Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platforms are becoming increasingly popular in recent years. Online learners need to watch the whole course video on MOOC platforms to learn the underlying new knowledge, which is often tedious and time-consuming due to the lack of a quick overview of the covered knowledge and their structures. In this article, we propose ConceptThread, a visual analytics approach to effectively show the concepts and the relations among them to facilitate effective online learning. Specifically, given that the majority of MOOC videos contain slides, we first leverage video processing and speech analysis techniques, including shot recognition, speech recognition and topic modeling, to extract core knowledge concepts and construct the hierarchical and temporal relations among them. Then, by using a metaphor of thread, we present a novel visualization to intuitively display the concepts based on video sequential flow, and enable learners to perform interactive visual exploration of concepts. We conducted a quantitative study, two case studies, and a user study to extensively evaluate ConceptThread. The results demonstrate the effectiveness and usability of ConceptThread in providing online learners with a quick understanding of the knowledge content of MOOC videos.

Numerous sampling strategies have been proposed to reduce the visual clutter of large-scale geographical point data visualization, which focus on the preservation of original data features, such as randomness, spatial distribution, and associated relationship. However, user preferences and demands are not taken into account in the course of sampling, which will lead to the sampled results deviating from user requirements and impede personalized geospatial analysis in specific application scenarios. In this article, we propose a user-driven sampling model for the visual abstraction of the large-scale geographical point data based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). First, a blue noise sampling model is applied to partition the geographical space into local areas, and a set of visual interfaces are designed to present the data features of those points in the local areas, enabling users to visually select representative points according to their requirements. Then, user preferences are quantified with a CNN model based on the eigenvectors of the representative points, which are further utilized to guide the sampling courses of the other local areas. Thus, all the sampled points will retain the spatial distribution of original data points and fulfill the user preference as far as possible. In addition, we implement a visualization framework to integrate manual point selection, CNN training, automatic point sampling, and visual comparison, allowing users to easily obtain and evaluate the sampled points from the perspectives of data analysis and user requirements. Quantitative comparisons and case studies based on real-world datasets are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our sampling model in the preservation of user preferences and visual exploration of large-scale geospatial point data.

Numerous graph clustering methods have been proposed to explore aggregation structures across multiple graphs. In these methods, single-graph features are merely considered or multigraph features are simply weighted, which are insufficient for the construction of reasonable multiple graph clustering features, since the association information between pairwise graphs is ignored and the varied local correlations might influence the clustering preference. Thus, we propose an interactive multiple graph clustering model, iMGC, in this article, to achieve reasonable multiple graph clustering features, which cannot only express multiple relationships, but also preserve associations of nodes across multiple graphs. First, a unified graph matrix is constructed with the combination of structural differences quantified by graph representation learning, which is further optimized by minimizing the difference of structural characteristics between it and each single graph matrix. Thus, multiple relationships are well integrated and expressed, while the varied local correlations within different graphs are also balanced in the unified graph matrix. Then, a constrained Laplacian rank is applied on the unified graph matrix to generate the unified clustering result directly, which is able to preserve association features across multiple graphs. Furthermore, we provide a set of visualization and interaction interfaces, enabling users to intuitively optimize and evaluate the multiple graph clustering features, and interactively explore the multiple graphs. Case studies and quantitative comparisons based on real-world datasets have demonstrated the effectiveness of iMGC in the clustering performance from various perspectives and exploration of multiple graphs.

Stratigraphic correlation based on well-logging data is able to help geological interpreters analogize and deduce underground sedimentary morphology. A great deal of traditional methods has been studied to automatically or manually achieve stratigraphic correlation, the courses of which are usually time-consuming and not intuitive. Many uncertainties are easily generated to reduce the effectiveness of stratigraphic correlation and the accuracy of geological interpretation. To address this issue, this paper introduces an interactive visual analytics system for identifying correlation patterns and improving correlation accuracies using large-scale well-logging data. First, we propose a novel stratigraphic correlation model with the composition of multi-log curve integration, layer identification, and layer matching. Then, a visualization framework is designed by working closely with domain experts in an iterative manner to get deeper insights into the course of stratigraphic correlation based on a few visual interfaces such as map view, correlation view, matrix view and attribute view. Also, a rich set of interactions is provided allowing interpreters to refine the results of stratigraphic correlation according to domain knowledge and user requirements. Furthermore, case studies based on real-world datasets and interviews with domain experts have demonstrated the effectiveness of our system for the stratigraphic correlation and geological interpretation.