DIPL 6510 The Persian Gulf in the 21st Century

This course is designed to look beyond an introductory survey class on one of the most important geo-political areas of the world, playing significant roles in the US foreign policy in the years to come. It will be taught in lecture/seminar style, with strong emphasis on students research, overlooking contemporary issues. The course examines the communities and poli-economies of the region, historical background and causes of conflicts both at the domestic and international levels, as well as US policies to manage or resolve such conflicts. It begins with a general discussion of the settlements around the Gulf and explores social, cultural and political variables in the area. After an examination of the present problems of the region and its importance in today\u27s (and future) international relations, the course proceeds to case studies of individual states and issues which present significant challenges to global peace and security in 21st century. Among the case studies to be examined in the course are countries surrounding the Gulf and issues with international dimensions ( oil, border disputes, ruling and government systems, the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, etc.). The main goal of the course is not limited to provide descriptions but rather to find the roots and origins of problems and their solutions. The case studies analyzed individually during the semester are related to the Instructor\u27s area of expertise (the Persian Gulf countries and communities)

DIPL 6507NA Water Politics of the 21st Century

The risk of wars being fought over water is rising because of explosive global population growth and widespread complacency. The same way that we have had wars over oil resources water wars might, and very possibly, happen in critical areas of the world. With the world’s population growing at exponential rates there is extreme pressure on water supplies to provide drinking and agricultural water. In 2025 we will have another two billion people to feed and 95 percent of these will be in urban areas. This requires sustained policies and investment in infrastructures. While it is estimated that each year about $80 billion is invested in the water sector, but this is needed to at least double over the next few years if a real global crisis is to be prevented. The course focuses on the areas where supply and demand has reached a critical point and conflicts seem unavoidable

Understanding SOA Migration Using a Conceptual Framework

Migration of legacy assets to SOA embodies a key software engineering challenge. Over a decade there has been an increasing interest in the approaches addressing SOA migration. These approaches mainly differ in `what is migrated' and `how the migration is performed'. Such differences aggravate achieving a general understanding of `what SOA migration entails'. We describe what such migration process entails and what distinct conceptual elements systematically define the process. Based on the comprising conceptual elements the framework which is considered as a basis for understanding and assessment of different approaches is proposed. Further, the role of the migration framework in positioning and assessing the existing methods, is discussed. Finally, the procedure for positioning and mapping of migration approaches on the framework is explained using two example migration processes

Four-Dimensional Sustainable E-Services

E-services are not sustainable, unless we specifically design for sustainability along four dimensions (4D): economical, technical, environmental, and social. Economic sustainability to ensure that e-services create economic value; technical sustainability so that their technical assets actually enable the e-services to cope with changes; environmental sustainability to avoid that e-services harm the environment they operate in, and social sustainability to ensure e-services provide fair exchange of information between parties. Designing 4D-sustainable e-services is very complex. So far, service-engineering research has left dealing with such complexity unassisted—mainly due to the many initial technical challenges that needed to be overcome. Our goal is to fill this gap, by modeling the fundamentals of 4D-sustainable e-services. We propose a conceptual approach for representing 4D-sustainability. Our goal is to enhance the shared understanding amongst sustainability stakeholders, and to ease sustainability assessment and negotiation. Our approach offers a number of interrelated core elements (common among the four sustainability dimensions) as well as dimension-specific elements, variable elements. By focusing on 4D core elements, we enable describing the essence of sustainable e-services in a unified manner. We illustrate the value of the conceptual model using a real-life case study featuring an airport baggage handling syste

Knowledge-driven Migration to Services

Vliet, J.C. [Promotor]Lago, P. [Copromotor