Geopolitical Explanation of the Iranian 11th government”™s Foreign Policy in the South Caucasus

The strategic region of South Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia is of considerable importance for Iran”™s foreign policy due to numerous reasons such as rich energy resources, neighborhood of the Russian Federation, which is known as a regional superpower, the presence of the USA and the Zionist regime, and active crises. Establishing effective relations with the countries of South Caucasus could play a decisive role in securing Iran”™s national interests. The present article sought to answer the fundamental question that how are the announced and implemented policies of the 11th government of the Islamic Republic of Iran headed by Hassan Rouhani in the South Caucasus could be explained based on the theory of geopolitics. It hypothesized that Iran is implementing its foreign policy in the region using geopolitical components of its own as well as those belonged to the countries of the South Caucasus and the relationship of these components to each other such as proximity, common interests in the Caspian Sea, routes of energy pipelines, common culture and the presence of rival trans-regional and regional powers. Speeches and agendas of bilateral meetings between the highest authorities of Iran and the regional Republics, Tehran”™s stance towards the Karabakh crisis, the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, attempts to take advantage of economic opportunities, stress on the need to promote friendly and cooperative relations with all the three countries are among of the most important evidence based on which the hypothesis was tested, and their consistency with the theory of Geopolitics was explained.

Quand modèles numériques et mesures ne sont pas sur la même longueur d'onde

Brève publiée dans "Mathématiques de la planète Terre 2013". Blog français de l'initiative internationale "Mathematics of Planet Earth - MPE"No abstract

Attenuation of hemodynamic responses to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation: Propacetamol versus lidocaine - A randomized clinical trial

The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of propacetamol on attenuating hemodynamic responses subsequent laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation compared to lidocaine. In this randomized clinical trial, 62 patients with the American Anesthesiologists Society (ASA) class I/II who required laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation for elective surgery were assigned to receive propacetamol 2 g/I.V./infusion (group P) or lidocaine 1.5 mg/kg (group L) prior to laryngoscopy. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP, DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and heart rate (HR) were recorded at baseline, before laryngoscopy and within nine minutes after intubation. In both groups P and L, MAP increased after laryngoscopy and the changes were statistically significant (P < 0.001). There were significant changes of HR in both groups after intubation (P < 0.02), but the trend of changes was different between two groups (P < 0.001). In group L, HR increased after intubation and its change was statistically significant within 9 minutes after intubation (P < 0.001), while in group P, HR remained stable after intubation (P = 0.8). Propacetamol 2 gr one hour prior intubation attenuates heart rate responses after laryngoscopy but is not effective to prevent acute alterations in blood pressure after intubation. © 2014 Ali Kord Valeshabad et al

Depression and Anxiety Disorders among Patients with Psoriasis: A Hospital-Based Case-Control Study

Background. Psoriasis is a common, genetically determined inflammatory and proliferative disease of the skin. Psychological stress can exacerbate the disease. This study sought to investigate the depression and anxiety disorders among patients with psoriasis and control group. Method. In this hospital-based case-control study, One hundred patients with psoriasis (case) referred to the dermatology department and 100 patients with otolaryngology problems and dermatological healthy volunteers (control) who referred to the Otolaryngology Department of Bouali Sina Hospital in Sari, Iran, in 2007 were studied. Demographic characteristics were recorded. Beck Depression Inventory and Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale I-II were administered to the patients in both groups. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software and descriptive statistical tests. Results. From One-hundred patients in each group, 44 (45%) were men. Depression score was 67% and 12% in psoriatic patients and control, respectively. The Beck depression scores of patients with psoriasis were significantly higher than scores of the control group (<0.05). Based on Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale, anxiety was found in 45% of patients in case group and 18% of controls. Conclusion. The results revealed that psoriatic patients reported significantly higher degrees of depression and anxiety than controls. In addition, psoriatic women were more depressed than psoriatic men

Nstitutionalizing the Cahwe of praying based on the Quran’s descent

The verses and suras of Quran have been descended on him gradually regarding the conditions and culture of people in sudi Arabia after descending the heart of prophet Mohammad. One of the subjects that has been descended from the first sura is the debate of praying which has been considered to the end of Quran. The position of praying in Islam is to the extent that it considered it as one of the believers features so that it considers it’s performance as the cause of felicity and it’s abandonment as the cause of misery. Regarding that the people of sudi Arabia are pagen the verses of Quran which are also one of the important matters of Islam religion should descended according to it’s addressed persons morale in the way that it can affect the highest effect on them and it becomes a culture gradually. There is a question that which method has Quran used for institutionalizing the religion and how can it persue the followers to perform this action? For responding this question, the holy verses have been investigated regarding the desending of Quran verses through the desciriptive-analytic method. Firstly, Quran expresses the effect of praying or leaving it in the felicity or misery of the humans. Afterwards, it introduces some persons as the pattern for people. In the next step it expresses some rules of praying. Then, it introduces the similar values to praying and it considers the features of prayers

Assimilation de données multi-échelle et caractérisation des erreurs pour la modélisation inverse des sources de polluants atmosphériques

Data assimilation in geophysical sciences aims at optimally estimating the state of the system or some parameters of the system's physical model. To do so, data assimilation needs three types of information: observations and background information, a physical/numerical model, and some statistical description that prescribes uncertainties to each componenent of the system.In my dissertation, new methodologies of data assimilation are used in atmospheric chemistry and physics: the joint use of a 4D-Var with a subgrid statistical model to consistently account for representativeness errors, accounting for multiple scale in the BLUE estimation principle, and a better estimation of prior errors using objective estimation of hyperparameters. These three approaches will be specifically applied to inverse modelling problems focussing on the emission fields of tracers or pollutants. First, in order to estimate the emission inventories of carbon monoxide over France, in-situ stations which are impacted by the representativeness errors are used. A subgrid model is introduced and coupled with a 4D-Var to reduce the representativeness error. Indeed, the results of inverse modelling showed that the 4D-Var routine was not fit to handle the representativeness issues. The coupled data assimilation system led to a much better representation of theCO concentration variability, with a significant improvement of statistical indicators, and more consistent estimation of the CO emission inventory. Second, the evaluation of the potential of the IMS (International Monitoring System) radionuclide network is performed for the inversion of an accidental source. In order to assess the performance of the global network, a multiscale adaptive grid is optimised using a criterion based on degrees of freedom for the signal (DFS). The results show that several specific regions remain poorly observed by the IMS network. Finally, the inversion of the surface fluxes of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) are carried out over Western Europe using EMEP stations. The uncertainties of the background values of the emissions, as well as the covariance matrix of the observation errors, are estimated according to the maximum likelihood principle. The prior probability density function of the control parameters is chosen to be Gaussian or semi-normal distributed. Grid-size emission inventories are inverted under these two statistical assumptions. The two kinds of approaches are compared. With the Gaussian assumption, the departure between the posterior and the prior emission inventories is higher than when using the semi-normal assumption, but that method does not provide better scores than the semi-normal in a forecast experiment.Dans les études géophysiques, l'assimilation de données a pour but d'estimer l'état d'un système ou les paramètres d'un modèle physique de façon optimale. Pour ce faire, l'assimilation de données a besoin de trois types d'informations : des observations, un modèle physique/numérique et une description statistique de l'incertitude associée aux paramètres du système. Dans ma thèse, de nouvelles méthodes d'assimilation de données sont utilisées pour l'étude de la physico-chimie de l'atmosphère: (i) On y utilise de manière conjointe la méthode 4D-Var avec un modèle sous-maille statistique pour tenir compte des erreurs de représentativité. (ii) Des échelles multiples sont prises en compte dans la méthode d'estimation BLUE. (iii) Enfin, la méthode du maximum de vraisemblance est appliquée pour estimer des hyper-paramètres qui paramètrisent les erreurs à priori. Ces trois approches sont appliquées de manière spécifique à des problèmes de modélisation inverse des sources de polluant atmosphérique. Dans une première partie, la modélisation inverse est utilisée afin d'estimer les émissions de monoxyde de carbone sur un domaine représentant la France. Les stations du réseau d'observation considérées sont impactées par les erreurs de représentativité. Un modèle statistique sous-maille est introduit. Il est couplé au système 4D-Var afin de réduire les erreurs de représentativité. En particulier, les résultats de la modélisation inverse montrent que la méthode 4D-Var seule n'est pas adaptée pour gérer le problème de représentativité. Le système d'assimilation des données couplé conduit à une meilleure représentation de la variabilité de la concentration de CO avec une amélioration très significative des indicateurs statistiques. Dans une deuxième partie, on évalue le potentiel du réseau IMS (International Monitoring System) du CTBTO pour l'inversion d'une source accidentelle de radionucléides. Pour évaluer la performance du réseau, une grille multi-échelle adaptative pour l'espace de contrôle est optimisée selon un critère basé sur les degrés de liberté du signal (DFS). Les résultats montrent que plusieurs régions restent sous-observées par le réseau IMS. Dans la troisième et dernière partie, sont estimés les émissions de Composés Organiques Volatils (COVs) sur l'Europe de l'ouest. Cette étude d'inversion est faite sur la base des observations de 14 COVs extraites du réseau EMEP. L'évaluation des incertitudes des valeurs des inventaires d'émission et des erreurs d'observation sont faites selon le principe du maximum de vraisemblance. La distribution des inventaires d'émission a été supposée tantôt gaussienne et tantôt semi-normale. Ces deux hypothèses sont appliquées pour inverser le champs des inventaires d'émission. Les résultats de ces deux approches sont comparés. Bien que la correction apportée sur les inventaires est plus forte avec l'hypothèse Gaussienne que semi-normale, les indicateurs statistiques montrent que l'hypothèse de la distribution semi-normale donne de meilleurs résultats de concentrations que celle Gaussienne