VISUALIZATION

Spotfire, a market leader in interactive, visual analytics for business decision-making, invites life science researchers and media to attend the company's upcoming free Webcast titled "An Evaluation of Microarray Visualization Tools for Biological Insight." This Webcast will feature Dr. Chris North, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who (along with his colleagues) will empirically evaluate five popular microarray visualization tools. The conclusions reached are intended to help guide biologists in selecting the best tool for their data, and computer scientists in developing and evaluating visualizations. High-throughput experiments, such as gene expression micro-arrays in life sciences, result in large datasets. In response, a wide variety of visualization tools have been created to facilitate data analysis. Biologists often face a dilemma in choosing the best tool for their specific situation. The tool that works best for one biologist may not work well for another due to differences in the type of insight they seek from their data. A primary purpose of a visualization tool is to provide domain-relevant insight into the data. Ideally, all users want maximum information in the least possible time. Dr. North heads Virginia Tech's Laboratory for Information Visualization and Evaluation (LIVE, http://infovis.cs.vt.edu/), and is a member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction (CHCI, http://www.hci.vt.edu). Previously he was a research scientist at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, where he received the Director's Award for Innovation. WHEN: April 21, 2005, 11:00 a.m. ET: "An Evaluation of Microarray Visualization Tools for Biological Insight" Dr. Chris North, Assistant Professor, Dept of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Dr. North will be joined by his colleagues: Purvi Saraiya, Graduate Student, Department of Computer Science and Karen Duca, Research Assistant Professor Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. HOW TO REGISTER: -- Developers and media can register for the free Webcasts at: http://spotfireevents.webex.com