The Grand Strategy of Militant Clients: Iran’s Way of War

This article argues that militant clients should be understood as a pillar of Iran’s grand strategy and an extension of its military power. The article examines why Iran has relied on militant clients since the 1979 revolution and the benefits and costs of its client approach. In evaluating these issues, it iden- tifies five main areas where Iran has gained from its client strategy: 1) maintaining independence from the West; 2) suc- cessfully exporting its religio-political worldview; 3) extending its military reach and power; 4) reducing political costs of its foreign activities; and 5) establishing needed regional allies. It further identifies five main dangers that Iran faces by continu- ing its strategic behavior: 1) increased pressure from the United States and a broader US military regional footprint; 2) more unified regional adversaries; 3) the risk of unintended escalation with the United States and regional adversarial states; and 4) enduring regional instability and insecurity

Competition with Iran in a Constrained Resource Environment

NPS NRP Project PosterThis study will examine how the US Navy can effectively compete with Iran in a constrained resource environment. Iran continues to be the leading threat to US forces, partners, and allies in the CENTCOM AOR. Iran's over-the-horizon capabilities, maritime forces, and proxies can be utilized to challenge, harass, threaten, and strike US forces and partner states in the region, both on land and at sea. Managing the Iranian threat is a challenging task in the current environment, and it will increase the more resources are deployed out of the region. The U.S. Navy possess an abundant array of capabilities that could be utilized to blunt any expansion of Iranian maritime influence and deny Iran the dominant role it seeks in the region. But determining what capabilities and how they are deployed will be essential to developing an effective competitive strategy vis-à-vis Iran. More important will be how the US Navy enlists partners and allies, and helps arm them with the tools and know-how necessary to protect their equities, safeguard their shipping, deter Iran's advances, and respond to Iranian aggression effectively.N3/N5 - Plans & StrategyThis research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Students’ Motivational Profiles Changes in an Academic Setting: A Longitudinal Study a Longitudinal Study

AbstractThe purpose of the present study was to examine, longitudinally, the number and structure of motivational profiles in a sample of students at the beginning and the end of the academic year. A total of 141 undergraduate students of Azerbaijan University of Tarbiat Moallem were randomly selected to participate in this longitudinal survey. The subjects answered to the Motivation Types in the Classroom Questionnaire in the first days of entering the university and at the end of the first academic year. Motivational profiles were formed by using K-means clustering procedure. The results showed that two motivational clusters emerged at the beginning and the end of academic year. The first cluster represented a constructive motivational profile and the second one showed a negative motivational state. Furthermore, the frequency of students in the first cluster reduced significantly at the end of the academic year compared to the beginning of the academic year (P<0.05)

The Effect of Shyness on English Speaking Scores of Iranian EFL learners

Many students receive low marks in EFL speaking classes. Teachers wrongly suppose that they are not competent enough, and teachers ignore shyness as an affective factor. This study aims to explore the relationship between shyness and English speaking scores of Iranian students in EFL classes. 165 Iranian students at grade 8 of junior secondary school in Mayamey, semnan province, were selected by cluster sampling. Persian translation of Stanford shyness scale was administered, the data were collected and shyness degrees were correlated with English speaking scores and there was a moderate negative correlation between them (r= - 0.4).Also there was a stronger negative correlation coefficient between variables in female subgroup(r = - 0.57) than male subgroup(r = - 0.29).  Speaking scores were correlated by scores given by teachers for finding its reliability(r=0.94). Shyness test reliability was 0.75 by split half test of spearman. And the finding shows that English speaking scores of student is dependent to their degree of shyness. It can be concluded it is important to consider shyness as an affective factor in EFL classes, and teachers should never underestimate shy students in their EFL classes.                                                                                   

“It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got that Swing”– an Alternative Concept for Understanding the Evolution of Dance and Music in Human Beings

The functions of dance and music in human evolution are a mystery. Current research on the evolution of music has mainly focused on its melodic attribute which would have evolved alongside (proto-)language. Instead, we propose an alternative conceptual framework which focuses on the co-evolution of rhythm and dance (R&amp;D;) as intertwined aspects of a multimodal phenomenon characterized by the unity of action and perception. Reviewing the current literature from this viewpoint we propose the hypothesis that R&amp;D; have co-evolved long before other musical attributes and (proto-)language. Our view is supported by increasing experimental evidence particularly in infants and children: beat is perceived and anticipated already by newborns and rhythm perception depends on body movement. Infants and toddlers spontaneously move to a rhythm irrespective of their cultural background. The impulse to dance may have been prepared by the susceptibility of infants to be soothed by rocking. Conceivable evolutionary functions of R&amp;D; include sexual attraction and transmission of mating signals. Social functions include bonding, synchronization of many individuals, appeasement of hostile individuals, and pre- and extra-verbal communication enabling embodied individual and collective memorizing. In many cultures R&amp;D; are used for entering trance, a base for shamanism and early religions. Individual benefits of R&amp;D; include improvement of body coordination, as well as painkilling, anti-depressive, and anti-boredom effects. Rhythm most likely paved the way for human speech as supported by studies confirming the overlaps between cognitive and neural resources recruited for language and rhythm. In addition, dance encompasses visual and gestural communication. In future studies attention should be paid to which attribute of music is focused on and that the close mutual relation between R&amp;D; is taken into account. The possible evolutionary functions of dance deserve more attention

Basic Principles of Reporting Results of Conventional Statistical Tests in Scientific Biomedical Articles

A scientific article is written to convey information to the reader. The results section is the core component of an article and its objective is to report the findings obtained from statistical analyses for testing hypotheses. For multiple reasons, articles published in medical journals are statistically poor; however, few biomedical journals describe the basics of statistical results presentation to authors. As regards, the writing and presentation of statistical results are as important as statistical results finding. The objective of present article is providing an instruction for reporting the results obtained from data analyses by using some common statistical methods. This article contains two parts: general principles about the structure of results section and basic principles related to how to report descriptive and analytical statistics

A Data-Driven Conceptualization of Teacher Evaluation

Research perspectives on teacher evaluation present evaluators with a set of possible acts. Local evaluation systems, on the other hand, specify a permissible set of acts from the total universe. The acts specified within a given locality act as conditions for teacher action. Using the sampling and analytical procedures of grounded theory, this study aims at exploring how evaluation of teaching performance in universities of Iran conditions practitioners\u27 action (conditions), what teachers do in the face of these conditions (action), and the effect these conditions and actions have on practitioners\u27 professional life (consequences). The findings will be useful for stakeholders since they show the other side of the teacher evaluation coin: one side being the research perspectives while the other being practitioners\u27 perspectives

Exploring Teacher Educators’ and Teacher Trainers’ Perceptions on Methodology Courses

Methodology courses are one of useful sources through which teacher trainers can enrich their knowledge in terms of language teaching. The purpose of this study is exploring teacher educators’ and teacher trainers’ perceptions on the effectiveness of methodology courses and also uncovering their suggestions towards such courses to make them more effective. Initial participants were selected through purposive sampling followed by theoretical sampling based on the principles of grounded theory. Data were gathered through interviews along with memo writings and three main categories were found. The first main category was weak points of the methodology courses. The second category was ‘the suggestions to make this course effective’ with three sub-categories such as ‘do it by practice’, ‘localizing some methods’, and ‘avoiding bias towards this course’. The third category contributes to ‘how this course is helpful for the teacher trainers’ with four sub-categories such as ‘leading to unconscious use of methods’, ‘building student teachers’ background’, ‘providing purposeful methods’, and ‘acting as a pre-requisite for effective practice’