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<p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Updated Due Dates! MC1 and MC2 due <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339542" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">July 7;</span></span> Grand Challenge due <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339543" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">July 9</span></span>!</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">For more information, please visit <a href="http://ieeevis.org/year/2015/info/call-participation/vast-challenge" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">http://ieeevis.org/year/<wbr></wbr>2015/info/call-participation/<wbr></wbr>vast-challenge</a>.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><b>VAST Challenge 2015 Call for Participation</b></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">VAST Challenge 2015 is underway. See <a href="http://vacommunity.org/VASTchallenge2015" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">http://vacommunity.org/<wbr></wbr>VASTchallenge2015</a> for details.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">This year’s VAST Challenge presents two related mini-challenges and an overall Grand Challenge for your consideration. The challenges are open to teams and individuals in academia, industry, and government.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">This year, we would like to encourage participants create innovative visualizations to support their analyses of the data. There will be many different features within the data sets that could use creative approaches, so even if your particular approach doesn’t address the entire Challenge problem set, please enter and show us your new ways of working with this data.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><b>Background</b></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><i>Note: This scenario and all the people, places, groups, technologies, contained therein are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, places, groups, or technologies is purely coincidental.</i></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">DinoFun World is a modest-sized park amusement park, sitting on about 215 hectares and hosting thousands of visitors each day. It has a small town feel, but it is well known for its exciting rides and events.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">One event last year was a weekend tribute to Scott Jones, internationally renowned football (“soccer,” in US terminology) star. Scott is from a town nearby DinoFun World. DinoFun World declared “Scott Jones Weekend” where he was scheduled to appear in two stage shows each <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339544" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Friday</span></span>, <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339545" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Saturday</span></span>, and <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339546" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday</span></span> to talk about his life and career. In addition, a show of memorabilia from his career would be displayed in the park’s Pavilion.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">However, the event did not go as planned. Scott’s weekend was marred by crime and mayhem perpetrated by a poor, misguided and disgruntled figure from Scott’s past.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">While the crimes were rapidly solved, park officials and law enforcement figures are interested in understanding what happened during that weekend to better prepare themselves for future events. They are interested in understanding how people move and communicate in the park, as well as how patterns change and evolve over time, and what can be understood about the motivations for changing patterns.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><b>The Challenges</b></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><u>Mini-Challenge 1 </u></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Mini-Challenge 1 focuses on movement of people around the park. You are asked to characterize the movement of groups and individuals, with a special emphasis on what might be relevant to better understanding the incident that occurred in June 2014.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Please visit <a href="http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+MC1" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">VAST Challenge 2015: Mini-Challenge 1</a> for more information and to download the data.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><u>Mini-Challenge 2 </u></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Mini-Challenge 2 asks you to dive into the communications over time that took place among the park visitors using the park app. Linkages between visitors and among park patrons and park staff could reveal behaviors of interest.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Please visit <a href="http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+MC2" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">VAST Challenge 2015: Mini-Challenge 2</a> for more information and to download the data.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><u>The Grand Challenge </u></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">The Grand Challenge requires you to blend your knowledge obtained from the two mini-challenges to answer questions of interest to law enforcement officials. How was the crime executed and who was responsible?</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Please visit <a href="http://vacommunity.org/2015+VAST+Challenge%3A+Grand+Challenge" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">VAST Challenge 2015: Grand Challenge</a> for more information.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"> </p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><b>For Further Information</b></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">For more information, please see <a href="http://vacommunity.org/VASTchallenge2015" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">http://vacommunity.org/<wbr></wbr>VASTchallenge2015</a> or contact<a href="mailto:vast-challenge@ieeevis.org" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">vast-challenge@ieeevis.org</a>.</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">The submission deadlines are as follows:</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Mini-Challenge 1 and Mini-Challenge 2 submissions: <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339547" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">July 7, 2015, 11:59 pm PDT</span></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Grand Challenge submissions: must be initiated in Precision Conference by <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339548" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">July 7</span></span>; must be completed by <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339549" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">July 9, 2015, 11:59 pm PDT</span></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Optional 2-page paper due <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1383339550" tabindex="0" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">August 19, 2015</span></span></p><p> </p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">We look forward to seeing your creative solutions!</p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: black;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: black;"> </span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: black;">VAST Challenge Committee co-chairs</span></b></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Kris Cook, Georges Grinstein, and Mark Whiting</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"> </p><BR><hr />Message sent via Atmail Open - http://atmail.org/</HTML>