Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE)

Yang Yang, a senior electrical engineering student at Purdue, received one of six awards for best poster presentation for a summer research project in the 2011 Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURF).

GARI, a mobile application, helps law enforcement identify and interpret gang-related graffiti in real-time.

A mobile application is making the streets of West Lafayette, Indiana, a safer place. The Gang Graffiti Automatic Recognition and Interpretation (GARI) application, developed by the VACCINE Center at Purdue University, allows law enforcement agents to snap a picture of graffiti on a smart phone and decipher its meaning in real-time.

Graffiti is often used as a communications medium between gang members or as threats for rival gangs. The GARI application has helped to educate the police force on the meanings of symbols by linking back to a database that stores images and labels images. This allows officers to compare the signs they are seeing on the streets and analyze, predict and catalog gang activity all through mobile access.

With the massive amounts of information produced via social media managing and making sense of data is a big challenge.  Particularly during an emergency, the ability for first responders and law enforcement to process and analyze information can greatly increase their decision-making. SensePlace2 was recently identified by social media and emergency management blog, idisaster 2.0, as an emergency capability that collects essential information during, increase situational awareness, and allows for swift communication between government and citizen.

Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA)

On November 7-9, 2011, CCICADA, the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), and the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) in partnership with the United States Coast Guard (USCG) Area Commands hosted the 2nd Annual Maritime Risk Symposium - Developing Public-Private Partnerships in Homeland Security: How Risk Impacts Government Policy and Business Requirements.  The three-day event, held on the campus of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The theme of the symposium was risk and economic assessment and risk management methodologies applicable in the maritime domain and included expert panel discussions and presentations by researchers, members of academia, and government.  The symposium also included participation from various DHS research centers and partners such as CCICADA, the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE) the Center for Secure and Resilient Maritime Commerce (CSR), Center for Island, Maritime, and Extreme Environment Security (CIMES) and the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL).   

Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA)

An overwhelming majority of the emergency response efforts addressed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency involve flood related issues.  Therefore, understanding flood risk and the possible risk mitigation strategies that can be implemented are of great importance to FEMA in meeting its mission responsibilities.  In seeking information and assistance in this regard, FEMA has awarded $158,000 to two DHS University Centers of Excellence (COEs), CCICADA, and the National Transportation Security COE (NTSCOE) for a project on Flood Mitigation on the Raritan River, the river running by Rutgers University.  The project also has additional involvement from a third COE, the Center for Risk and Economic Analyses of Terrorism Events (CREATE). The project is based at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.

In general, the project will take the ‘collaboratorium’ approach: the evaluation of the question via collectively generated ideas from various stakeholders, experts and constituents.  The study will look to understand the political, environmental, social and engineering perspectives of flooding and its mitigation in the Raritan River Basin watershed as well as the economic and risk models that can help define best mitigation strategies.  Within this framework, the project has three specific tasks that will inform the outcome.  These are described in-turn below:

Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE)

The VACCINE Center at Purdue University has begun utilizing a web portal called Liferay to promote the sharing of information with its partners. Liferay provides a web platform for building web applications, portals and websites. It provides features like a web content management system, an integration platform for integrating different web applications, a collaboration platform for an entire organization, and a container for social applications platform.

Liferay contains such features as blogs, calendar, mail, message boards, wiki, document library, web content display, Google maps, announcements, etc.  Liferay also allows you to install additional plugins, which make web content management/publishing easier and manageable.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory & DHS Science and Technology Directorate

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has one of the most diverse missions within DHS.  It’s research and development needs fall across a wide operational space.  ICE recently commended DHS Science and Technology Directorate and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for their work on the IN-SPIRE Unstructured Text Analysis project, which has been delivered to ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  ICE is now using IN-SPIRE in their HSI operations.

Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE)

cgSARVA is a visual analytics tool created for maritime search and rescue missions.

VACCINE at  Purdue University has been awarded the Commander Atlantic  Area’s Excellence Coin for their work with District Nine (Great Lakes)  and District One (Boston and New England) of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG).

The prestigious award was presented to Dr. David S. Ebert, Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue and Director of the VACCINE Center, by Vice Admiral Parker, Commander Atlantic Area, USCG. 

The VACCINE team worked with the District Nine to develop a software tool called cgSARVA (Coast Guard Search and Rescue Visual Analytics) that allows the USCG to determine potential increase or decrease in risk for factors such as response time, potential lives and property lost and reallocation of available resources.    The software tool is currently being used by District Nine, which is responsible for all USCG operations throughout the five Great Lakes.

Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE)

Students identify common patterns in data as part of a terrorist plot scenario.

Morgan State University joined VACCINE as an official partner in early 2011 and brought a group of 15 students to the Purdue campus in June for an extensive two-week internship in visual analytics.  The students, mainly sophomores and juniors, represented numerous majors ranging from engineering and science to liberal arts. 

The first week of the program involved a group exercise in which students were given reports from various agencies, including the FBI, CIA and NSA, regarding a possible terrorist attack.  The students reviewed the reports, determined common patterns within the reports and predicted the type of attack that was being planned.  Throughout the two weeks of the program, the students visited various labs and specialized centers both on and off-campus, including the Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue Envision Center, and the Purdue Police Department, to learn how visual analytics can be used in a variety of environments.  During a visit to the Purdue Center for Systems Integrity, students were able to view current projects being developed for use on military vehicles and in energy-related areas, such as research being conducted on wind turbines. 

The Morgan State students also learned how to create their own visualizations, which can be applied to projects at Morgan State. 

Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA)

Clockwise from top left: 1) REU panelists Darlena Kern, Sinan Ozdemir, and Alexander Saffer; 2) Graduate student speaker Andrew Rodriguez; 3) Michael Moriarty displays a map showing the nearly 20 disasters that were recognized by presidential declaration on July 15; 4) REU Director Eugene Fiorini.

Over the summer, the Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA) hosted a group of middle and high school students from the Bronx in New York City and gave them a taste of college life. The students and several of their teachers attended a one-day “Student Conference on Discrete Mathematics: One Way to Exciting Careers in Homeland Security.”  The visiting students were participants in a summer program at Hostos Community College (located in the South Bronx) that is part of the longstanding NASA/STEP Proyecto Access Program to engage historically underrepresented and/or economically disadvantaged middle and high school students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

The Proyecto Access Program at Hostos is a year-round program with an intensive summer session that emphasizes the development of abstract reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving skills. The conference at CCICADA was supported through a DHS University Programs grant to the small business, Discrete Teaching, as part of a DHS initiative to build capacity for 21st CenturySTEM education at community colleges serving underrepresented populations.