A CRITICAL REVIEW OF A SET OF MASTER'S THESES AS MANIFESTATION OF RESEARCH LITERACY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN IRAN

From a constructivist point of view, the identification of any shortcomings in the educational process would be the first step towards its reconstruction and improvement. Although, to do so require an evaluation of the whole system and its processes and products.  However, an evaluative analysis of its products can help identify some of the deficiencies and ways of overcoming them. To this end, given the realities of the Iranian scene in regard to graduate studies, a set of master's theses in educational psychology was evaluated in terms of having the very basic characteristics of a research report in both structure and content. Given that previous research has shown major shortcomings in these respects, it was suspected that the mushrooming of institutions granting graduate degrees, and the increase in admissions, may have exacerbated the problem. The current findings show that the shortcomings have increased both in scope and depth, implying that the quality of both teaching and learning how to research has declined.  Article visualizations

Molecular characterization and antibiotic resistance of enterotoxigenic and entero-aggregative Escherichia coli isolated from raw milk and unpasteurized cheeses

The aim of this study was to determine the occurrence of enterotoxigenic and enteroaggregative Escherichia coli strains and antibiotic resistance of the isolates in raw milk and unpasteurized cheese. Out of 200 samples of raw milk and 50 samples of unpasteurized cheeses, 96 and 24 strains of E. coli were isolated, respectively. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect the genes encoding heat-stable enterotoxin a (STa), heat-stable enterotoxin b (STb), heat labile toxin (LT) and enteroaggregative heat-stable toxin1 (EAST1). Twelve out of 120 (10.00%) isolates harbored the gene for EAST1, 2(1.66%) isolates were detected as producing STb and LT toxins and 12 (10.00%) strains contained STb and EAST1 genes. None of the strains contain the STa gene. All of the strains were tested for antibiotic resistance by disk diffusion method. Disks included: ciprofloxacin (CFN), trimetoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TSX), oxytetracycline (OTC), gentamicin (GMN), cephalexin (CPN), nalidixic acid (NDA) and nitrofurantoin (NFN), ampicillin (AMP), neomycin (NEO) and streptomycin (STM). Among 120 isolated strains of E. coli, the resistance to each antibiotics were as follows: OTC100%, CPN 86.00%, NDA 56.00%, NFN 42.00%, GMN 30.00%, TSX 28.00%, CFN 20%, AM 23.40% and STM 4.25%. None of the isolates were resistant to NEO. The present data indicate that different resistant E. coli pathogens may be found in raw milk and unpasteurized cheese. It poses an infection risk for human and transferring the resistant factors to microflora of the consumers gut