PLM ComSci students bag Best Paper Award with algorithm for local crime rates

“It turns out, it’s an entirely new algorithm; what we needed to deliver the desired results.”

Select 4th year BS Computer Science students of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) were honored with the Best Paper Award - Computer Science Track at the International Research Conference on Information Technology Education (IRCITE) 2024 in Wesleyan University Philippines, March 8.

Patricia Nicole C. Trajano, Ayra Shane C. Villacarlos, Mark Christopher R. Blanco, Jamillah S. Gualil, Gabriel R. Hill, Leisyl M. Mahusay and Jonathan C. Morano proudly introduced their work entitled  "An Enhanced Hartigan-Wong Algorithm Applied for Determining the Crime Rates Per Area in the Philippines" to the information technology (IT) community.

Trajano and Villacarlos talked about the technicalities of their thesis, as well as their journey towards their victory in an exclusive interview with Ang Pamantasan. 

With the Hartigan-Wong algorithm as their basis in creating their thesis, the problems they encountered with this were continuously enhanced and improved through the application of other existing algorithms, in order to deliver their desired results.

Their algorithm was applied to see the crime rates per area in the Philippines in crime-specific clusters derived from the Philippine National Police database. They utilized an enhanced K-means clustering algorithm which is currently trending and popular in the field. 

This innovation is for everyone, especially travelers, to be prepared and alarmed to the place where they are going in accordance to the crime rates it has. Moreover, their work is not solely intended for civilians but also for police task forces and the IT world, since this is a new and innovative type of algorithm that could help future researchers.

"We also wanted to target our police task forces… These results from the enhanced algorithm can be used as monitoring to employ more task forces in areas with high crime rates… We aim to contribute to a more advanced technology and to raise awareness to the general public and for them to have easy access to this kind of information," the students explained.

Moreover, Trajano and Villacarlos added that their creation is not limited to local crime rates, but it can be also applied in various fields such as in hospitals, to track diseases and other pertinent data that needs to be treated. They emphasized that the algorithm they have produced has its wide range of purposes.

The students shared that they faced little bumps in the process of crafting this project but the big challenge for them was the time constraint. They said that they only had one week to polish everything in their work and two days to finalize everything before their deadline. Their preparation required them to go back and forth to PLM everyday to work on their paper and continuously coordinate with their thesis adviser, Mr. Mark Christopher Blanco, and research coordinators.  

Despite the challenges they faced, their paper emerged victoriously and dominated the conference. 

On the day of the conference, Trajano and Villacarlos were happy as they had finished presenting their project in front of IT enthusiasts. Villacarlos’ goal was to showcase their work and leave an impression of how technology can be integrated to crime annotation. Meanwhile, the researchers were happy and surprised as they received the award.

"Actually, hindi namin ineexpect na mananalo.. kasi marami ring magagaling na presenters," Trajano said. 

They extended their utmost gratitude to their thesis adviser, as well as the research coordinators for their unwavering support and belief in their capabilities. They also appreciated each other's support from their preparation up to its presentation.

"Huwag susuko. Mahirap..  Mahirap talaga siya, lalo sa umpisa, hindi mo alam [ang] gagawin mo… Minsan mapapaisip ka kung kaya mo ba ito pero syempre, kakayanin," Villacarlos stressed  on her personal message for future researchers.

Trajano also advised students to think among themselves about what they want to contribute to society.

"Mahirap talagang mag-innovate pero we need to continue search ways para makapag-contribute.," she added. 

Trajano also wants their work to be known outside and to represent the University as they contributed to the technology.

The international conference was attended by IT students, professors, and educators from around 14 schools to participate in various events, but mostly were from Central Luzon.