EVL faculty member and computer science associate professor Liz Marai has been appointed to co-chair the full papers session at the 23rd edition of EuroVis 2021. The EuroVis conference objective is to create and strengthen connections between visualization researchers and practitioners, to foster collaborations, and to draw more researchers into the rapidly growing area of visualization research. EuroVis has an expanded its scope to include all areas of visualization towards more wide-spread visibility and impact. 
EuroVis 2021 will be hosted by the University of Zurich in collaboration with FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and ETH Zurich. EuroVis is the annual Visualization Conference organized by the Eurographics Working Group on Data Visualization. This year&rsquo;s conference will be held virtually June 14 - 18, 2021. 
Liz joins Rita Borgo, King&rsquo;s College London, UK and Tatiana von Landesberger, University of Rostock, Germany to co-chair the full papers session focusing on bu not limited to visualization techniques, systems, applications & design studies, evaluation & empirical research, and theory. 
Congratulations, Liz on this prestigious role and your tireless work as an ambassador for visualization research!

Associate Professor Liz Marai co-Chairs Full Papers Session for EuroVis21

EVL alumnni Khairi Reda&rsquo;s and Mike Papka&rsquo;s paper entitled &ldquo;Color Nameability Predicts Inference Accuracy in Spatial Visualizations&ldquo; will be awarded the Best Paper award at EuroVis&rsquo;21. Reda will present their research Tuesday June 15th 8:00AM CST. The conference registration is free for all non-presenters see <a href="https://www.eurovis.org/index.php/for-attendees/program/">https://www.eurovis.org/index.php/for-attendees/program/</a> to register. 
Khairi received his PhD at EVL in 2014, and Mike Papka got his MS at EVL in 1994. 
&ldquo;Color Nameability Predicts Inference Accuracy in Spatial Visualizations&rdquo; 
Authors: Reda, K., Salvi, A.A., Gray, J., Papka, M.E. 
Abstract: 
Color encoding is foundational to visualizing quantitative data. Guidelines for colormap design have traditionally emphasized perceptual principles, such as order and uniformity. However, colors also evoke cognitive and linguistic associations whose role in data interpretation remains underexplored. We study how two linguistic factors, name salience and name variation, affect people&rsquo;s ability to draw inferences from spatial visualizations. In two experiments, we found that participants are better at interpreting visualizations when viewing colors with more salient names (e.g., prototypical &rsquo;blue&rsquo; &rsquo;yellow&rsquo;, and &rsquo;red&rsquo; over &rsquo;teal&rsquo;, &rsquo;beige&rsquo;, and &rsquo;maroon&rsquo;). The effect was robust across four visualization types, but was more pronounced in continuous (e.g., smooth geographical maps) than in similar discrete representations (e.g., choropleths). Participants&rsquo; accuracy also improved as the number of nameable colors increased, although the latter had a less robust effect. Our findings suggest that color nameability is an important design consideration for quantitative colormaps, and may even outweigh traditional perceptual metrics. In particular, we found that the linguistic associations of color are a better predictor of performance than the perceptual properties of those colors. We discuss the implications and outline research opportunities. The data and materials for this study are available at <a href="https://osf.io/asb7n">https://osf.io/asb7n</a>.

EVL alumni Khairi Reda and Mike Papka win Best Paper award at EuroVis&rsquo;21

EVL faculty and computer science (CS) associate professor Liz Marai in collaboration with co-investigator, CS assistant professor Xinhua Zhang are developing a computational artificial intelligence system to serve as a decision support tool for oncologists prescribing treatment for head and neck cancer. The research entitled &ldquo;Longitudinal Spatial-Nonspatial Decision Support for Competing Outcomes in Head and Neck Cancer Therapy&rdquo; is supported by a $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health NIH grant #R01CA258827 with co-investigators at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Iowa. The goal is to develop a scalable system based on real cancer patient data that can help guide physicians in how to treat specific patients. 
Marai and Zhang are using the computational resources at Electronic Visualization Laboratory to develop their cancer treatment AI. Guadalupe Canahuate of the University of Iowa and Dr. David Fuller of the University of Texas are co-investigators on the NIH grant. 
See the full press release on <a href="https://today.uic.edu/maximizing-cancer-survival-minimizing-treatment-side-effects-with-ai">UIC Today</a> by Jacqueline Carey.

Maximizing cancer survival, minimizing treatment side effects with AI

EVL founding co-director Dan Sandin discusses his pioneering real-time video performance work created between 1975 and 1978. The virtual event includes screenings of the Electronic Visualization Events (EVE) held at the University of Illinois at Chicago created by Dan Sandin and Tom DeFanti. These events were a place for students, faculty, and artists to create live communal video performances with an emphasis on Image Processing using the Sandin Analog IP. Event moderated by Jason Nebergall 
Virtual Screening and Discussion with Dan Sandin 
May 27, 2021, 4:00 PM PT / 6:00 PM CT / 7:00 PM ET 
See the recorded <a href=https://mediaburn.org/events/5-27-21-virtual-talks-with-video-activists-dan-sandin/>Media Burn Presentation </a> 
Daniel J. Sandin is an internationally recognized pioneer of electronic art and visualization. In 1969, Sandin developed a computer-controlled light and sound environment, called Glow Flow, at the Smithsonian Institution and was invited to join the art faculty at the University of Illinois the same year. By 1973 he had developed the Sandin Image Processor, a highly programmable analog computer for processing video images in real time. He then worked with DeFanti to combine the Image Processor with real-time computer graphics and performed visual concerts, the Electronic Visualization Events, with synthesized musical accompaniment. In 1991, Sandin and DeFanti conceived and developed, in collaboration with graduate students, the CAVE virtual-reality (VR) theater. In recent years, Sandin has been concentrating on the development of auto stereo VR displays (i.e., free viewing, no glasses), and on the creation of network-based tele-collaborative VR art works that involve video camera image materials, rich human interaction and mathematical systems.

Virtual Talks with Video Activists: Dan Sandin

EVL faculty and Computer Science assistant professor Wei Tang has been working with Motorola to use computer vision to improve cell phone photos taken in low-light conditions. Dr. Tang&rsquo;s research focuses on the integration of deep neural networks with conventional image processing techniques to address complex computer vision problems. Specifically, Tang and his graduate student researchers are working on methods to deblur low-light cell phone images, to return a crisp, clean version of the picture. The process includes providing the neural network a series of images - both blurry and clean - to create a loss function, or learning objective, to identify the preferred images. The resulting deblurred images are then provided to the Motorola team to brighten the low-light photos for highly improved results. 
Tang&rsquo;s research interests in computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning can also be applied to augmented reality and intelligent robotics applications. Stay tuned for updates in Tang's research and collaborations. 
Read the related <a href="https://cs.uic.edu/news-stories/wei-tang-using-computer-vision-to-improve-cell-phone-photos-taken-in-low-light-conditions/">CS e-newsletter</a> article by Andrea Poet for more detail.

Wei Tang&rsquo;s Machine Learning Researh Featured in UIC Computer Science e-News

National Institutes of Health: National Cancer Institute has awarded UIC funding to continue research in head and neck cancer therapy. UIC PI, EVL faculty and Computer Science associate professor Liz Marai in conjunction with co-PI Xinhua Zhang are joined by collaborators from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Dave Fuller, PI) and the University of Iowa (Guadalupe Canahuate, PI) to develop a longitudinal decision support tool to assist clinicians in selecting treatments that balance survival and side-effects responses to cancer therapy. The project will lead to better insights into the biological and therapeutic factors related to cancer survival and toxicity, allowing personalization of care at the individual level. 
Title: Longitudinal Spatial-Nonspatial Decision Support for Competing Outcomes in Head and Neck Cancer Therapy 
PI: G. Elisabeta Marai, Co-PI: Xinhua Zhang 
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health: National Cancer Institute 
Dates: March 1, 2021 - Feb 28, 2026 
Amount: $2,797,868 
Grant Number: 1 R01 CA258827-01

NIH Awards &ldquo;Longitudinal Spatial-Nonspatial Decision Support for Competing Outcomes in Head and Neck Cancer Therapy&rdquo;

Join us in congratulating EVL faculty and School of Design professor Daria Tsoupikova who has been named the SIGGRAPH 2021 Art Papers Chair. Each year, hundreds of computer graphics researchers, professionals and technologists contribute their scientific innovations, technical achievements, and artistic accomplishments to the SIGGRAPH Art Papers venue. This is a juried and peer reviewed event, which comprises an unparalleled, collaborative experience that is one of the world&rsquo;s largest and most influential events at the intersection of art, science, and technology. 
Find out more about all of the SIGGRAPH Programs and join us online next summer for <a href="https://s2021.siggraph.org/">SIGGRAPH 2021</a>.

Daria Tsoupikova Named SIGGRAPH 2021 Art Papers Chair

EVL alumnus Marco Cavallo was awarded with the UIC College of Engineering Outstanding Young Achievement Award in Computer Science for 2020. The award identifies alumni who, through their achievement in their field of engineering, have significantly enhanced the industry and who inspire and help to instill a sense of pride among the alumni, students, faculty and staff of UIC. Marco is among the 15 alumni award honorees in engineering and computer science who have used their UIC education to establish rewarding, productive, and high-impact careers.<bra> 
Marco currently works as a senior research engineer in Apple&rsquo;s technology development group, where he is in charge of creating data visualization tools and machine learning infrastructure to foster the development of new computer vision algorithms for augmented reality. 
He graduated with a dual master&rsquo;s degree in computer science and engineering from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and the University of Illinois Chicago, where he wrote a thesis on augmented reality while working at UIC&rsquo;s Electronic Visualization Laboratory. 
Congratulations Marco! 
See the award winner video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oskk1icFSvE&feature=youtu.be">YouTube</a>.

EVL and UIC Computer Science Alumnus Marco Cavallo Honored with Outstanding Young Achievement Award

For the Supercomputing (SC20) Conference this year, a research community partnership was formed to design an international networking testbed using existing facilities, with several international extensions. Demonstrations and experiments were conducted prior to the conference with results discussed during a SC20 virtual forum. &ldquo;The Forum For Experiments and Demonstrations Showcasing Innovations In Large-Scale, Data-Intensive-Science Networking&rdquo; was organized by Research Consortium for Data-Intensive Science Networking to communicate: a) the motivation behind these experiments and demonstrations, b) their design, c) technologies used, d) results and e) future research in these areas. 
EVL senior research programmer, Lance Long participated to discuss EVL&rsquo;s research in Composable Infrastructure, specifically MRI: Acquisition of a Composable Platform as a Service Instrument for Deep Learning & Visualization (COMPaaS DLV) funded under NSF Award #CNS-1828265. Items discussed included the benefits of composable infrastructure, implementation for deep learning in an academic research environment, operating systems, dynamic workflows, orchestration middleware, current use cases and future work. 
Other participants included: Ciena Research Lab, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Naval Research Laboratory, iCAIR/Northwestern, StarLight, UCSD, FNAL, CalTech, SURFnet.

Lance Long Presents EVL&rsquo;s Composable Infrastructure Research at SC20

After six years at the helm as EVL director and twenty-six years as an associate director, Maxine Brown retires effective October 1, 2020. Over the years, Maxine has led and been instrumental in EVL&rsquo;s interdisciplinary research and development specializing in collaborative visualization, virtual reality, visual data science, and advanced computing and networking infrastructure. 
Most notable, during Maxine&rsquo;s tenure as director, EVL invented the CAVE2&trade; hybrid-reality environment, developed the Continuum Smart Environment and collaborative middle-ware SAGE&trade; scalable adaptive graphics environment, as well as the SAGE2&trade; scalable amplified group environment. In collaboration with Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory, Maxine managed the EVL team to create STAR TAP (1997), Ithe research and education network connection facility for international traffic located in downtown Chicago. STAR TAP was followed by StarLight (2001), which is still the largest research and engineering advanced networking facility in the world. 
Maxine&rsquo;s contributions to EVL are numerous and significant. She will be sorely missed by faculty, staff, students and many colleagues worldwide. Andrew Johnson, EVL director of research and professor of Computer Science assumes the role of EVL&rsquo;s interim director. 
<a href="https://engineering.uic.edu/news-stories/maxine-brown-director-of-uics-electronic-visualization-laboratory-retires-after-34-years/">Read the complete College of Engineering article.</a>

Associate Professor Liz Marai co-Chairs Full Papers Session for EuroVis21

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