Iran and the Shia of Iraq

"The rise of Shia influence in Iraqi politics has caused suspicion among (predominantly Sunni) Arab leaders and Western analysts alike. Questions arose how strongly Iran will be able to influence Iraqi affairs. Views on Tehran’s influence are divided: some point out that the Shia of Iraq are so different from the Iranian that Tehran wields only a limited power in Iraq; in this case, they tend to idealize Iraq’s Shia leaders, either as political quietists, as e.g. Grand Ayatollah Sistani, or as secularists, as e.g. Ibrahim al-Jafari. Others, however, see Tehran behind any group and any perpetrator of hostile acts against Western interests; in that case, they tend to hint at Sistani’s Iranian origin and family interests in Qom, and hint at the Iraqi oppositions’ long stay in Iran."(...

The Third World, global Islam and pragmatism: the making of Iranian foreign policy

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the last nation states to deliberately position itself strategically and ideologically in opposition to the United States. The reasons for this lie in the history of Iran in the twentieth century and – in the view of the regime in Tehran – in the Islamic character and specifically Persian features of the country. Thirty years after the Islamic revolution the Western world is still unsure what ideology the Islamic Republic of Iran espouses and hence which principles and goals guide its foreign policy. The spectrum of opinions ranges from mistrust of an Islamic regime and fear of religious fundamentalism to surprise at the pragmatism of Iranian foreign policy. Depending on which of these perceptions prevails, this leads to two opposing assessments of Iran: either that its policies are dominated by religious irrationalism, which combined with the Iranian nuclear programme represents a global threat – adherents of this view believe the international community should rigorously oppose this programme; or the opposite view that ideology is only window dressing for a nation-state acting rationally in defence of its own interests. A closer look at the main priorities of Iranian foreign policy reveals that neither of these positions is tenable in itself." (author's abstract

Partial orderings of default predictions

We compare and generalize various partial orderings of probability forecasters according to the quality of their predictions. It appears that the calibration requirement is quite at odds with the possibility of some such ordering. However, if the requirements of calibration and identical sets of debtors are relaxed, comparability obtains more easily. Taking default predictions in the credit rating industry as an example, we show for a data base of 5333 (Moody’s) and 6505 ten-year default predictions (S&P), that Moody’s and S&P cannot be ordered neither according to their grade distributions given default or non-default or to their Ginicurves, but Moody’s dominate S&P with respect to the ROC-criterion

Mäßigung statt Neuanfang: Iran nach den Präsidentschaftswahlen 2013

Die elften iranischen Präsidentschaftswahlen vom 14. Juni 2013 sind zwar kein Meilenstein auf dem Weg in Richtung einer Demokratisierung Irans, aber ein wichtiger Indikator für die politische Mäßigung bei gleichzeitiger Stabilisierung des Regimes. Mittlerweile zeichnet sich ab, dass der neue Präsident mit Vertretern des gesamten politischen Spektrums zusammenarbeiten wird. Querschüsse von Seiten politischer Opponenten sind diesmal nicht zu erwarten, da ein Teil der Prinzipalisten integriert und ihr extremistischer Flügel marginalisiert wurde. Auf internationaler Ebene darf man auf eine gemäßigte, konstruktive Außenpolitik hoffen. Der Neuanfang der Beziehungen mit dem Westen muss freilich erst gelingen. (Autorenreferat

Dritte Welt, globaler Islam und Pragmatismus: wie die Außenpolitik Irans gemacht wird

"Die Islamische Republik Iran ist einer der letzten Nationalstaaten, die sich strategisch und ideologisch bewusst in einen Gegensatz zu den USA stellen. Die Gründe hierfür liegen in der iranischen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts sowie, aus Sicht des Regimes in Teheran, im islamischen Charakter und persischen Eigenheiten des Landes. Vor allem in der westlichen Welt herrscht mehr als dreißig Jahre nach der Islamischen Revolution nach wie vor Unklarheit darüber, welcher Ideologie die 'Islamische Republik Iran' eigentlich anhängt und daraus folgend an welchen Grundsätzen und Zielen sich die Außenpolitik des Landes orientiert. Die Meinungen dazu sind einerseits von Misstrauen gegenüber der islamischen Natur des Regimes oder gar Furcht vor religiösem Fundamentalismus bestimmt, andererseits von Überraschung über den Pragmatismus in der iranischen Außenpolitik. Je nachdem, welche Wahrnehmung überwiegt, führt dies zu zwei gegenteiligen Beurteilungen der Islamischen Republik: der Behauptung, ihre Politik sei von religiösem Irrationalismus dominiert, der in Kombination mit dem iranischen Nuklearprogramm eine globale Bedrohung darstelle, weshalb die internationale Gemeinschaft diesem Programm wiederum energisch entgegentreten müsse; und der gegenteiligen Auffassung, nach der die Ideologie nur schmückendes Beiwerk eines rational und interessengeleitet handelnden Nationalstaats ist. Betrachtet man die Schwerpunkte der iranischen Außenpolitik genauer, so ist für sich gesehen keine der beiden Positionen haltbar." (Autorenreferat)"The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the last nation states to deliberately position itself strategically and ideologically in opposition to the United States. The reasons for this lie in the history of Iran in the twentieth century and – in the view of the regime in Tehran – in the Islamic character and specifically Persian features of the country. Thirty years after the Islamic revolution the Western world is still unsure what ideology the Islamic Republic of Iran espouses and hence which principles and goals guide its foreign policy. The spectrum of opinions ranges from mistrust of an Islamic regime and fear of religious fundamentalism to surprise at the pragmatism of Iranian foreign policy. Depending on which of these perceptions prevails, this leads to two opposing assessments of Iran: either that its policies are dominated by religious irrationalism, which combined with the Iranian nuclear programme represents a global threat – adherents of this view believe the international community should rigorously oppose this programme; or the opposite view that ideology is only window dressing for a nation-state acting rationally in defence of its own interests. A closer look at the main priorities of Iranian foreign policy reveals that neither of these positions is tenable in itself." (author's abstract

Emergence of order in selection-mutation dynamics

We characterize the time evolution of a d-dimensional probability distribution by the value of its final entropy. If it is near the maximally-possible value we call the evolution mixing, if it is near zero we say it is purifying. The evolution is determined by the simplest non-linear equation and contains a d times d matrix as input. Since we are not interested in a particular evolution but in the general features of evolutions of this type, we take the matrix elements as uniformly-distributed random numbers between zero and some specified upper bound. Computer simulations show how the final entropies are distributed over this field of random numbers. The result is that the distribution crowds at the maximum entropy, if the upper bound is unity. If we restrict the dynamical matrices to certain regions in matrix space, for instance to diagonal or triangular matrices, then the entropy distribution is maximal near zero, and the dynamics typically becomes purifying.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Bewegung im Nuklearstreit mit dem Iran: nach den Genfer Gesprächen herrscht vorsichtiger Optimismus

Nach sechs Monaten Verhandlungspause nahmen die Vertreter der E3+3 (Deutschland, Frankreich, Großbritannien sowie China, Russland, Vereinigte Staaten) und des Iran am 15. und 16. Oktober 2013 in Genf die Gespräche über das iranische Nuklearprogramm wieder auf. Die Voraussetzungen für den Einstieg in eine diplomatische Lösung sind so gut wie lange nicht mehr. Der im Juni gewählte neue Präsident Hasan Feridon-Ruhani hat ein klares Mandat für eine Politik der Verständigung mit dem Westen. Zwar gibt es weiterhin viele Differenzen über die Kontrolle und Begrenzung des iranischen Atomprogramms. Aber bei den besonders drängenden Problemen sind Kompromisslinien erkennbar. Auch wenn die Hoffnung auf schnelle Fortschritte groß ist: Verlorengegangenes Vertrauen kann nur in einem längeren Prozess neu aufgebaut werden. Beide Seiten sollten daher einen realistischen Fahrplan für Gespräche vereinbaren und gleichzeitig Verhandlungen darüber führen, wie eine langfristige Lösung im Nuklearkonflikt aussehen kann. (Autorenreferat

Adding a treatment arm to an ongoing clinical trial: a review of methodology and practice

Incorporating an emerging therapy as a new randomisation arm in a clinical trial that is open to recruitment would be desirable to researchers, regulators and patients to ensure that the trial remains current, new treatments are evaluated as quickly as possible, and the time and cost for determining optimal therapies is minimised. It may take many years to run a clinical trial from concept to reporting within a rapidly changing drug development environment; hence, in order for trials to be most useful to inform policy and practice, it is advantageous for them to be able to adapt to emerging therapeutic developments. This paper reports a comprehensive literature review on methodologies for, and practical examples of, amending an ongoing clinical trial by adding a new treatment arm. Relevant methodological literature describing statistical considerations required when making this specific type of amendment is identified, and the key statistical concepts when planning the addition of a new treatment arm are extracted, assessed and summarised. For completeness, this includes an assessment of statistical recommendations within general adaptive design guidance documents. Examples of confirmatory ongoing trials designed within the frequentist framework that have added an arm in practice are reported; and the details of the amendment are reviewed. An assessment is made as to how well the relevant statistical considerations were addressed in practice, and the related implications. The literature review confirmed that there is currently no clear methodological guidance on this topic, but that guidance would be advantageous to help this efficient design amendment to be used more frequently and appropriately in practice. Eight confirmatory trials were identified to have added a treatment arm, suggesting that trials can benefit from this amendment and that it can be practically feasible; however, the trials were not always able to address the key statistical considerations, often leading to uninterpretable or invalid outcomes. If the statistical concepts identified within this review are considered and addressed during the design of a trial amendment, it is possible to effectively assess a new treatment arm within an ongoing trial without compromising the original trial outcomes

Nanostructured Ceramics: Ionic Transport and Electrochemical Activity

Ceramics with nm-sized dimensions are widely used in various applications such as batteries, fuel cells or sensors. Their oftentimes superior electrochemical properties as well as their capabilities to easily conduct ions are, however, not completely understood. Depending on the method chosen to prepare the materials, nanostructured ceramics may be equipped with a large area fraction of interfacial regions that exhibit structural disorder. Elucidating the relationship between microscopic disorder and ion dynamics as well as electrochemical performance is necessary to develop new functionalized materials. Here, we highlight some of the very recent studies on ion transport and electrochemical properties of nanostructured ceramics. Emphasis is put on TiO2 in the form of nanorods, nanotubes or being present as mesoporous material. Further examples deal with nanocrystalline peroxides such as Li2O2 or nanostructured oxides (Li2TiO3, LiAlO2, LiTaO3, Li2CO3 and Li2B4O7). These materials served as model systems to explore the influence of ball-milling on overall ionic transport