About VACCINE

VACCINE's goal is to help this nation's 2.3 million extended homeland security personnel, including first-responders, perform their jobs more effectively by turning mass amounts of data into manageable information.

Turning massive data into actionable knowledge through innovative visual analytic techniques is vital to the mission of the Command, Control, and Interoperability (CCI) Division of The Department of Homeland Security, as well as all of the mission areas of DHS.

VACCINE Anual Report - Year Three can now be viewed below

• VACCINE Period 3 Annual Report
• Addendum A-Presentations
• Addendum B-Publications
• Addendum C-Various Reports

Research

The overall goal of our research is to create innovative and effective integrated data and visual analytic environments-frameworks, methods, and software-that advance the start-of-the-art in analyzing massive, heterogeneous, incomplete, temporally evolving homeland security data for anticipating, detecting, and responding to DHS mission needs.

Education

VACCINE's goal is to educate current homeland security stakeholders and the next generation of talent and enable them to make effective decisions from the mass of multisource, multimedia data they will face in their careers. Our educational initiatives span the entire career development pipline ranging from PK-12 programs through undergraduate and graduate level work, to professional education and training programs.

Announcements

HS-STEM Career Development Program Fellowship Deadline Extended

The deadline for applications to the HS-STEM Career Development Program Fellowship (for Fall 2012) has been extended to Monday, February 6th, 2012.  Go to http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/vaccine/education/graduate.php to find the application and more details about the program. 

VACCINE Technology Enhances Student-Driven Learning Website

Students at Purdue University are developing their own learning website (www.projectrhea.org).  Called “Rhea” after the flightless bird of the ratite family, the project began in 2007 under the initiative of Mimi Boutin, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue and member of the VACCINE faculty research team. “Rhea was originally created because students felt their courses needed to be better connected to each other, and better connected to the real world,” says Prof. Boutin. “Student volunteers proposed to address this problem with a campus-wide wiki that could be used to share learning material created by students. Other tools were successively added to the website, such as a dropbox for electronic homework collection and a double-blind peer review system for homework and project grading,” she said.  Read more. 

  VACCINE Research Helps Coast Guard Reduce Deaths in Great Lakes

Purdue University has developed a system to analyze the historic response of U.S. Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations in the Great Lakes and assess the potential risks associated with hypothetical changes in the allocation of resources in the region.

The agency is required to stand watch and supervise search-and-rescue cases for mariners in distress. Coast Guard stations provide small boats to respond to search-and-rescue calls, and some of the stations are staffed by volunteers in the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

However, due to attrition of this volunteer service over time, officials need to understand the potential impact of closing any units, said Coast Guard Lt. Comdr. Ben Maule.  Read more.


 

 VACCINE On LIFERAY

 A Public Open Source Portal

The LIFERAY portal has been set up to allow you to provide us with your feedback and input.  This space is where open source communities come together to share knowledge, brainstorm new features and build working relationships. 

Vaccine wants to hear from you.  Your feedback is welcome and it is very much appreciated.

 Please visit VACCINE on LIFERAY at  http://pixel.ecn.purdue.edu:8090/web/vaccine/home  and review the available communities. 

 iVAC (Integrated Visualization and Analytics Community )

Visual Analytics is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces.  Data Analytics is the science of developing mathematical foundations in a new generation of computationalmethods for drawing out patterns and inferences from massive amounts of unstructured, multi-modal data. Together, Visual and Data Analytics allow for exploration and understanding of complex data sources, in order to make real-time decisions.  The technologies being developed throughout the global Visual and Data Analytics research enterprise, that is, what we are calling the Integrated Visualization and Analytics Community (iVAC), are intended to support the application of human judgment to make the best possible use of information and share it with others. Among the uses of these technologies is addressing threats, whether terrorist-originated, manmade or natural, immediate or long-term. There are many other applications for visualization and analytics; all to be explored as our community grows.  See more