Conversions to Shiʿism in Italy and Editorial Ventures

This article presents an in-depth analysis of two interrelated topics, namely Italians’ conversions to Shiʿism and their contribution to disseminating knowledge about Twelver Shiʿism in Italy. Employing a combination of historical and sociological methods, the article explores the underlying motivations driving this religious mobility, with a particular focus on the influence of Traditionalist authors such as René Guénon and Julius Evola and the Iranian Revolution on the digital and paper publications of converts. Moreover, the paper investigates the converts’ proclivity for editorial initiatives and social visibility, which can be attributed to their penchant for social engagement and political activism. To conduct this investigation, semi-structured interviews, literature analysis, and historical sources were adopted. This research establishes a strong correlation between the reasons for conversion and the portrayal of Shiʿism in the converts’ literary works. In summary, the distinct characteristics of Italian Shiʿism are intricately intertwined with the factors influencing conversion to this religion

How an Italian Amorphous Space Became a Twelver Shi’a Mosque

This paper aims to explore the sense of “mosque” for Italy’s Twelver Shi’as through the study of a Shi’a organisation based in Turin. Some comparative references to Shi’a centres in Padua and Milan will demonstrate different meanings of these spaces for their attendees. In the case of the Turin’s Shi’a centre two factors are deemed responsible in conferring mosque-ness to an a functional and abandoned place: gender relations and the nature of initiative sheld within its headquarters

Religious Conversion as a Form of Religious Contact

Religious conversion is a phenomenon that has intrigued scholars, theologians, and sociologists for centuries. As the conscious choice of a particular form of religion over another, it is eminently a form of religious contact. Religious conversion may be approached psychologically, sociologically, and conceptually. The contributions of this special issue show all three approaches and cover a wide array of geographical, social, and religious contexts

Prognostic Value of Sarcopenia and Metabolic Parameters of 18^{18}F-FDG-PET/CT in Patients with Advanced Gastroesophageal Cancer

We investigated the prognostic value of sarcopenia measurements and metabolic parameters of primary tumors derived from $^{18}$F-FDG-PET/CT among patients with primary, metastatic esophageal and gastroesophageal cancer. A total of 128 patients (26 females; 102 males; mean age 63.5 ± 11.7 years; age range: 29-91 years) with advanced metastatic gastroesophageal cancer who underwent $^{18}$F-FDG-PET/CT as part of their initial staging between November 2008 and December 2019 were included. Mean and maximum standardized uptake value (SUV) and SUV normalized by lean body mass (SUL) were measured. Skeletal muscle index (SMI) was measured at the level of L3 on the CT component of the $^{18}$F-FDG-PET/CT. Sarcopenia was defined as SMI < 34.4 cm$^{2}$/m$^{2}$ in women and <45.4 cm$^{2}$/m$^{2}$ in men. A total of 60/128 patients (47%) had sarcopenia on baseline $^{18}$F-FDG-PET/CT. Mean SMI in patients with sarcopenia was 29.7 cm$^{2}$/m$^{2}$ in females and 37.5 cm$^{2}$/m$^{2}$ in males. In a univariable analysis, ECOG (<0.001), bone metastases (p = 0.028), SMI (p = 0.0075) and dichotomized sarcopenia score (p = 0.033) were significant prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Age was a poor prognostic factor for OS (p = 0.017). Standard metabolic parameters were not statistically significant in the univariable analysis and thus were not evaluated further. In a multivariable analysis, ECOG (p < 0.001) and bone metastases (p = 0.019) remained significant poor prognostic factors for OS and PFS. The final model demonstrated improved OS and PFS prognostication when combining clinical parameters with imaging-derived sarcopenia measurements but not metabolic tumor parameters. In summary, the combination of clinical parameters and sarcopenia status, but not standard metabolic values from $^{18}$F-FDG-PET/CT, may improve survival prognostication in patients with advanced, metastatic gastroesophageal cancer

The emergence of waves in random discrete systems

Essential criteria for the emergence of wave-like manifestations occurring in an entirely discrete system are identified using a simple model for the movement of particles through a network. The dynamics are entirely stochastic and memoryless involving a birth-death-migration process. The requirements are that the network should have at least three nodes, that migration should have a directional bias, and that the particle dynamics have a non-local dependence. Well defined bifurcations mark transitions between amorphous, wave-like and collapsed states with an intermittent regime between the latter two

Structure-oriented prediction in complex networks

Complex systems are extremely hard to predict due to its highly nonlinear interactions and rich emergent properties. Thanks to the rapid development of network science, our understanding of the structure of real complex systems and the dynamics on them has been remarkably deepened, which meanwhile largely stimulates the growth of effective prediction approaches on these systems. In this article, we aim to review different network-related prediction problems, summarize and classify relevant prediction methods, analyze their advantages and disadvantages, and point out the forefront as well as critical challenges of the field

Can Iranian Women Compensate for Their Absence From the World of Fiqh?

It has been maintained that the violation of women’s human rights, in countries governed by Islamic law, derives from the lack of women’s contribution to the exegesis of the sacred texts. Therefore, the access of women to the realm of ijtihad in all likelihood should eliminate, or, at least, hinder these violations. To verify this assumption, I have taken the imposition of the veil in Iran as a touchstone to compare the roles of male and female mujtahids in this respect. The instance of the veil will help us understand whether and to what extent Iranian female mujtahids can and want to have a say in the elimination of what is considered to be a violation to women’s human rights

Organization of information pathways in complex networks

A shuman beings, we are continuously struggling to comprehend the mechanism of dierent natural systems. Many times, we face a complex system where the emergent properties of the system at a global level can not be explained by a simple aggregation of the system's components at the micro-level. To better understand the macroscopic system eects, we try to model microscopic events and their interactions. In order to do so, we rely on specialized tools to connect local mechanisms with global phenomena. One such tool is network theory. Networks provide a powerful way of modeling and analyzing complex systems based on interacting elements. The interaction pattern links the elements of the system together and provides a structure that controls how information permeates throughout the system. For example, the passing of information about job opportunities in a society depends on how social ties are organized. The interaction pattern, therefore, often is essential for reconstructing and understanding the global-scale properties of the system. In this thesis, I describe tools and models of network theory that we use and develop to analyze the organization of social or transportation systems. More specifically, we explore complex networks by asking two general questions: First, which mechanistic theoretical models can better explain network formation or spreading processes on networks? And second, what are the signi cant functional units of real networks? For modeling, for example, we introduce a simple agent-based model that considers interacting agents in dynamic networks that in the quest for information generate groups. With the model, we found that the network and the agents' perception are interchangeable; the global network structure and the local information pathways are so entangled that one can be recovered from the other one. For investigating signi cant functional units of a system, we detect, model, and analyze signi cant communities of the network. Previously introduced methods of significance analysis suer from oversimpli ed sampling schemes. We have remedied their shortcomings by proposing two dierent approaches: rst by introducing link prediction and second by using more data when they are available. With link prediction, we can detect statistically signi cant communities in large sparse networks. We test this method on real networks, the sparse network of the European Court of Justice case law, for example, to detect signi cant and insigni cant areas of law. In the presence of large data, on the other hand, we can investigate how underlying assumptions of each method aect the results of the signi cance analysis. We used this approach to investigate dierent methods for detecting signi cant communities of time-evolving networks. We found that, when we highlight and summarize important structural changes in a network, the methods that maintain more dependencies in signi cance analysis can predict structural changes earlier. In summary, we have tried to model the systems with as simple rules as possible to better understand the global properties of the system. We always found that maintaing information about the network structure is essential for explaining important phenomena on the global scale. We conclude that the interaction pattern between interconnected units, the network, is crucial for understanding the global behavior of complex systems because it keeps the system integrated. And remember, everything is connected, albeit not always directly

Ashura in Italy: The Reshaping of Shi’a Rituals

This essay explores the impacts of Italy&rsquo;s socio-religious tendencies on the Shi&rsquo;a rituals of Muḥarram and Ṣafar. Ethnography and semi-structured interviews were the main methods adopted for the performance of this research. The implications of commemorating the Karbala tragedy in Italy were studied from four viewpoints. This article demonstrates that the presence of Shi&rsquo;as in Italy not only exerts an effect on the core meaning of these rituals, namely paying tribute to Ḥusayn&rsquo;s courageous stand against injustice, but also on the structure of Shi&rsquo;a communities in terms of gender relations and power hierarchy