Definitions
Outcomes, Levels of analysis, and the forecasting periodization used in ViEWS
State-based violence (sb)
Non-state violence (ns)
One-sided violence (os)
- At the country level,
the system generates predictions of the risk that 25 or more people will be killed per outcome in a given country and month.
- At the sub-national level
, the system forecasts the risk of at least one (1) person being killed per outcome, month, and 0.5×0.5 decimal degree location (measuring approximately 55x55km at the equator, see Levels of analysis
below).
[2] In line with UCDP coding procedures, the government of a state is defined as the party controlling the capital of the state, whether or not the party is the de jure holder of power.
[3] An incompatibility is by the UCDP defined as a stated challenge over the governmental power or over a specified territory.
[4] Armed groups are here defined as any non-governmental group of people that have announced a name for their group and that uses.
Geographic scope: Africa
The country-month level (25+ BRDs)
The PRIO-GRID-month level (1+ BRD)
The actor level (forthcoming)

Please note that as each annual UCDP-GED data is released, the periodizations above shift by one year.
- Calendar time:
τ
- month_id: Internally and in any documentation of the ViEWS system, we refer to individual calendar month as a numeric identifier determined by a counter that started on 1 in January 1980. December 2019 is consequently identified as
month_id 480.
- Subscripts:
The subscripts used in both the evaluation and forecast columns describe the concerned partition (the training, calibration, and the forecasting procedures based on them, are described in detail. See
the article, and the Data setup and notation online appendix (A) for further details.