The relationship between psychological well-being and empathy quotient

This paper investigates the relationship between psychological well-being and empathy quotient among 200 married students, 100 female and 100 make, in city of Najafabad, Iran. The study uses a questionnaire with 84 questions for measuring psychological well-being, which consists of six parts including Autonomy, Environmental mastery, Personal growth, Positive relation with others, Purpose in life and Self-acceptance, each with 14 questions. Cronbach alphas for these six items were calculated as 0.83, 0.86, 0.85, 0.88, 0.88 and 0.91, respectively. In order to measure empathy quotient (EQ), the study uses EQ-short form, which consists of 22 questions. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.93, which is well above the minimum acceptable level of 0.70. Using stepwise regression technique, the study determines a positive and meaningful relationship between EQ and psychological well-being

The practicality of critical pedagogy from Iranian EFL instructors' viewpoints: a cross sectional study

This study was an endeavor to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of critical pedagogy and its principles. It also intended to look for their viewpoints about the practicality of implementing critical pedagogy in our classrooms. In addition, the study made attempts to seek the barriers that hinder the application of critical pedagogy in Iranian teaching contexts. In order to achieve the goals of this study, 20 Iranian EFL instructors teaching at university, high schools, and language institutes were interviewed. Since the study employs a mixed-method design, the researcher benefited from both a critical pedagogy questionnaire, developed by Maki (2011), and in-depth interviews. Approaches based on grounded theory were utilized in order to analyze the qualitative data; in addition, statistical procedures such as descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. The results indicated that the majority of Iranian EFL instructors are aware of the principles of critical pedagogy and support the helpfulness of such pedagogy and its premises. The study revealed that in spite of language teachers’ awareness of critical pedagogy and their agreement with the positively effective CP principles, they rarely apply this methodology in their teaching. Further investigations revealed that the top-down educational system, class size, issues related to teachers’ burn-out, limited class time and teachers’ insufficient information about the learners’ background and learning styles are the main barriers which prevent Iranian language teachers from applying the principles of critical pedagogy in their teaching.  Keywords: critical pedagogy (CP), Iranian language teachers, EFL contex

High-Performance Control of Mean-Field Teams in Leader-Follower Networks

In this thesis, a mean-field approach is used to find high-performance control strategies for multi-agent systems. The system consists of one leader and possibly many dynamically coupled followers, and all agents are affected by noise. The global objective of the multi-agent control system here is to achieve an agreement between the agents while minimizing coupled linear-quadratic cost functions for two cases: a disturbance-free system, and a system with disturbances. In the former case, the proposed solution under non-classical information structure is near-optimal, which converges to the optimal solution for a large number of followers. For the latter case, the problem is solved for three non-classical information structures, namely, mean-field sharing, partial mean-field sharing, and intermittent mean-field sharing. Using the minimax control technique, it is shown that the solution obtained for the first structure is a unique saddle-point strategy. On the other hand, it is proved that for the other two structures, the proposed solutions tend to the unique saddle-point strategy when the number of followers goes to infinity. The proposed strategies in both cases are linear, scalable and computationally efficient. The theoretical findings are verified by simulation results

Evaluation of the correlation between serum lipid characteristics of obese subjects and ADIPOQ gene rs266729 polymorphism in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province of Iran

Obesity is a multifactorial disorder that is influenced by various factors such as behavior, diet, environment, metabolic and genetic. This disease is the result of an imbalance between energy absorption and expenditure. Mutations in genes that are responsible for appetite control and metabolism are considered as the genetic component of obesity. Adiponectin protein is one of the most effective adipokines in regulating the body's energy homeostasis and fat storage, which is expressed by the ADIPOQ gene and secreted from white adipose tissue. The concentration of this protein in the blood decreases in obesity. In this study, the relationship between rs266729 polymorphism in the ADIPOQ gene with the level of biochemical parameters such as total cholesterol and triglyceride and HDL and LDL in the blood of obese people in Borujen (a city in Iran) was investigated. This study was performed on 100 people who referred to the Tamin Ejtemaee clinic due to obesity problems in Borujen. In this study, the ARMS-PCR method was used to determine the genotype of individuals. Based on the results of this study, no significant relationship was found between biochemical parameters including total cholesterol, triglyceride, and LDL with rs266729 polymorphism genotypes in ADIPOQ gene in obese subjects. We concluded that rs266729 polymorphism cannot be useful as an index parameter for predispose genotype for imbalance in total cholesterol, triglyceride, and LDL levels in a person

MOCVD-Fabricated TiO2 Thin Films: Influence of Growth Conditions on Fibroblast Cells Culture

TiO2 thin films with various morphologies were grown on Ti substrates by the LP-MOCVD technique (Low Pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition from Metal-Organic precursor), with titanium tetra-iso-propoxide as a precursor. All the films were prepared in the same conditions except the deposition time. They were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, optical 15 interferometry, water contact angle measurements. MOCVD-fabricated TiO2 thin films are known to be adapted to cell culture for implant requirements. Human gingival fibroblasts were cultured on the various TiO2 deposits. Differences in cell viability (MTT tests) and cell spreading (qualitative assessment) were observed and related to film roughness, wettability and allotropic composition

Comparing the performance and problems of pre-school centers and kindergartens in Varamin city in Iran

The necessity to examine the performance and problems of pre-school course is due to the significant effect of this course in the child's growth. In this descriptive study, we used systematic perspective to survey and the statistical community is all the managers, coaches and parents of pre-school centers of Varamin in academic year of 2012-13 (2772 people). The sample size is 598 people, according to Morgan table collecting information has been done through observation, interviews, questionnaires and in library and validity of tool research was approved by the teachers and the coefficient of 941/0 = α was calculated, which is an indicative of appropriate stability. To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in performance and problems in preschool centers under the protection of education and welfare centers in the size of input, process and environment

Comparing the performance and problems of pre-school centers and kindergartens in Varamin city in Iran

The necessity to examine the performance and problems of pre-school course is due to the significant effect of this course in the child's growth. In this descriptive study, we used systematic perspective to survey and the statistical community is all the managers, coaches and parents of pre-school centers of Varamin in academic year of 2012-13 (2772 people). The sample size is 598 people, according to Morgan table collecting information has been done through observation, interviews, questionnaires and in library and validity of tool research was approved by the teachers and the coefficient of 941/0 = α was calculated, which is an indicative of appropriate stability. To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in performance and problems in preschool centers under the protection of education and welfare centers in the size of input, process and environment