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

Optimal Resource Provisioning for Workflows in Cloud

Pilvearvutuse populaarsus on viimaste aastate jooksul märkmisväärselt kasvanud. Kasutades teenustele orienteeritud arhitektuure ning virtualiseerimist, võimaldab pilv varieeruva koormusega skaleerumist eelkõige ettevõtetele suunatud programmidele. See on üks suuremaid põhjuseid miks töövoogusid pilve migreeritakse. Kuna iga töövoo osa vajab vastavalt kas rohkem või vähem ressursse, siis pilve poolt pakutud ressurssid peavad skaleeruma nii, et see ühtiks töövoo vajadustega. Resursside skaleerimist saab teha manuaalselt, eeldades et töökoormuse muutusperioodid on deterministlikud, või automaatselt, kui töövoos esineb ettearvamatuid koormuse tõuse ning langusi. Seni on esitatud mitmeid automaatse skaleerumise ideid. Mõned neist meetoditest proovivad ennustada, kui palju koormust võib esineda, samal ajal kui teised meetodid proovivad ressursse pakkuda alles koormuse kohale jõudmise ajal. Mõlema meetodi puhul leidub aga vajadus strateegia järgi, mis tagaks, et ressursse varustataks optimaalselt ehk tuvastada, kui mitu serverit tuleb lisada või eemaldada süsteemist, et rahuldada koormuse nõudlus ning samal ajal minimiseerida ka kulu. Antud magistritöös esitatakse lineaaprogrammeerimisel põhinev meetod, mis arvestab peamisi tegureid skaleerimises nagu, kulu, konfiguratsiooni hind, masinate jõudlus, pilve mahtuvus ning ka iga töömasina kestvus. Antud andmete põhjal tagastatakse optimaalne kombinatsioon võimalikest instantsitüüpidest mis rahuldaks igat töövoo alamosa kõige paremini. Lisaks loodi ka simulatsioon antud mudeli testimiseks ning katsete jooksutamiseks. Tulemuste kohaselt on näha, et pakutud meetod vähendab töövoogude jooksutamise hinda pilves.Cloud computing has gained significant popularity over past few years. Employing service-oriented architecture and resource virtualization technology, cloud provides the highest level of scalability for enterprise applications with variant load. This feature of cloud is the main attraction for migration of workflows to the cloud. Since each task of a workflow requires different processing power to perform its operation, at time of load variation it must scale in a manner fulfilling its specific requirements the most. Scaling can be done manually, provided that the load change periods are deterministic, or automatically, when there are unpredicted load spikes and slopes in the workload. A number of auto-scaling policies have been proposed so far. Some of these methods try to predict next incoming loads, while others tend to react to the incoming load at its arrival time and change the resource setup based on the real load rate rather than predicted one. However, in both methods there is need for an optimal resource provisioning policy that determines how many servers must be added to or removed from the system in order to fulfill the load while minimizing the cost. Current methods in this field take into account several of related parameters such as incoming workload, CPU usage of servers, network bandwidth, response time, processing power and cost of the servers. Nevertheless, none of them incorporates the life duration of a running server, the metric that can contribute to finding the most optimal policy. This parameter finds importance when the scaling algorithm tries to optimize the cost with employing a spectrum of various instance types featuring different processing powers and costs. In this paper, we will propose a generic LP(linear programming) model that takes into account all major factors involved in scaling including periodic cost, configuration cost and processing power of each instance type, instance count limit of clouds, and also life duration of each instance with customizable level of precision, and outputs an optimal combination of possible instance types suiting each task of a workflow the most. We created a simulation tool based on the proposed model and used 24-hour workload of ClarkNet ISP to conduct performance experiments. The results of experiments suggest that our optimal policy can minimize the cost of running a workflow in the cloud

Competition with Iran in a Constrained Resource Environment

NPS NRP Executive SummaryThis 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.

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

Language Teachers’ Evaluation of Curriculum Change: A Qualitative Study

This study aims at theorizing language teachers’ evaluation of a top-down curriculum change by eliciting their perspectives through open-ended qualitative interviews. In line with grounded theory procedures, concepts and categories were theoretically sampled from the perspective of participants who were willing to share their views with the researcher. Iterative data collection and analysis revealed a set of categories which show the conflict of interest between practitioners and policy-makers. Practitioners focus on immediate classroom concerns and reject the syllabus change because of its lack of small-scale try-outs, inappropriate timing, vague methodology, inappropriate in-service program, learner homogeneity fallacy, unrealistic expectations and increased absenteeism among learners. On the other hand, focusing on issues beyond immediate classroom, policy makers advocate it since it is conducive to uniformity, convergent practice, efficiency and covert privatization. This conceptualization of teachers’ perspectives on curriculum change has clear implications for policy makers and teachers in this context and other similar contexts

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