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1. A network of sensors and actuators for monitoring and controlling an environment in accordance with predetermined policies, the network having a policy decision point for responding to trigger inputs received from the sensors, a data store for maintaining policies for retrieval by the policy decision point, and a policy execution point for controlling actuators in response to commands received from the policy decision point, further comprising a reliability monitoring element which identifies effectiveness of individual policies by identifying an intended outcome from a policy, measuring an input from a sensor following implementation of a policy, and comparing the input from the sensor with the intended outcome, in which each policy includes a check action for assessing the result of that policy's application, using a sensor input to monitor if actions generated by the policy are successful in moving the system towards a system state specified by the policy, in which actions generated by the policy are initiated in response to inputs from one or more first sensors, and the check action is initiated in response to data received from at least one further sensor independent of the one or more first sensors, and in which the check action is initiated after a predetermined period after the actions initiated by the policy, to allow the system to stabilize.
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