organized to welcome Sten Sanjorge Jr at Desafio Golf Course from 12:30pm to 18:30pm on January 19th. All the executives such as Ada Campo-Corrente, Orhan Strum, Willem Vasco-Pais and Ingrid Barranco were there.
Fig GC 1.2 Suspicious activities related to six security people
On January 20th, a fire alarm had been triggered at the centers of GAStech. Then an AFD spokesman stated that the fire alarm appeared to be a false alarm. Around 11am, the police of Abila was called to GAStech for an emergency not specified (kidnapping). There was speculation that the GAStech executives and the Kronos officials had fled the country with their fortune and money from the Kronos coffers. At 5pm, it was reported that two jets left the airport of Abila with 14-16 passengers. At 7pm, Edvard Vann had been interrogated for six hours because he shares the same family name with several members of POK. We are very confident that the kidnapping happened around 10am to 11am on January 20th. Six security people kidnapped four POK executives. These kidnappers may include Inga Ferro, Loreto Bodrogi, Isia Vann, Hennie Osvaldo, Minke Mies and Ruscella Mies. The four kidnapped executives include Ingrid Barranco, Ada campo-Corrente, Orhan Strum and Willem Vasco-Pais. On January 21th, the disappearance of GasTech employees was confirmed by control from GAStech. Later at night, POK took the responsibility of kidnapping and demanded $20 million for rescue.
Fig GC 1.3 The kidnapping event
On January 23rd, there was a POK rally event happening at Abila City Park from 5pm to 8pm. Later at 6:41pm, a fire alarm was advanced at Dancing Dolphin Apartment. The fire was under control after 2.5 hours. At 7:18pm, a van hit a car and a bicyclist three minutes later then heading west on Egeou St. around 7:40pm, the suspects in the van shot a cop, and the SWAT team arrived at the scene of the standoff fifteen minutes later. At 9:15pm, all the suspects in the van were surrendered and two hostages were rescued. At 9:30pm, a building explosion happened at Dancing Dolphin Apartments.
Fig GC 1.4 The black van trajectory summary
Fig GC 1.5 The shooting and standoff summary
GC.2 - Describe at a high level the most significant networks that exist, and how they have influenced each other to produce the current situation. Please limit your response to no more than three images and 100 words.
Three main networks are:
- POK grew from a small organization of 7 people to around 300 members. The leaders changed from Henk Bodrogi, Elian Karel, to Silvia Marek. (Fig GC2.1)
- Four of GAStech security employees were engaged in frequent gatherings in the car repair shop and executive house before dawn visits (Fig GC2.2). Their names were also included in the emails about POK arisen.
- The four executives in GAStech were socially very close (Fig GC 2.3), and they were reported to be kidnapped on Jan. 20th.
Fig GC2.1 POK network leader changes.
Fig GC2.2 Security people's email network (left) and they visited the car repair store frequently after work (right).
Fig GC2.3 Executives in GAStech were socially connected in recreational events (left), and were reported to be kidnapped on the 20th.
As the members of POK, the security network were motivated by the POK beliefs, planned and executed the kidnapping of the GAStech executives.
GC.3 - Identify three of the most significant information gaps that remain at the end of the time period covered by the data. Describe why this missing information would be important to the investigation. Highlight in your visualizations where these knowledge gaps are present. Please limit your response to no more than three images and 250 words.
The three gaps concern time, social account ID identification and connection among the three MCs.
The first gap as illustrated in Fig GC3.1 is about time. The MC2 dataset is limited to days from January 6 to January 19 2014 (the blue bar in Fig GC3.1). The MC3 dataset spans several hours on January 23 2014 (the orange bar in Fig GC3.1). The MC1 dataset also has several gaps in the news report data (grey areas in Fig GC3.1). Full data for the three MCs in January is needed for further investigation.
Fig GC3.1 Datasets are incomplete in terms of time span.
The second gap as illustrated in Figure GC3.2 concerns the social media dataset in MC3. Most data is lack of geo-information. Also, users cannot map IDs to real persons without context information. So POK members we identified in social media cannot be traced to the specific persons.
Fig GC3.2 The IDs are not identifiable, and most of the social media data is lack of geo-Information.
The third gap is the lack of information connections among the three datasets. As in the communication network shown below, the AnnotatedTimeTree communicates with the DodecaRings by referring employees’ car and card activities; backwards DodecaRings can search employees’ profiles and email activities. Common names or locations mentioned can also be transferred among MCs. However, due to the mismatching of time span, events at the same location are not necessarily related. Also, location names are not geo-coded in MC1 data.
Fig GC3.3 Communication network among the three visualization.
GC.4 - The police have sufficient manpower to investigate up to two different locations simultaneously. Provide your best recommendation to the police chief as to where the police should be deployed, and why. Provide visualizations that help describe the importance of this action. Please limit your response to no more than two images and 100 words.
First location: A car repair shop called Frydos Autosupply n' More
Reason: Five security people frequently visited the car repair shop and gathered there nearly every day after working hours, especially on the Sunday before the kidnapping event. This location is also close to Dancing Dophin apartment and hit-and-run locations.
Fig GC 4.1 The car repair store (left) is located in the same area with the fire and hit & run locations (right) on 23rd.
Second location: Inga Ferro’s home
Reason: Several security people always gathered at another security named Inga Ferro’s home after work. They left Inga Ferro’s home, visited one executive’s home about 3:30am and then left at about 8am in the morning.
Fig GC 4.2 Ingo Ferro's home is another important gather location for security people.