658 results for search: %E5%A4%A7%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%9A%84%E4%BC%98%E5%8A%BF%E5%92%8C%E5%8A%A3%E5%8A%BF-%E3%80%90%E2%9C%94%EF%B8%8F%E6%8E%A8%E8%8D%90KK37%C2%B7CC%E2%9C%94%EF%B8%8F%E3%80%91-%E5%90%8C%E6%B2%BB%E6%AF%94%E5%85%89%E7%BB%AA%E5%A4%A7%E5%87%A0%E5%B2%81-%E5%A4%A7%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%9A%84%E4%BC%98%E5%8A%BF%E5%92%8C%E5%8A%A3%E5%8A%BFzo9xn-%E3%80%90%E2%9C%94%EF%B8%8F%E6%8E%A8%E8%8D%90KK37%C2%B7CC%E2%9C%94%EF%B8%8F%E3%80%91-%E5%90%8C%E6%B2%BB%E6%AF%94%E5%85%89%E7%BB%AA%E5%A4%A7%E5%87%A0%E5%B2%81p2dn-%E5%A4%A7%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%9A%84%E4%BC%98%E5%8A%BF%E5%92%8C%E5%8A%A3%E5%8A%BFblgpy-%E5%90%8C%E6%B2%BB%E6%AF%94%E5%85%89%E7%BB%AA%E5%A4%A7%E5%87%A0%E5%B2%81r26q/feed/rss2/tchad-faqs-fr
Documenting Syrian Deaths with Data Science
Coverage of Megan Price at the Women in Data Science Conference held at Stanford University. “Price discussed her organization’s behind-the-scenes work to collect and analyze data on the ground for human rights advocacy organizations. HRDAG partners with a wide variety of human rights organizations, including local grassroots non-governmental groups and—most notably—multiple branches of the United Nations.”
Machine learning is being used to uncover the mass graves of Mexico’s missing
“Patrick Ball, HRDAG’s Director of Research and the statistician behind the code, explained that the Random Forest classifier was able to predict with 100% accuracy which counties that would go on to have mass graves found in them in 2014 by using the model against data from 2013. The model also predicted the counties that did not have mass hidden graves found in them, but that show a high likelihood of the possibility. This prediction aspect of the model is the part that holds the most potential for future research.”
HRDAG at Strata Conference 2014
Last Thursday, HRDAG co-founder and director of research Megan Price presented at Strata, the conference for data scientists and people who work with "big data." In her talk, she addressed the question of how we can know the actual number of conflict casualties in Syrian. Her short answer was, "We don't know." The longer answer was that we have a very good idea of how many conflict casualties have been reported, by several documentation groups, and that we're working on analyzing (more…)
Data coding and inter-rater reliability (IRR)
Data coding is the process of converting unstructured information, such as a narrative testimony, into discrete facts such as names and roles of actors (victims, witnesses, perpetrators) in crimes, as well as the date and place of act. Data coding must not discard or distort information. When more than one person is identifying, classifying and counting the elements reported in a qualitative source, the results of what they find may differ slightly based on each individual's interpretation and care in doing the coding. These differences can be measured by measuring IRR (inter-rater reliability). We give the same source document to several coders and ...
Announcing New HRDAG Advisory Board Member
Cynthia Conti-Cook came on board in March, 2025.
Syria 2012 – Modeling Multiple Datasets in an Ongoing Conflict
The struggle between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and opposition forces has generated extensive global press coverage, but few accurate estimates of casualties. In January 2013, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report on the number of conflict-related killings in Syria. The UN report is based on statistical analysis conducted by HRDAG scientists Megan Price, Jeff Klingner and Patrick Ball. This chapter examines HRDAG’s findings which compared information from a database collected by the Syrian government with six databases compiled by Syrian human rights activists and citizen ...
Sierra Leone TRC Data and Statistical Appendix
HRDAG assisted the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission in building a systematic data coding system, electronic database, and secure data analysis process to manage the thousands of statements given to them in the course of their work. HRDAG executive director Patrick Ball and HRDAG field consultant Richard Conibere worked at the TRC full-time for approximately eighteen months starting in March 2003.
HRDAG worked with TRC researchers to help them incorporate quantitative findings to support the qualitative findings in their writing for the other chapters of the TRC report. In addition, HRDAG produced a Statistical Appendix to present ...
Media Contact
To speak with the researchers at HRDAG, please fill out the form below.
You can search our Press Room by keyword or by year.
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.
Connect with HRDAG
If you’d like to stay informed about HRDAG events, blogposts, and news, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or through our RSS feed. We also have a LinkedIn page.
You may contact us directly via email at info @ hrdag.org.
A note for persons in search of assistance with specific human rights cases: We are very sorry for your troubles and your suffering; however, HRDAG does not take on casework. If you need help with a human rights case, you might consider requesting it from the International Committee of the Red Cross (www.icrc.org).
Photo: U.S. National Archives
HRDAG To Join the Partnership on AI
HRDAG is joining Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society (PAI).
Evaluation of the Kosovo Memory Book at Pristina
On February 4, 2015, at the National Archive in Pristina, Kosovo, HRDAG executive director Patrick Ball gave a presentation on research (done with colleague Jule Krüger) about the database of the Kosovo Memory Book (KMB). The KMB is part of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade and Pristina). In this photo, Patrick is speaking, and HLC-Belgrade executive director emeritus Natasa Kandic and Professor Michael Spagat are at the table with him. At the laptop between Spagat and Patrick is Laza Lazarevic of HLC; he is part of the KMB team.
About 130 people attended—a terrific response.
Presentation on the research behind the Evaluation of the ...
Podcast: Dr. Patrick Ball on Using Statistics to Uncover Truth
Dr. Patrick Ball recently visited the Plutopia News Network podcast for a wide-ranging, inspiring conversation about his work for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group.
Patrick spoke about how he first discovered human rights work during his time in El Salvador with the Peace Brigades International. That led to his ongoing work as a statistician and computer programmer working to assess and analyze human rights violations. He also unpacked some common statistical techniques used by researchers at Human Rights Data Analysis Group, such as multiple systems estimation, which uses multiple different datasets to gain insights into the data we don't ...
Skoll World Forum 2018
Illuminating Data's Dark Side: Big data create conveniences, but we must consider who designs these tools, who benefits from them, and who is left out of the equation.
Kosovo 1999 – Using MSE to Examine Political Claims
Patrick Ball expanded his use of multiple systems estimation (MSE) to clarify the history of a deadly conflict in Kosovo. The violence began in 1989 when Serbian President Slobodan Milošević revoked Kosovo's autonomous status within the Republic of Serbia triggering fighting between Kosovar Albanians and the Yugoslav government. Allegations of widespread and systematic human rights violations were made against Serbian forces and NATO intervened to repel Serb forces from Kosovo. Ball and Scheuren gathered data from Albanian border crossings and other sources in the region. They used this information to examine the claim by the Yugoslav government ...
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' ...
Celebrating our First Anniversary and Welcoming Our Newest Board Member
One year ago, HRDAG cast out on its own as an independent nonprofit—and this first year has been busy, productive, and exciting. We’re indebted to our Advisory Board for their valuable contributions and to our funders for their generosity and participation in our mission. Highlights of the past year include contributing testimony to three court cases, publishing two reports on conflict-casualties in Syria, presenting over a dozen talks (many of which are available on our talks page), traveling to over half a dozen countries to testify, collaborate with partners, and participate in conferences/workshops, hiring a new technical lead, and bringing in ...
Scanning Documents to Uncover Police Violence
Administrative paperwork generated by police departments can hold evidence of police violence, but can present unique challenges for data processing.
Projects
We work around the world
Here’s more information about How We Choose Projects.
Guatemala CIIDH Data
Welcome to the web data resource for the International Center for Human Rights Research (Centro Internacional para Investigaciones en Derechos Humanos, or CIIDH). Here you will find raw data on human rights violations in Guatemala during the period 1960-1996. You're welcome to use it for your own statistical analyses.
ASCII delimited (csv)
Resource Information
Data Dictionary
Value Labels
File Structure (Variables)
These files are between 300-700 kilobytes. The data are stored in a zipped compression format.
For an explanation of how the data are structured and what the variables represent, see the data dictionary.
If you use ...