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In Syria, Uncovering the Truth Behind a Number
Huffington Post Politics writer Matt Easton interviews Patrick Ball, executive director of HRDAG, about the latest enumeration of killings in Syria. As selection bias is increasing, it becomes harder to see it: we have the "appearance of perfect knowledge, when in fact the shape of that knowledge has not changed that much," says Patrick. "Technology is not a substitute for science."
Huffington Post Politics
Matt Easton
September 6, 2014
Link to story on HuffPostPol
Related blogpost (Updated Casualty Count for Syria)
Back to Press Room
Data Mining for Good: Thoreau Center Lunch + Learn
At the Thoreau Center for Sustainability's “Lunch and Learn,” Patrick Ball spoke about “Data Mining for Good.” The talk included a discussion of how HRDAG uses random sampling, entity resolution, communications metadata, and statistical modeling to assist prosecutions of human rights violators. With an introduction by John DeCock, Chief Operating and Outreach Officer, Bioneers.
The Thoreau Center for Sustainability
Lunch and Learn
October 23, 2014
San Francisco, California
Back to Talks
You Are Not So Smart: How we miss what is missing and what to do about it
On the San Francisco program, You Are Not So Smart, HRDAG director of research Megan Price talked with host David McRaney about Syria, human rights violations, and statistical analysis. The topic was survivorship bias. Megan's part in the podcast begins around Minute 27. From the YANSS blog: "Unfortunately, survivorship bias stands between you and the epiphanies you seek."
You Are Not So Smart
March 11, 2014 (podcast April 24, 2014)
San Francisco, California
Link to YANSS podcast
@notsmartblog
@davidmcraney
Back to Talks
Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Data
In July 2009, The Human Rights Data Analysis Group concluded a three-year project with the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help clarify Liberia’s violent history and hold perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable for their actions. In the course of this work, HRDAG analyzed more than 17,000 victim and witness statements collected by the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and compiled the data into a report entitled “Descriptive Statistics From Statements to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
Liberian TRC data and the accompanying data dictionary
anonymized-statgivers.csv contains information ...
Searching for Trends: Analyzing Patterns in Conflict Violence Data
Megan Price and Anita Gohdes (2014). Searching for Trends: Analyzing Patterns in Conflict Violence Data. Political Violence @ a Glance. © 2014 PV@G.
Pulling the Plug: Network Disruptions and Violence in the Syrian Conflict
At this year's International Studies Association Annual Convention, Anita Gohdes presented a talk titled, "Pulling the Plug: Network Disruptions and Violence in the Syrian Conflict," while director of research Megan Price served on the working group, "Global Trends in War, Conflict, and Political Violence."
International Studies Association Annual Convention
March 26-29, 2014
Toronto, Canada
Link to ISA 2014 program
Back to Talks
Estimating the human toll in Syria
Megan Price (2017). Estimating the human toll in Syria. Nature. 8 February 2017. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. Nature Human Behaviour. ISSN 2397-3374.
Big Data and Death at UW-Madison
On November 7, 2014, the Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Wisconsin Law School, hosted a mini-conference with speakers Jennifer Alix-Garcia, Patrick Ball, Chad Hazlett, Volker Radeloff, and Philip Schrodt to speak about "Big Data and Death." The conference was organized by John Ahlquist and Jon Pevehouse.
Big Data and Death
Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin–Madison
November 7, 2014
Madison, Wisconsin
How Structuring Data Unburies Critical Louisiana Police Misconduct Data
In Louisiana, appeals for police disciplinary action are often buried in meeting minutes. HRDAG uses machine learning to extract, structure data and make it searchable..
Predictive policing violates more than it protects
William Isaac and Kristian Lum. Predictive policing violates more than it protects. USA Today. December 2, 2016. © USA Today.
William Isaac and Kristian Lum. Predictive policing violates more than it protects. USA Today. December 2, 2016. © USA Today.
Capture-Recapture for Casualty Estimation and Beyond: Recent Advances and Research Directions
Daniel Manrique-Vallier, Patrick Ball, Mauricio Sadinle. (2022). Capture-Recapture for Casualty Estimation and Beyond: Recent Advances and Research Directions. In: Carriquiry, A.L., Tanur, J.M., Eddy, W.F. (eds) Statistics in the Public Interest. Springer Series in the Data Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75460-0_2
Manrique-Vallier, D., Ball, P., Sadinle, M. (2022). Capture-Recapture for Casualty Estimation and Beyond: Recent Advances and Research Directions. In: Carriquiry, A.L., Tanur, J.M., Eddy, W.F. (eds) Statistics in the Public Interest. Springer Series in the Data Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75460-0_2
Publications
From time to time, we issue our own scientific reports that focus on the statistical aspects of the data analysis we have done in support of our partners. These reports are non-partisan, and they leave the work of advocacy to our partners.
You can search our publications by keyword or by year.
Donate with Cryptocurrency
Help HRDAG use data science to work for justice, accountability, and human rights. We are nonpartisan and nonprofit, but we are not neutral; we are always on the side of human rights.
Cryptocurrency donations to 501(c)3 charities receive the same tax treatment as stocks. Your donation is a non-taxable event, meaning you do not owe capital gains tax on the appreciated amount and can deduct it on your taxes. This makes Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations one of the most tax efficient ways to support us.
We are a team of experts in machine learning, applied and mathematical statistics, computer science, demography, and social science, and ...
Historic verdict in Guatemala—Gen.Efraín Ríos Montt found guilty
I've been working with various projects in Guatemala to document mass violence since 1993, so in 2011, when Claudia Paz y Paz asked me to revisit the analysis I did for the Commission for Historical Clarification examining the differential mortality rates due to homicide for indigenous and non-indigenous people in the Ixil region, I was delighted. We have far better data processing and statistical methods than we had in 1998, plus much more data. I think the resulting analysis is a conservative lower bound on total homicides of indigenous people. (more…)
Testimonials
HRDAG is honored to work with a diverse set of partners. These organizations and the individuals that operate them are critical to our success, and our goal is to be critical to theirs. Here are a few quotes from our colleagues.
"Over the last two years, Dr Patrick Ball has spoken several times to relevant AI staff on the use (and mis-use) of quantitative data in human rights work. Each time, people rave about it afterwards commenting on Patrick's inimical skills to convey the complexity of statistical science in an accessible, relevant and fun way. This year, we also organised small meetings with individual teams who have to crunch 'big data' ...
Videos
Here is a collection of videos that profile projects or features us at speaking engagements. Please get in touch with us if you have any HRDAG video or photography.
Release of Yellow Book Calls on Salvadoran Military to Open Archives
With the release today of a civil war-era catalog of “enemies,” Salvadorans are calling for a new look at the 12-year civil war during which hundreds of citizens were victims of human rights violations such as torture, forced disappearance, and illegal imprisonment.
The recently leaked document, known as The Yellow Book, is a list created and (more…)
Experts Greet Kosovo Memory Book
On Wednesday, February 4, in Pristina, international experts praised the Humanitarian Law Centre's database on victims of the Kosovo conflict, the Kosovo Memory Book. HRDAG executive director Patrick Ball is quoted in the article that appeared in Balkan Transitional Justice.
HLC’s work won praise from Patrick Ball, from Human Rights Data Analysis Group and from Michael Spagat, professor of economics at Royal Holloway, University of London, who have examined and analysed the database.
Ball, with 24 years of experience in databases and statistics of human rights, said that the HLC’s database had enormous quality and marked it out as among the ...
Trips to and from Guatemala
HRDAG has been working with the Historic Archive of the National Police in Guatemala (hereafter, the Archive) for the past seven years. The Archive contains a treasure trove of data recorded and kept by the Guatemalan National Police over the past century. When the Archive was first discovered in 2005, researchers there immediately recognized both the value and fragility of the tens of millions of documents. As a result, they reached out to HRDAG, and we reached out to volunteers at Westat to devise a plan to estimate the contents of the entire Archive as quickly as possible in case the documents were destroyed or access to them was limited. ...
Who Did What to Whom? Planning and Implementing a Large Scale Human Rights Data Project
/whodidwhattowhom/contents.html
Patrick Ball. Who Did What to Whom? Planning and Implementing a Large Scale Human Rights Data Project. © 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Science.