Exploring Foreign Language Teachers Recruitment Criteria: A Qualitative Study

Although qualities of effective language teachers have been well specified and well researched, recruiters may not be aware of these qualities or, in the light of local constraints, they may ignore these qualities and apply their own criteria. To uncover the criteria which are actually applied in recruiting language teachers, this qualitative study purposively sampled 15 supervisors who were in charge of recruiting language teachers in private language schools of Sari, the capital city of Mazandran province and then theoretically sampled their perspectives and analyzed them in line with the principles and procedures of grounded theory. Iterative data collection and analysis revealed that the participants considered nine qualities including educational background, professional experience, management skills, mastery over language skills and subskills in recruiting language teachers. The findings have clear implications for both recruiters and language teachers

The linear barycentric rational method for a class of delay Volterra integro-differential equations

A method for solving delay Volterra integro-differential equations is introduced. It is based on two applications of linear barycentric rational interpolation, barycentric rational quadrature and barycentric rational finite differences. Its zero–stability and convergence are studied. Numerical tests demonstrate the excellent agreement of our implementation with the predicted convergence orders

Exploring the Professional Beliefs of an EFL Teacher: A Narrative Inquiry

The applied science model of teacher education implies that the relationship between theory and practice is unidirectional. In this study, however, the researchers make a case in the opposite direction, i.e., they believe that professional practice can also shed some light on theories of language teaching. Since narrative inquiry is best for capturing the detailed stories or life experiences of a single life, the researchers took it as a legitimate mode of research to uncover and make sense of the professional experience of an experienced and professionally popular language teacher. Analysis revealed six themes, which reflect the participant’s professional beliefs. Among other things, she believes that optimizing teaching practice depends on maximizing learner involvement, focusing on responsive teaching, leaving room for practice, and personalizing practice. The study has clear implications for practitioners and teacher educators

Adult Posterior Urethral Valve: a Case Report of the Oldest Known Patient

A posterior urethral valve (PUV) is a congenital obstructive defect of the male urethra, and sometimes maybe life threatening. The diagnosis of PUV is usually made early because of its symptoms and has rarely been diagnosed in adults for the first time in life. Here we report a rare case of an adult PUV in a 67 year-old man with 40 years history of urinary obstruction complaints with coincidence type 1 and 2 of PUV who underwent transurethral resection of the bladder neck and valve ablation. After 6 months follow-up, no evidence of urinary obstruction observed

The Perceptions of Iranian Policymakers as Articulated in Iran’s Foreign Language Policy Document: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach

The present study was an attempt to investigate the perceptions of the Iranian foreign language policy makers as articulated in Iran’s foreign language policy document using a systemic functional linguistics approach. To this end, the type of processes and participants who have been used in Iran’s foreign language policy document were identified and interpreted in light of the assumptions of systemic functional linguistics and the related literature. The findings point out that the foreign language education policy document is heavily influenced by and draws on well-entrenched ideological, historical, religious, and political discourses. Further interpretations show that the FLEP document is heavily influenced by what is referred to as the Islamic ideology and discourse. In addition, applying a systemic functional linguistics approach to the document also offers a host of other interesting information about the Iranian foreign language teaching policymakers underlying perceptions about foreign language teaching and issues of globalization and imperialism. The concept of agency and how it is deemed by the Iranian foreign language practitioners was another identified topic. An investigation of the National Document of Education that includes the FLEP document as one of its subsections further showed that teachers have been appropriately described as autonomous individuals who possess the required agency to conduct and direct the classroom learning and teaching processes. Investigations also provide information on the perceptions of the Iranian foreign language education policymakers about the age that students must begin the learning of a foreign language at school

Day-Ahead Scheduling for Economic Dispatch of Combined Heat and Power with Uncertain Demand Response

This paper presents an energy management method for the interconnected operation of power, heat, Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units to settle the Day-Ahead market in the presence of a demand response program (DRP). A major challenge in this regard is the price uncertainty for DRP participants. First, the definitive model of the problem is introduced from the perspective of the Regional Market Manager (RMM) in order to minimize the total supply cost in the presence of TOU program, which is a type of DRP. Furthermore, a market-oriented tensile model is presented in the form of a combination of over-lapping generations (OLG) and price elasticity (PE) formulations to determine the amount of electricity demand in the TOU program. Then, a price uncertainty model of the proposed problem is introduced according to the IGDT risk aversion and risk-taking strategies considering information gap decision theory (IGDT). The above problem is solved through the use of the co-evolutionary particle swarm optimization (C-PSO) algorithm and the proposed model is implemented on a standard seven-unit system for a period of 24 hours.© 2022 authors. Published by IEEE. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

ROLE OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIES IN BUSINESS STRATEGIES OF AN ORGANIZATION – CASE STUDY: INDUSTRIAL UNITS OF KURDISTAN PROVINCE, IRAN

Information technology strategy with business strategy is considered as the most important issue for IT and business managers. The overall purpose of this research is to investigate the strategic role of information technology in industrial units of Kurdistan province. The research method of this paper is descriptive-applied and for data collection, two methods of library studies and field studies have been used. In this research, the standard questionnaire of pop determining the role was used and validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha test. The statistical population of the study consisted of 400 managers, experts and supervisors of industrial units of Kurdistan province. Using classical sampling method with appropriate allocation, the number of samples was determined by 196 people by the Cochran formula. The results show that with the probability of 95% confidence, the infrastructure of the organization, IT infrastructure and organization strategies are well defined. However, the results show that the information technology strategy in the above mentioned statistical population is not properly defined. Organizational strategies fit with the infrastructure of the organization and this moderate proportion is down. Also, IT infrastructure is compatible with IT strategies, but this proportion is at a very low level. Finally, the organization's strategies are integrated with IT strategies.  Article visualizations