Entry Name: UBA-Cesario_Lamagna_Picoaga-MC1
VAST
Challenge 2014
Mini-Challenge 1
Team Members:
Diego Martin Cesario, University of Buenos Aires (UBA), diegomcesario@gmail.com PRIMARY
Walter Lamagna, University of Buenos Aires (UBA), wlamagna@gmail.com (Point of contact for
questions/answers)
Jorge Kuday Picoaga, University of Buenos Aires (UBA), georgepicoaga@gmail.com (Point of
contact for questions/answers)
Student Team: YES
Analytic Tools Used:
Tableau
TTFE, Timeline Text Filter w/Entities Tool developed with simile-timeline and perl by Walter Lamagna.
TT, Timeline Tool developed with simile-simeline and perl by Walter Lamagna.
Approximately how many hours were spent
working on this submission in total?
360
May we post your submission in the
Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2014 is complete? YES
Video:
http://www.wallves.com/vast/MC1_Team38.wmv
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Questions
MC1.1
– Provide a visual
representation of the structure of the Protectors of Kronos network, with
supporting evidence.
a. Who are the leaders?
b. Who is part of the extended network?
c. How has the group structure and organization
changed over time?
d. Where are the potential connections between the
POK and GAStech?
Provide novel visualizations
appropriate for communicating key information to the busy leaders of the
investigation. Please limit your response to no more than eight images and 500
words.
a) Who are the leaders ?
To discover the leadership of POK through time we used as data source the news
articles. The large amount of articles had to be filtered and classified in
some way. We used a timeline in combination with a simple search engine and an
automatic tagging that implements a simple Named Entities Recognition
algorithm. Each named entity is displayed in the timeline and colored for a
faster human eye visualization. The search engine can do a strict search (where
all the terms have to be matched) or non strict, where almost one of the terms
can appear in the article.
Hen Brodrogui -> Elian Karel -> Silvia Marek 
imagen 1/8 (how we found the leaders)
imagen 2/8 (how we found the leaders)
b) Who is part of the extended network?
The extended network is connected by family and friends of Juliana Vann. The
starting point is the Vann lastname, because the authorities consider it
relevant given that Edvard Vann was interviewed. In the other hand the fact
that Isia Vann (working at Gastech) was not interrogated, means that she is
missing. Searching the news articles, 5 year and 10 year historical report for
the lastname “Vann” we found that Isia is the sister of Juliana Vann. We
consider this a strong connection between POK and Gastech.
Image 3/8
For this analysis we removed the emails considered non relevant with subjects
like “funny” or “Guys night”, then got rid of all the emails with more than 7
recipients because we where looking for more close connections between
employees; then we applied the modularity algorithm and found 9 communities.
Image 4/8
The extended network is composed by some members of the Security Team (Image 4,
section A) with assistance of some informers like Ruscella Mies Haber (Image 4,
section B). All these individuals are connected through Linnea Bergen.
c. How has the group structure and organization changed over time?
In this image can be observed the members through time:
Image 5/8
d. Where are the potential connections between the POK and GAStech?
Isia is the main connection to POK (he joined the company on late December
2007) because
- He is older brother Julian Vann
- He is the nephew of Mandor Vann, who joined in 2004 to POK since retiring
from the Kronos military in 2004.
From this evidence, we understand that the group near Isia shares his ideals
and also militate in POK.
Many of the POK members where for some period doing the military service together
Kronos (Image 6/8), the last members GASTECH joined at its headquarters in
Abila are native citizens of Kronos and their surnames are coincident with one
of the founding members of POK, regardless account the known family
relationship between Mandor and nephew Isia:
- Henk Bodrogi (founding member and leader of POK until 2001) and Loreto
Bodrogi (currently GASTech employee from 2013)
- Carmine Osvaldo (founding member of POK until 2001) and Hennie Osvaldo
(currently GASTech employee from 2011)
- Valentine Mies (founding member of POK until 2001) and Minke Mies (currently
GASTech employee from 2013).
Image 6/8 hd version
We observed that Loreto Bodrogi finished his basic studies after completing
obligatory military service Kronos. After completing his studies he entered
Gastech in August 2013.
POK keeps existing through the predecessors we see demonstrated in the case of
Elian Karel, whose father Jeroen was one of the founding members of POK (image
7/8). 
Image 7/8
Image 8 details the seniority of the 54 current GASTech employees. After Isia
Vann enters GASTech, in late 2007, the other POK members enter the company from
2011.
hd
version
Image 8/8
MC1.2
– Describe the
events of January 20-21, 2014. What is the timeline of events? Please limit
your response to no more than ten images and 500 words.
We used a timeline detailed by minute
for the days January 20 and 21. The timeline reads the articles. Some text
processing are done before displaying them in the timeline, the time and date
is read from the articles and maped, some stemming and stopwords are skipped to
do a wordcount and the five most frequent words from the articles published
during the same hour are displayed as a title for each item. In addition, these
frequent words are colored in the article, hoping to help understanding faster
what it is about. Day 20-Jan:
A) During the morning of 20-Jan an Anual GASTech meeting was going to happen:
B) 10:18 AM the meeting is interrupted because the fire alarm is activated
10:00 and 10:18 it is turned off.
C) 11:45 It seems a false alarm because the GASTech employees can re-enter the
building.
D) 12:25 Sten San Jorge arrives the Capitol, but not with Ingrid Barranco, Ada
Campo- Corrente, Orhan Strum, or Willem Vasco- Pais. The content of the article
reveals this.
E) 12:45 Abila Police closes GASTech.
F) 17:30 It starts to be confirmed the kidnapping theory.
Image 1/3
G) Some Mysterious Jets leave and arrive Abila. An amount of passengers are
mentioned in different articles, but we think that Sten SanJorge is taken to a
secure location in Tethys and in the other hand, security agents to help clarify
the case are arriving. In addition to the possibility that other companies are
arriving just for business reasons as normal.
H) 19:15 Edvard Vann was questioned for hours by the Police.
I) The 21th early at 7:15 it is sayd that 14 employees are missing.
Image 2/3
Day 21-Jan:
J) 9:00 the police revises the amount of missing employees to 10.
K) 11:53, a journalist called Petrus Gerhard anounces he has an important
message to give, because Protectos Of Kronos contacted him.
L) 12:00, the message from POK is published, 20 millions are requested.
M) 14:05 The media reveals that between 10 and 14 employees are missing.
Image 3/3
MC1.3
– Identify at
least two possible explanations why the GAStech
employees may be missing. What evidence do you have to support each of these
explanations? Please limit your response to no more than three additional
images and 200 words.
a) One explanation is related to the
drug and smuggling incresing in Kronos. Seems that since the energy industry
evolved in Kronos, the country has changed from being a country that imports
drugs to produce them. The farms are not proffitable any more given the
contamination and this leaves many places to hide drugs and roads with trucks
that can transport anything without being suspectful.
Image 1/2
In the articles we searched for the chemical products that contaminate the
water. We found benzene, toluene, xylene, barium, chromium, lead and selenium.
These products are the result of the Fracking (the method used by GASTech and
many other companies in the world).
These chemicals are also used in the production of Synthetic Marijuana.
Taking advantage of the disaster caused in the environment by this drilling
methods and the easy access to the chemicals, the executives where involved in
these activities or had knowledge of it.
We found in Internet additional support for this theory where “Fracking” is
related to smuggling, and more dangerously, to the drug production.
Image 2/2
The POK members working in GASTech discovered that the executives where
involved in these delictive activities and kidnapped them asking for money.
b) Another hypotesis is that POK activists working in GASTech plan the kidnap
of the top executives, they have support of the Asterian Army (APA) through
Mandon Vann who worked in the Kronos Embassy of that Country. Motivated by his
newphew Isia in taking action. Evidence exists that these activists receive a
bouletin from Asteria by email through Ruscella Mies Haber. The objective of
the kidnap is to influence the environmental organizations to take action.