Managing Uncertain Complex Events in Web of Things Applications

A critical issue in the Web of Things (WoT) is the need to process and analyze the interactions of Web-interconnected real-world objects. Complex Event Processing (CEP) is a powerful technology for analyzing streams of information about real-time distributed events, coming from different sources, and for extracting conclusions from them. However, in many situations these events are not free from uncertainty, due to either unreliable data sources and networks, measurement uncertainty, or to the inability to determine whether an event has actually happened or not. This short research paper discusses how CEP systems can incorporate different kinds of uncertainty, both in the events and in the rules. A case study is used to validate the proposal, and we discuss the benefits and limitations of this CEP extension.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

From Disarmament and Development to Inclusive Peace and Security: Four Decades of IDS Research

This introductory article surveys four decades of work on peace, security, and development, centring on articles published in previous issues of the IDS Bulletin. These articles focused initially on disarmament and its actual and potential contributions to development. After the end of the Cold War, development research engaged more and more directly with conflict prevention and peace-building, turning the spotlight upon security. IDS work has been distinctive in three respects. First, in interrogating the multiple meanings of security, delinking it from state and international security. Second, by tracing the complex links between global, national, local, and personal security. Third, in its insistence that security be inclusive, drawing upon the experience and agency of the people and groups who are ‘developed’ and ‘secured’

Inclusive Peace and Security

This IDS Bulletin Archive Collection reviews four decades of analysis and research on peace, security, and development, drawing on articles published in previous issues of the Bulletin throughout this timeframe. IDS first began to investigate the relationship between disarmament and development in the 1970s. Then, research focused initially on disarmament and its actual and potential contributions to development. Disarmament, along with reductions in military spending, it was argued, would release resources for development. It would also break the cycles of militarisation which propelled violent conflicts in many parts of the developing world. After the end of the Cold War, development research engaged more and more directly with conflict prevention and peace-building. The focus then turned towards security in a global context, in which donor agencies involved themselves directly with security questions. As shown by the articles in this edition, work at IDS has been distinctive in three respects: first, in interrogating the multiple meanings and forms of security – international, national, military, personal, livelihood, food, environmental, etc. – and how these interconnect, or indeed clash; second, in tracing the complex links between global, national, local, and personal security; and third, in its insistence that security be inclusive, drawing upon the experience and agency of the people and groups who are ‘developed’ and ‘secured’. The pieces reprinted in this Archive Collection help analyse shifts in focus over the four decades, before highlighting that it may be time to revisit disarmament, as a tangible policy goal, in these present times of chronic insecurity and increasing violence

Whose Violence, Whose Security? Can Violence Reduction and Security Work for Poor, Excluded and Vulnerable People?

This paper probes behind the assumptions underpinning the violence reduction agendas of the UN and the World Bank: that all forms of violence are commensurate and fit neatly into causal models; that violence is ‘development in reverse’ and inseparable from state fragility; and that security is a self-evident public good. It presents a framework to classify global, state and non-state or local violences and the interactions amongst them. It suggests that the starting point for any evaluation of security as well as violence reduction should be the vernacular understandings and day-to-day experience of poor, excluded and vulnerable people, including those living at insurgent margins

Whose Security? Building Inclusive and Secure Societies in an Unequal and Insecure World

Development researchers, governance specialists, security and international relations analysts are cartographers of the modern world. Their job is to untangle the tangled, yet in doing so they all too often make flat all that is high and rolling. This paper considers one particular piece of map-making: the interface between security and development. It tries to render visible some of the bumps, joins and turnings which lie beneath the maps. It starts by arguing for a historical perspective. The theory and practice of security is like that of development issued from the historical transformations which gave rise to the post-Second World War world order. Since the end of the Cold War they have increasingly intertwined and security has been mainstreamed into development. Yet neither security nor development has fully extricated itself from the violent and extractive relationships which developed in the colonial period and continue in many respects to this day. The paper then explores the ensuing contradictions which lie at the heart of the security–development nexus. On the one hand, security is a process of political ordering. Even more than development, it intermeshes with established power structures, property relations and inequalities. On the other hand, it is founded upon the claim that states and other forms of public order make citizens safe from violence and insecurity. In principle, it is equally shared and socially inclusive, even if in practice it is anything but.UK Department for International Developmen

Politics, Class and Development (Editorial)

The State is a powerful reality and a still more powerful abstraction. An abstraction which conservatives who believe in ‘political order’ affirm; which revolutionaries hope to smash or negate; which planners and technocrats make use of in order to propound ideologies of state managed development; and the influence of which others who see it as the captive of class forces minimise. All the essays in this issue of the IDS Bulletin attempt to penetrate behind this abstraction by looking at various state institutions in a concrete way. In concentrating on the State we may, ourselves, in conclusion contribute to the myth of its omnipotence. Development studies may be as much in need of a theory of revolutionary change as of a theory of planning

A model-driven approach for facilitating user-friendly design of complex event patterns

Complex Event Processing (CEP) is an emerging technology which allows us to efficiently process and correlate huge amounts of data in order to discover relevant or critical situations of interest (complex events) for a specific domain. This technology requires domain experts to define complex event patterns, where the conditions to be detected are specified by means of event processing languages. However, these experts face the handicap of defining such patterns with editors which are not user-friendly enough. To solve this problem, a model-driven approach for facilitating user-friendly design of complex event patterns is proposed and developed in this paper. Besides, the proposal has been applied to different domains and several event processing languages have been compared. As a result, we can affirm that the presented approach is independent both of the domain where CEP technology has to be applied to and of the concrete event processing language required for defining event patterns

Dilemmas of Military Disengagement and Democratization in Africa

Summary This article contends that one of the first tasks of new African democracies is to bring military establishments under democratic control. Although it might seem armies are now in retreat from politics, this has been ‘demilitarization by default’, resulting from economic and fiscal retrenchment and massive cuts in external military assistance, rather than from considered policy choices. Those attempting to tame the armed forces permanently face a series of dilemmas: for instance how to discourage reinstitutionalization of repressive governance behind ‘democratic’ forms; how to implement cuts, without further damaging the morale and effectiveness of the armed forces; and how to demobilize troops without worsening unemployment or proliferating private armies beyond the control of the state. RESUME Les dilemmes présentés par le désengagement militaire et la démocratisation en Afrique L'auteur de cet article affirme que l'une des toutes premières tâches des démocraties nouvelles en Afrique serait d'amener les établissements militaires sous le contrôle démocratique. Même s'il peut sembler que les armées veuillent se retirer du sphère politique il ne s'agirait vraisemblablement que d'une ‘démilitarisation par défaut’, résultant à la fois d'un retrenchement économique et fiscal et aussi, des très considérables réductions dans l'assistance militaire de provenance extérieure, plutôt que l'effet de schoix politiques réfléchis. Ceux qui voudraient maîtriser les forces armées de manière plus permanente font face à une série de dilemmes, à savoir: comment décourager la réinstitutionalisation de la gouvernance répressive sous guise ‘démocratique’; comment instaurer des compressions budgétaires sans toutefois porter d'entraves encore plus sévères au moral et à l'efficacité des forces armées; et comment démobiliser les troupes sans empirer le chômage ni faire proliférer les armées privées au?delà du contrôle de l'état. RESUMEN Dilemas de la desmilitarización y la democratización en el África El artículo sostiene que una de las tareas prioritarias de las nuevas democracias africanas es poner a las organizaciones militares bajo su control. Aunque en apariencia los ejércitos se han retirado de la política, no es sino una desmilitarización por defecto, resultante de una racionalización fiscal y económica y de cortes masivos en la asistencia militar externa, más que de una decisión consciente y deliberada. Quienes quieren mantener a las fuerzas armadas bajo control se enfrentan a una serie de dilemas, por ejemplo, cómo impedir la reinstitucionalización de gobiernos represivos de apariencia democrática, cómo implementar recortes presupuestarios sin perjudicar más la moral y la efectividad de las fuerzas armadas, y como desmovilizar a las tropas sin aumentar el desempleo o ayudar a la proliferación de ejércitos privados fuera del control del Estado