一本道无码

As he grew up in Bogot谩, Colombia, would hear a familiar news story every few days 鈥� someone had stepped on another landmine. The explosion had killed or injured them. Though the capital city was far from the country鈥檚 war-torn areas, these accidents stayed in the back of his mind.

Colombia has been听听with armed rebel groups for roughly six decades. The guerrilla fighters have听听of landmines in rural areas, putting听听of people at risk of death, dismemberment and displacement. Recent efforts to remove the explosives have听, but the reported victims increasingly have been civilians.

Dulce Rubio is now a fifth-year doctoral student at 一本道无码, where he studies public policy at the听听and statistics at the听Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences(opens in new window).

According to Dulce Rubio, people in the U.S. lack awareness of the dangers of landmines in countries like Colombia. 鈥淚t mostly affects third-world countries, developing countries. But in those countries, it鈥檚 a very, very important problem,鈥� he said.

That鈥檚 why, about three years ago, Dulce Rubio began leading a team of classmates and faculty in developing a three-pronged system for more accurately identifying landmine contamination. They鈥檝e since collaborated with the听听(UNMAS) to refine the system,听. A humanitarian organization in Colombia has been field testing it in two municipalities for more than a year.

These organizations have had limited resources to understand where landmines are located; RELand uses artificial intelligence to provide more accurate predictions. So far, Dulce Rubio and several faculty members believe the results from the system鈥檚 field test are promising. The听听has published the听research team鈥檚 paper听on RELand, and UNMAS plans to test it in other war-torn territories.

Rory Collins, global information management and analytics advisor at the UN鈥檚 Office for Project Services, wrote in a statement that artificial intelligence has helped the organization more efficiently remove landmines in Colombia and made its employees safer.

Scoping the problem

Landmines and other explosive remnants of war听听at least 4,710 people in at least 49 countries in 2022, according to a recent report from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, with which the Colombian campaign is affiliated. Ukraine reported 608 casualties. Afghanistan documented 303. Colombia recorded 145.

Humanitarian organizations are working to remove landmines from these countries, but the explosives can be hard to find. Funding for the work is also limited, meaning the organizations often need to decide which contaminated areas to prioritize. Typically, they estimate where hazard areas are located by first surveying residents and analyzing historical landmine data.

Dulce Rubio and the rest of the research team believe the RELand system, if replicated, can improve that process.

鈥淭here is a lot of uncertainty on where to deploy teams, where to deploy equipment, and that's affecting both the operational results, but also the funding,鈥� he continued. 鈥淭hey spend most of it just going to places where they're unsure if the area is actually contaminated.鈥�

The core component of RELand is a computer program that uses machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to estimate the risk that landmines pose to an area. Another component is a dataset, on which the computer program is trained to make its decisions. The dataset includes geographic information, sociodemographic variables and indicators that war remnants exist.
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The final component is an interactive web interface that presents the computer program鈥檚 findings.

The Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines, the humanitarian organization that鈥檚 been testing RELand, first deployed the system in late summer 2023. By the end of that year, the organization had uncovered three landmines in a region RELand predicted to have many. In the other region, predicted to have few landmines, the organization had found none.

As of May 2024, no other landmines have been found in either area.

Dulce Rubio sought advice on his approach to the research from , the director of 一本道无码鈥檚 Sustainability Initiative. Hiniker spent years in Cambodia, Laos and Lebanon working to ban landmines and cluster munitions, and she said RELand could help humanitarian organizations make better decisions about where to focus their time and resources.

The clearing of landmines ensures that communities can build infrastructure, children can safely play outside, and residents can live full lives, Hiniker said.

How RELand reached Colombia

Dulce Rubio wasn鈥檛 planning on researching landmines in his doctoral program 鈥撯�� until his second year, when he took a course on 鈥淎rtificial Intelligence Methods for Social Good.鈥� He worked with two other students to propose a solution to a societal problem using artificial intelligence.

By the semester鈥檚 end, Dulce Rubio and the other students had developed an initial framework for RELand and had gathered some encouraging results. The students wanted to continue their research, so their professor,听, agreed to remain as an adviser. Fang, an associate professor of software and societal systems in the听, has met with them at least twice a month over the last year.

,听听and听, professors from Heinz College and the School of Computer Science, have also collaborated with the students or provided feedback on their work.

Fang encouraged Dulce Rubio to present the team鈥檚 early findings to a humanitarian organization in Colombia, as she believed their feedback would be valuable. Eventually, Dulce Rubio connected with a UNMAS employee who has since helped the team account for geographic constraints and underreporting, among other issues.

After several conversations with Dulce Rubio, the service put him in touch with Colombian humanitarian organizations that the government has approved landmine removal operations. Dulce Rubio presented RELand to the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines, and the members of the organization agreed to test the system.

Under Colombian law, people from the affected communities must perform the operations, a requirement partly intended to employ residents. Dulce Rubio flew to Colombia in May 2023 to train them on RELand, and they began to deploy the system that August. He鈥檚 remained in touch with the organization, which will continue to test RELand for another year.

Hiniker said she values Dulce Rubio鈥檚 continued engagement with people and organizations directly impacted by this issue.

鈥淭he people directly affected are the people who know the issue best, the ins-and-outs of how it's actually happening on the ground,鈥� Hiniker said. 鈥淚f you don't take into account the reality on the ground, you could actually cause harm.鈥�

What comes next

Siqi Zeng, who designed the algorithm for RELand as an undergraduate majoring in mathematics, said the project taught her about collaboration and solidified her interest in developing trustworthy artificial intelligence models. She graduated from 一本道无码 in 2023 and is now in the computer science doctoral program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

鈥淲e worked on this system for quite a long time, so we faced a lot of challenges that we didn't expect at the beginning,鈥� Zeng said. 鈥淚 learned a lot about the challenges of deploying artificial intelligence algorithms in practice.鈥�

The research team鈥檚 work was named a finalist in an听听that aims to highlight the most exciting student work that has spurred tangible change. Dulce Rubio was also invited to a session, led by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, about using artificial intelligence for mine action.

Dulce Rubio believes RELand can help countries impacted by war and civil strife. The lack of access to land has contributed to the armed conflicts in Colombia, he said, and that problem has only continued because land remains contaminated with explosives.

鈥淏eing able to reclaim these lands as part of their territories and their lives,鈥� he said, 鈥渋s actually a thing that can fuel more long-lasting, stable peace.鈥�