Rationale Visualization for Safety and Security

Abstract

In safety and security domains where objects of interest (OOI), such as people, vessels, or transactions, are continuously monitored, automated reasoning is required due to their sheer number and volume of information. We present a method to visually explain the rationale of a reasoning engine that raises an alarm if a certain situation is reached. Based both on evidence from heterogeneous and possibly unreliable sources, and on a domain specific reasoning structure, this engine concludes with a certain probability that, e.g., the OOI is suspected of smuggling. To support decision making, we visualize the rationale, an abstraction of the complicated reasoning structure. The evidence is displayed in a color-coded matrix that easily reveals if and where observations contradict. In it, domain and operational experts can quickly understand and find complicated patterns and relate them to real-world situations. Also, two groups of these experts evaluate our system through maritime use cases based on real data.