Integration of E-Portfolio into an Iranian Flipped Classroom: Does the Flip Type Make a Difference in Listening Comprehension?

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of a flipped learning model on English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ L2 listening comprehension. E-portfolio writing was treated as the pre-class activity in the flipped classroom. To this end, 36 intermediate students from an English institute were chosen based on an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) and they were assigned to a flipped classroom (experimental group) and a traditional classroom (control group). After running a pretest of listening comprehension, the listening materials were presented to the participants in the flipped classroom through WhatsApp. In contrast, the participants in the control group received the same listening materials inside the class. Socrative was selected as the online platform to assess the experimental group participants. After ten sessions, to elicit data, a post-test on listening comprehension was administered to the participants in both groups to measure their listening comprehension. The independent samples t-test revealed significant differences in learning listening comprehension between both groups in favor of the experimental group. In fact, participants in the flipped classroom group outperformed the control group. Additional research is needed to generalize the findings of this approach across different contexts

Spiritual Health, Family Hardiness and Family Satisfaction: A Comparison between Addicts and Non-addicts

For downloading the full-text of this article please click here. Background and Objective:Spirituality and family are two important components in determining the psychological and social damages. The purpose of this study was to compare addicts and non-addicts in terms of spiritual health, family hardiness, and family satisfaction.Method: The present study is a causal-comparative one whose statistical population consisted of all male addicts in Dehdasht city in 2015. In the present study, 70 addicts were selected through cluster random sampling method and also 70 non-addicts who were homogeneous in terms of demographic characteristics with addicts were selected through convenience sampling. Both groups completed the spiritual health questionnaire, family hardiness index, and family satisfaction questionnaire. The gathered data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). All ethical issues were observed in this study and the researchers declared no conflict of interests.Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between addicts and non-addicts. The scores of addicts on all three variables of spiritual health (religious health and existential health), family hardiness, and family satisfaction were lower than non-addicts (P<0.001).Conclusion: It can be concluded that addicts are at disadvantage in terms of spiritual health, family hardiness, and family satisfaction compared to non-addicts. In addition, in the treatment of addiction, these variables can be included as levers in the programs.For downloading the full-text of this article please click here

The impact of writing portfolio assessment on writing proficiency of Iranian EFL learners

ABSTRACT A current concern in writing theory and practice is with the new pedagogical orthodoxy of process writing and communicative language teaching where the main interest is in what writers do when they write. This approach sees writing as explanatory, generative, and recursive. Therefore, writing portfolio assessment as an alternative to traditional assessments has gained popularity in writing pedagogy. The present investigation was designed to study a group of thirty eight Iranian EFL learners with the aim of investigating the possible effects of using writing portfolio assessment on improving writing proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. The learners were asked to perform some writing tasks. Then they edited their own papers and corrected their writing products using the five categories of content, organization, grammar, spelling, and mechanics while they were engaged in a continuous dialogue with the teacher. The results indicated that portfolio writing was effective in developing subjects' writing ability with no significant difference among the three subgroups except that only high achievers improved organization of their writing

VOCABULARY LEARNING IN THE MOBILE-ASSISTED FLIPPED CLASSROOM IN AN IRANIAN EFL CONTEXT

The emergence of flipped instruction has provided new opportunities to improve English language learning. The present study attempted to investigate the effects of flipped learning strategy on enhancing the vocabulary knowledge of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, the authors assigned 26 learners from an English institute to the flipped and conventional groups. They adopted a two-group counterbalanced design in this research. In the flipped classroom, the teacher posted the course materials via Telegram in advance to the class. Inside the classroom, the participants engaged in various peer and group activities including pre-communicative sentence arrangement, communicative tasks, pair, and group discussion, role-play and storytelling. The data were from multiple data sources including a vocabulary knowledge test, a student-recorded portfolio and interviews. The results revealed that the participants performed better in the conventional classroom than the flipped learning classroom. However, they did not have positive attitudes toward inverted learning. The authors presented insights into the impacts of flipped instruction on the quality of vocabulary learning and offered recommendations and implications for future practice

Photosystem I application in biohybrid polymer solar cells

The use of Bio-photonic systems has attracted a lot of attention recently specially in the field of solar energy conversion and photovoltaic materials the use of photosynthetic organs of plants is very promising. The energy conversion in the process of photosynthesis is close to 100% and it’s environmental compatibly are the main reasons for why photosynthesis has attracted the attention of energy system designers and researchers. The way of solar energy conversion in photosynthesis indicates a great potential as a fount of renewable energy. Use of the photosynthetic components in photosensors and photovoltaic devices solitarily, has disadvantages such as low extracted current compared to other kinds of photovoltaic materials. Accordingly, for more useful and better application, these photosynthetic components could be used as the optimizer of the other species of photovoltaic materials and solar cells. photosystem1 protein complex, which is the main member of photosynthetic components has maximum absorption spectrum wavelength at 430nm and 665nm. Therefore, it can be an appropriate complement for polymeric solar cells with their absorption spectrum at the green wavelength region. In this paper we have used the photosystem1 protein complex in the inverted polymer solar cell with structure of ITO/P3HT:ICBA/PS1/Al and positive results have been observed. So that the polymer solar cells efficiency was enhanced from 4.3% to 4.53%

مقایسه‌ی سلامت معنوی، سرسختی خانواده و رضایتمندی از خانواده در افراد معتاد و غیرمعتاد

خلفية البحث وأهدافه: تعتبر المعنوية والاسرة مكونين مهمين في تبيين المشاكل النفسية والاجتماعية والغرض من الدراسة هذه، مقارنة مستوى الصحة المعنوية وصلابة الاسرة والرضا الاسري في المدمنين وغيرهم. منهجية البحث: تم اجراء هذه الدراسة بطريقة سببيةـ مقارنة واشتمل المجتمع الاحصائي جميع المدمنين الذكور في مدينة دهدشت عام 2015. في هذه الدراسة تم اختیار 70 مدمنا بطريقة اخذ العينة العشوائية العنقودية و70 غير مدمن من خلال اخذ العينة المتاحة والتي تمت مطابقتهم مع المدمنين من حيث الخصائص الديموغرافية. تمت الاجابة من قبلهم على استبيان الصحة المعنوية ومعيار الصلابة الاسرية واستبيان الرضا الاسري. تم تحليل البيانات التي تم جمعها بطريقة تحليل التباين المتعدد (MANOVA). تمت مراعاة جميع الموارد الاخلاقية في هذا البحث؛ و اضافة الى هذا فإن مؤلفي المقالةلم يشيروا الى تضارب المصالح. الكشوفات: اظهرت الكشوفات ان هناك فروقاً ذات دلالة احصائية بين مجموعتي المدمنين وغير المدمنين، فكانت درجة المدمنين في المتغيرات الثلاثة للصحة المعنوية (الصحة الدينية والصحة الجسمية) وصلابة الاسرة والرضا الاسري اقل بكثير من مجموعة غير المدمنين (001/0P<). الاستنتناج: يمكن الاستنتاج بأن المدمنين في وضع اسوء من حيث الصحة المعنوية وصلابة الاسرة والرضا الاسري مقارنة بغير المدمنين واضافة الى هذا يمكن ادراج هذه المكونات واستخدامها في خطط علاجية كوسلية علاجية.   يتم استناد المقالة على الترتيب التالي:  Mohsenzadeh F, Ghasemi Jobaneh R, Dargahi Sh, Jalili Nikoo S. Spiritual Health, Family Hardiness and Family Satisfaction: A Comparison between Addicts and Non-addicts. J Res Relig Health. 2018; 4(4): 33- 43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v4i4.17163Background and Objective: Spirituality and family are two important components in determining the psychological and social damages. The purpose of this study was to compare addicts and non-addicts in terms of spiritual health, family hardiness, and family satisfaction. Method: The present study is a causal-comparative one whose statistical population consisted of all male addicts in Dehdasht city in 2015. In the present study, 70 addicts were selected through cluster random sampling method and also 70 non-addicts who were homogeneous in terms of demographic characteristics with addicts were selected through convenience sampling. Both groups completed the spiritual health questionnaire, family hardiness index, and family satisfaction questionnaire. The gathered data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). All ethical issues were observed in this study and the researchers declared no conflict of interests. Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between addicts and non-addicts. The scores of addicts on all three variables of spiritual health (religious health and existential health), family hardiness, and family satisfaction were lower than non-addicts (P<0.001). Conclusion: It can be concluded that addicts are at disadvantage in terms of spiritual health, family hardiness, and family satisfaction compared to non-addicts. In addition, in the treatment of addiction, these variables can be included as levers in the programs.   Please cite this article as: Mohsenzadeh F, Ghasemi Jobaneh R, Dargahi Sh, Jalili Nikoo S. Spiritual Health, Family Hardiness and Family Satisfaction: A Comparison between Addicts and Non-addicts. J Res Relig Health. 2018; 4(4): 33- 43.DOI: https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v4i4.17163سابقه و هدف: معنویت و خانواده دو سازه‌ی مهم در تبیین آسیب‌های روان‌شناختی و اجتماعی محسوب می‌شود. هدف پژوهش حاضر مقایسه‌ی سلامت معنوی، سرسختی خانواده و رضایتمندی از خانواده در افراد معتاد و غیرمعتاد است. روش کار: پژوهش حاضر از نوع علّی - مقایسه‌یی و جامعه‌ی آماری آن شامل کلیه‌ی معتادان مرد شهرستان دهدشت در سال 1394 است. در این پژوهش 70 معتاد به شیوه‌ی نمونه‌گیری خوشه‌یی تصادفی و 70 غیرمعتاد که از نظر ویژگی‌های جمعیت‌شناختی با گروه معتاد همتاسازی شده بودند به شیوه‌ی نمونه‌گیری در دسترس انتخاب شدند و به پرسش‌نامه‌ی‌ سلامت معنوی، شاخص سرسختی خانواده و پرسش‌نامه‌ی رضایتمندی خانواده پاسخ دادند. داده‌های جمع‌آوری شده نیز به شیوه‌ی تحلیل واریانس چندمتغیّری (MANOVA) تحلیل شد. در این پژوهش همه‌ی مسائل اخلاقی رعایت شده است و نویسندگان مقاله هیچ‌گونه تضاد منافعی گزارش نکرده‌اند. یافته‌ها: نتایج نشان داد بین دو گروه معتاد و غیرمعتاد تفاوت معناداری وجود داشت و نمره‌ی افراد معتاد در هر سه متغیّر سلامت معنوی (سلامت مذهبی و سلامت وجودی)، سرسختی خانواده، و رضایتمندی از خانواده به طور معناداری از گروه مقابل کمتر بود (001/0P<). نتیجه‌گیری: مي‌توان نتيجه گرفت كه افراد معتاد از نظر سلامت معنوی، سرسختی خانواده و رضایت از خانواده در وضعيت بدتري نسبت به افراد غیرمعتاد قرار دارند. به‌علاوه، در درمان اعتیاد می‌توان این مؤلفه‌ها را در برنامه‌های درمانی گنجاند و به عنوان اهرم درمانی به کار بست. Mohsenzadeh F, Ghasemi Jobaneh R, DargahiSh, Jalili NikooS. Spiritual Health, Family Hardiness and Family Satisfaction: A Comparison between Addicts and Non-addicts. J Res Relig Health. 2018; 4(4): 33- 43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22037/jrrh.v4i4.1716

Clinical Science- The Mutations Of Ret Proto-Oncogene Inmedullarythyroid Carcinomas In Iran

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) occurs both sporadically and in the autoso-mal dominantly inherited multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2 syndromes. The distinction between true sporadic MTC and a new mutation familial case is important for future clinical management of both the patient and family.The susceptibility gene for hereditary MTC is the RET proto-oncogene. DNA analysis for germline mutations of the RET proto-oncogene was performed in a series of 24 patients with MTC [appar-ently sporadic MTC (20 cases), familial MTC (2 cases), MEN 2A (one case) and MEN 2B (one case)] to determine whether they were true sporadic cases or heredi-tary forms. Genomic DNA was amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and oligonucleotide primers for exons 10 & 11. The PCR products were examined by restriction enzymes analysis to detect the mutations. One of the 20 patients with appar-ent sporadic MTC had exon 10 mutation (Cys-620 Arg); and exon 11 mutation (Cys-634 Trp) was also found in the index case with MEN 2A. No mutation was detected in the other patients. Three of six evaluated members of the MEN 2A patient had the same mutation. We conclude that routine application of RET proto-oncogene testing should be included in all cases of apparent sporadic MTC

CentiServer: A Comprehensive Resource, Web-Based Application and R Package for Centrality Analysis.

Various disciplines are trying to solve one of the most noteworthy queries and broadly used concepts in biology, essentiality. Centrality is a primary index and a promising method for identifying essential nodes, particularly in biological networks. The newly created CentiServer is a comprehensive online resource that provides over 110 definitions of different centrality indices, their computational methods, and algorithms in the form of an encyclopedia. In addition, CentiServer allows users to calculate 55 centralities with the help of an interactive web-based application tool and provides a numerical result as a comma separated value (csv) file format or a mapped graphical format as a graph modeling language (GML) file. The standalone version of this application has been developed in the form of an R package. The web-based application (CentiServer) and R package (centiserve) are freely available at http://www.centiserver.org/

The percentage of essential proteins in the top 100 ranked proteins by various centrality indices.

<p>The percentage of essential proteins in the top 100 ranked proteins by various centrality indices.</p