Judges’Commentary:
TheOutstanding Geographic
ProfilingPapers
Marie Vanisko
Dept. ofMathematics, Engineering, and Computer Science
Carroll College
Helena, MT 59625
mvanisko@carroll.edu
Introduction
The stated problemthis year dealt with the issue of geographical profiling
in theinvestigation of serial criminals. International interest in this topic has
led to numerouspublications, many of which present mathematical models for
analyzing theproblems involved. Although it was entirely appropriate and
expected that teamsworking on this problem would review the literature on
the subject andlearn from their review, teams that simply presented published
schemes as theirmathematical models fell far short of what was expected. The
judges looked forsparks of creativity and carefully explained mathematical
model building withsensitivity analysis that went beyond what is found in the
literature. Thisfactor is what added value to a paper.
Documentationand Graphs
We observed anoticeable improvement in how references were identified
and in the specificprecision in documenting them within the papers. Consid-
ering the numerousonline resources available, proper documentation was an
especiallyimportant factor in this year’s problem.
Despite theimprovement, many papers contained charts and graphs from
Web sources with nodocumentation. All graphs and tables need labels and/or
legends, and theyshould provide information about what is referred to in the
paper. The bestpapers used graphs to help clarify their results and documented
trustworthyresources whenever used.
The UMAPJournal 31 (2) (2010)149–151. c Copyright 2010 by COMAP, Inc. All rights reserved.
Permission to makedigital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroomuse
is granted withoutfee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial
advantage and thatcopies bear this notice. Abstracting with credit is permitted, but copyrights
for components ofthis work owned by others than COMAP must be honored. To copy otherwise,
to republish, topost on servers, or to redistribute to lists requires prior permission fromCOMAP.
The UMAP Journal 31.2 (2010)
Assumptions
In many cases,teams made tacit assumptions about the criminals being
considered but didnot state or justify critical mathematical assumptions that
were later usedimplicitly. Assumptions concerning probability distributions,
anchor points,distances, units, mathematical procedures, and how to measure
results weregenerally not discussed or justified.
Since this is amodeling contest, a lot of weight is put on whether or not the
model could beused, with modification, in the real world. Also, clear writing
and exposition isessential to motivate and explain assumptions and to derive
and test modelsbased on those assumptions.
Summary
The summary is ofcritical importance, especially in early judging. It should
motivate the readerand be polished with a good synopsis of key results. For
this problem, teamswere asked to add to their one-page summary (which can
have some technicaldetails) also a two-page executive summary appropriate
for the Chief ofPolice. Many teams seemed to assume that the Chief of Police
would haveimpressive mathematical credentials.
The Problemand Its Analysis
Teams were asked todevelop at least two different schemes for generating
geographicalprofiles and then to develop a technique for combining the results
of the differentschemes in such a way as to generate a useful prediction for law
enforcementofficers. Although the papers designated as Meritorious generally
developed interesting schemes, very few papers did an adequate job of testing
their results and doing sensitivity analysis.
Most papers dealt with issues associated with the serial criminal’s home
base, usually referred to as the anchor point, and the buffer zone around that
point within whichthe criminal is unlikely to commit crimes. Locations were
identified using latitude and longitude and sometimes a time factor. Weights
were frequently assigned to data points, sometimes taking more recent crimes
into account moreheavily and sometimes incorporating qualitative factors into
the scheme. Teams used various metrics in describing “distances” between the
anchor point andcrime locations. Papers that rose to the top used well-defined
metrics that were clearly explained. One cannot measure the reliability or
validity of a model without clearly defined metrics.
Many teams mentioned that there was not a lot of data with which they could
validate their model, although they did find some specific location information
that included from13 to 20 crimes in a given series. Some teams used as their
only example theSutcliffe case cited in the problem. In almost all cases, teams
used their model to predict the location of the final crime based on all of the
previous locationsfor that criminal. They could easily have had many more
data points withwhich to validate their models. For example, if 13 crime
locations wereavailable, they could have used the first nlocations to predict
the location ofcrime n + 1, for each n = 7, . . . , 12. The judges agreed that this
problem did not lend itself to validation by simulation, as many other problems
do.
In describing thereliability of predicted results for proposed models, it
was sometimesdifficult to determine precisely how teams had arrived at their
results. Since theliterature is full of models and even computer models, it
would have beenworthy if teams had solved a problem via one of these meth-
ods and used thatas a baseline to compare the results of original models that
they proposed. Nota single team did this to the judge’s satisfaction. Judges
do not generallylook for computer code, but they definitely look for precise
algorithms thatproduce results based on a given model.
ConcludingRemarks
Mathematicalmodeling is an art. It is an art that requires considerable skill
and practice inorder to develop proficiency. The big problems that we face
now and in thefuture will be solved in large part by those with the talent,
the insight, andthe will to model these real-world problems and continuously
refine those models.Surely the issue of solving crimes involving serial killers
is an importantchallenge that we face.
The judges are veryproud of all participants in this Mathematical Contest
in Modeling and wecommend you for your hard work and dedication.
About theAuthor
Marie Vanisko is aMathematics Professor Emerita from Carroll College
in Helena, Montana,where she taught for more than 30 years. She was also a
Visiting Professorat the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and taught for five
years at CaliforniaState University Stanislaus. In both California and Montana,
she directed MAATensor Foundation grants on mathematical modeling for
high school girls.She also directs a mathematical modeling project for Montana
high school andcollege mathematics and science teachers through the Montana
Learning Center atCanyon Ferry, where she chairs the Board of Directors. She
has served as a judge for both the MCM and HiMCM.