Entry Name: "VRVis-Matkovic-GC"

VAST Challenge 2017

Grand Challenge

Team Members:

Silvana Podaras, VRVis Research Center, Vienna, Austria, podaras@vrvis.at PRIMARY

Michael Beham, VRVis Research Center, Vienna, Austria, Beham@VRVis.at

Rainer Splechtna, VRVis Research Center, Vienna, Austria, Splechtna@VRVis.at

Denis Gracanin, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, gracanin@vt.edu

Kresimir Matkovic, VRVis Research Center, Vienna, Austria, Matkovic@VRVis.at

Student Team: NO

Tools Used:

Microsoft Excel: data analysis.

Approximately how many hours were spent working on this submission in total?

50h

May we post your submission in the Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2017 is complete? YES

Video

N/A

Questions

GC.1 – Provide your best hypothesis with supporting evidence of what is happening in the Lekagul Preserve that is affecting the Rose-crested Blue Pipit. Your answer should include identification of who is responsible for the impactful activities, what they are doing, where impactful events are occurring, when and how often these occur, how these events are taking place, and why they are happening. Please limit your response to 1000 words and 6 images.

Our hypothesis is that Kasios is affecting the Rose-crested Blue Pipit with various actions.

Contrary to their promise, they continue to emit Methylosmolene, which was discovered in MC2. The emission happens regularly only at night, so we suspect that they are aware that this is an illegal activity and try to hide it.

In the bi-annual newsletter from December 2015, an employee stated he has “odd working hours” at Kasios. In June 2013, they were looking for new employees which think “out of the box” and “have broken the rules”. Eventually, this pun should be taken literally: In MC1, we discovered that trucks tend to leave the MIP from entrance3 on a regular basis in the early morning hours. Maybe those trucks drive away illegal waste resulting from the use of the VOC.

We also spotted a suspicious truck of type 4 which always operates at late night hours between 2:00 am and 5:00 am. It leaves the MIP from entrance3, illegally passes gate6, gate5 and gate3 and ends up at ranger-stop3 where it spends around 45 to 90 minutes before driving back the same way. It is possible that there is some illegal activity, like waste disposal, taking place.

Furthermore, out of all companies, Kasios is the one with the biggest growth rate. It is expanding the number of employees (30 people were hired in December 2014, including “transportation experts”), and also its facilities (in a three-year plan started in 2014, see newsletter from June 2013).

This expansion diminishes the habitat of the birds and causes more traffic through the park, which also affects wild life. This goes hand in hand with the reports of the bi-annual newsletter from June 2016, which indicates that traffic is increasing through the preserve.

The expansion of the preserve was observed and documented in the images of MC3.

GC.2 – Provide a timeline that comprehensively describes the relevant activities in Mistford, the Industrial Park, and the Preserve that helps concisely describe the events identified in Question 1. Please limit your response to 1000 words and 6 images.

The timeline (Figure 1) depicts events found in the Semi-Annual newsletters (upper half) and data from the Mini-Challenges (lower half). One can see that Kasios is consistently growing, hiring more employees and extending their facilities according to their expansion-announcement in June. At the end of 2016, traffic increased in the preserve not only due to seasonal reasons, but also due to “improvements that encourage traffic”. This correlates to the finding of new buildings and streets in MC3.

Additionally, there is the quote of an employee trucker at Kasios which states odd working hours. This statement falls into the period where the suspicious truck was found in the data of MC1. Furthermore, the sensor data from MC2 proves that Kasios continues emitting Methylosmolene, contradicting their statement from June 2013.

Figure 1: Timeline.

GC.3 – How confident are you in your hypothesis? What factors impact your confidence in your hypothesis? What additional information would help strengthen your hypothesis? Please limit your response to 500 words and 3 images.

The fact that Kasios continues to emit Methylosmolene years after they announced an early stop of using this chemical makes the company highly suspicious. This, in combination with the constant driving behavior of the suspicious truck and the statement from the employee strengthen the hypothesis. But even if Kasios does not get rid of their trash illegally inside the preserve, the radical expansion and growth of the company is another indicator that Kasios affects the birds in the preserve.

Useful additional information to strengthen the hypothesis would be traffic data from a longer period of time, so we could check if an overall increase of trucks over the years caused by the growth of the company might cause the birds to diminish.

Furthermore, information to which company the trucks coming from entrance3 belong to would help to see if it is really a Kasios truck which is involved in strange late-night driving activity.

GC.4 – What are your proposed next steps? Do you have a course of action to correct the problems in the Lekagul Preserve and help the Rose-crested Blue Pipit? Please limit your response to 500 words and 3 images.

There should be a thorough inspection of Kasios activities regarding the emission of Methylosmolene. An inspection of late-night activities of the trucks (e.g., if they try to get rid of illegal waste in the preserve) should also be conducted.

The company finally has to stop using the VOC and should pay a high fine which is invested into a program to help the birds. Additionally, there should be a study of the development of traffic. Drive-through traffic, especially trucks from Companies, should be minimized (eventually by building a bypass rout, so trucks and employees can reach the MIP without driving through the preserve).