With the increase of terrorist activity around the world, it has become more important than ever to analyze and understand these activities over time. Although the data on terrorist activities are detailed and relevant, the complexity of the data has rendered the understanding and analysis difficult. We present a visual analytical approach to effectively identify related entities such as terrorist groups, events, locations, etc. based on a 2D layout. Our methods are based on sequence comparison from bioinformatics, modified to incorporate the element of time. By allowing the user the freedom to link entities by their activities over time, we provide a new framework for comparison of event sequences. Our scoring mechanism is robust and flexible, giving the user the flexibility to define the extent to which time is considered in aligning entities. Incorporated with high interactivity, the user can efficiently navigate through tens of thousands of records recorded in over a hundred dimensions of data by choosing combinations of categories to examine. Exploration of the terrorist activities in our system reveals relationships between entities that are not easily detectable using traditional methods.

This paper presents Game2Learn, an innovative project designed to leverage games in retaining students in computer science (CS). In our two-pronged approach, students in integrative final-year capstone courses and summer research experiences develop games to teach computer science, which, in turn, will be used to improve introductory computing courses. Our successful model for summer undergraduate research and capstone projects engages students in solving the computing retention problem, allows them to quickly create games, and instructs students in user-and learner-centered design and research methods. Results show that this method of building games to teach engages students at multiple levels, inspiring newer students that one day their homework may all be games, and encouraging advanced students to continue on into graduate studies in computing.

Abstract

Aquatic foods are among the most highly traded foods, with nearly 60 million tonnes exported in 2020, representing 11% of global agriculture trade by value 1. Despite the vast scale, basic characteristics of aquatic food trade, including the species, origin, and farmed versus wild sourcing, are largely unknown due to fundamental mismatches between production and trade data. Without detailed trade data, we have only a coarse picture of aquatic food consumption patterns 2. Here, we present a global database of species trade flows and compute consumption for all farmed and wild, marine and freshwater aquatic foods from 1996-2020. The database consists of over 2400 species/species groups, 193 countries, and over 35 million bilateral records. We show that aquatic foods have become increasingly globalized, with the share of production exported increasing by 40% since 1996. However, trends differ across aquatic food sectors, with marine capture fisheries remaining the most highly globalized group despite stagnating production. We find intraregional trade is generally greater than interregional trade, particularly for aquaculture. We also show that global consumption increased 26% despite declining marine capture consumption. Reliance on foreign-sourced aquatic foods increased globally but reliance ranges from 9% foreign product consumption in Asia to 65% in Europe. Finally, although the diversity of domestic-sourced consumption is typically higher than that of foreign-sourced consumption, overall aquatic food consumption diversity is positively associated with trade. As we  As we look for sustainable diet opportunities among aquatic foods, our findings and underlying database link consumption to producing environments across the diversity of aquatic foods and enable greater monitoring of the role of trade in rapidly evolving aquatic food systems. Thus, the higher resolution provides important insights for sustainable sourcing and how aquatic food trade adds to food resilience.

This paper presents Game2Learn, an innovative project designed to leverage games in retaining students in computer science (CS). In our two-pronged approach, students in integrative final-year capstone courses and summer research experiences develop games to teach computer science, which, in turn, will be used to improve introductory computing courses. Our successful model for summer undergraduate research and capstone projects engages students in solving the computing retention problem, allows them to quickly create games, and instructs students in user-and learner-centered design and research methods. Results show that this method of building games to teach engages students at multiple levels, inspiring newer students that one day their homework may all be games, and encouraging advanced students to continue on into graduate studies in computing.