Washback Effect of the University Entrance Examination on Iranian Pre-University English Language Teachers’ Curriculum Planning and Instruction

The impact of a test on teaching and learning is commonly referred to as the washback effect. In Iran, the university entrance exam (UEE) is assumed to exert a negative washback effect on language education. This study examined the nature and scope of the impact of the UEE on pre-university English teachers’ (PETs) teaching and curricular planning in six dimensions, that is, classroom activities and time arrangement, teaching methods, teaching materials, syllabus design, teaching contents, and classroom assessment. It also explored PETs’ expectations of the UEE. In this study, eight factors (independent variables) were studied under two subheadings: 1) teacher characteristics (teaching experience, educational background, professionalism, and gender) and 2) context characteristics (school type, school location, perceived students’ learning attitudes, and perceived external pressure). In the first phase, 220 subjects selected based on the proportional stratified random sampling responded to the questionnaires. The Cronbach alpha of the questionnaire was 0.97. In the second phase, eight purposively selected PETs participated in two focus group interviews. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, t-test statistics, and stepwise regression were used to analyze the quantitative data from the survey questionnaires and a systematic note-based technique recommended by Krueger (2002) was used to analyze and interpret the qualitative data from the focus group interviews. The findings showed that PETs’ perceived professionalism in teaching (r = .388) and perceived students’ learning attitudes (r = .464) were positively and moderately associated with their perceptions of the impact of the UEE on their instruction and curricular planning. There was also a low positive relationship between teachers’ perceived professionalism in teaching and their expectations of the UEE (r = .229). Based on the results from the stepwise regression analysis, perceived students’ learning attitudes (21.2%), perceived external pressure in teaching (3.0%), and perceived professionalism in teaching (1.1%) can be used to reliably predict PETs’ perceptions of the impact of the UEE. Furthermore, perceived professionalism (.048%) and school location (.031%) can be used to reliably predict PETs’ expectations of the UEE. Almost all PETs, regardless of their teaching experience, educational background, gender, the school type, and the school location where they were teaching perceived the negative effect of the UEE similarly. The implication is that potentially influential factors such as teachers’ experience and educational background play a neutral role in adopting effective teaching techniques due to the washback phenomenon. Thus, if the UEE is not reformed to encourage English teachers to teach communicatively, spending millions of Rials on training and improving their level of knowledge at teacher training colleges and universities would be a great loss

Investigating the Impact of Dissuasive Factors of the Fuel and Oil Products Smuggling in the Customs of Iran

The huge difference in the price of Iran's fuel across borders due to national subsidies to oil products and the fuel crisis in neighboring countries has caused smuggling of heavy goods to account for the highest rates of trafficking in goods from inside the country. Increasing fuel trafficking from the borders of the country is due to the huge difference in fuel prices in Iran with neighboring countries. In addition to the severe blows that the smuggling of these drugs causes on the economy of the region and the country, it leads to a false crisis and its dangers. Different perceptions of existing laws are different and various from the laws on similar issues, including the problems faced by the judiciary and government departments in counteracting the violations of fuel products. This study, considering the shortcomings and shortcomings of the smuggling of gas in the Iranian customs as well as the manner in which services are provided by customs, is to investigate the deterrent factors of smuggling fuel and oil products. For this purpose, a research was carried out at the customs level of the Mahirood border zone. Keywords: Smuggling, Iran Customs, Border Areas, Oil Products, Customs Rules. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-12-08 Publication date:June 30th 201

Optimal degradation of Ciprofloxacin in a heterogeneous Fenton-like process using (δ-FeOOH)/MWCNTs nanocomposite

publishedVersio

The effect of group cognitive-behavioral therapy in reducing aggression in patients with thalassemia

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) on aggression in patients with thalassemia.Methods: This is an applied study in terms of objective and it is semi-experimental due to the nature of the subject, pre-test, post-test and follow-up conducted in the control group. The sample consisted of 30 patients with thalassemia city in Bojnourd, they were selected by convenience sampling method and voluntarily participated in the study. The participants were randomly divided into two groups. The first group received cognitive - behavioral therapy and the second group received no therapy. Both groups were assessed by the pre-test, post-test, and one month follow up. The assessment tool in this study were Aggression Questionnaire AGQ. Data were analyzed using SPSS software and variance analysis with repeated measures.Findings: the results showed that there is a significant correlation between the experimental group that received cognitive behavioral therapy and the control group that received no therapy in reducing aggression. These findings have important theoretical and clinical interventions.Conclusion: The results of this study will be to assess and validate detection and more precise controls used in the treatment of aggression in children with thalassemia in clinics. As well as services (CBT) to this group of clinical population as a nonpharmacologic (NMT) are effective.Keywords: cognitive behavioral group therapy, aggression, children with thalassemi

The impact of electronic communication technology on written language

Communication technology is changing things. Language is no exception. Some language researchers argue that language is deteriorating due to increased use in electronic communication. The present paper investigated 100 randomly selected electronic mails (e-mails) and 50 short messaging system (SMS) messages of a representative sample of international students in University Putra Malaysia (UPM) to find out the impact of these two specific modes of electronic communication on written language use. The e-mails from UPM International Students Association (UPM-ISA) yahoo group were content analyzed. A non-probability convenience sampling was used to select the 50 short message services sent to the researcher about different subject matters by Malaysian and international students at UPM. Then, they were also content analyzed. The results indicated that the language used in students’ e-mails and SMS messaging was full of spoken-like spelling, unconventional use of punctuation and abbreviations, and ungrammatical sentences. However, the more in-depth content analysis of the data revealed that the written language is being creatively adapted, developed, and enhanced to suit the conditions of the electronic communication age. Syntactical and lexical reductions are just strategies used to reduce effort, time and space

Overexpression of MiR-183/96/182 Triggers Retina-Like Fate in Human Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hBMSCs) in Culture

Retinal degeneration is considered as a condition ensued by different blinding disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy, which can cause loss of photoreceptor cells and also lead to significant vision deficiencies. Although there is no efficient treatment in this domain, transplantation of stem cells has been regarded as a therapeutic approach for retinal degeneration. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the potential of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs) to differentiate into photoreceptor cells via transfection of microRNA (miRNA) in vitro for regenerative medicine purposes. To this end, miR-183/96/182 cluster was transfected into hBMSCs; then, qRT-PCR was performed to measure the expression levels of miR-183/96/182 cluster and some retina-specific neuronal genes such as OTX2, NRL, PKC alpha, and recoverin. CRX and rhodopsin (RHO) levels were also measured through qRT-PCR and immunocytochemistry, and subsequently, cellular change morphology was detected. The findings showed no changes in the morphology of the given cells, and the expression of the neuroretinal genes such as OTX2, NRL, and PKC alpha. Moreover, recoverin was upregulated upon miR-183/-96/-182 overexpression in cultured hBMSCs. Ectopic overexpression of the miR-183 cluster could further increase the expression of CRX and RHO at the messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels. Furthermore, the data indicated that the miR-183 cluster could serve as a crucial function in photoreceptor cell differentiation. In fact, miRNAs could be assumed as potential targets to exploit silent neuronal differentiation. Ultimately, it was suggested that in vitro overexpression of miR-183 cluster could trigger reprogramming of the hBMSCs to retinal neuron fate, especially photoreceptor cells. keywords: DIFFERENTIATION; DELETION; CRX; PHOTORECEPTORS; FIBROBLASTS; MATURATION; EPITHELIUM; MICRORNAS; MIR-182; PROTEI

Optimizing Fenton-like process, homogeneous at neutral pH for ciprofloxacin degradation: Comparing RSM-CCD and ANN-GA

Author's accepted manuscriptAntibiotics are considered among the most non-biodegradable environmental contaminants due to their genetic resistance. Considering the importance of antibiotics removal, this study was aimed at multi-objective modeling and optimization of the Fenton-like process, homogeneous at initial circumneutral pH. Two main issues, including maximizing Ciprofloxacin (CIP) removal and minimizing sludge to iron ratio (SIR), were modeled by comparing central composite design (CCD) based on Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and hybrid Artificial Neural Network-Genetic Algorithm (ANN-GA). Results of simultaneous optimization using ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) revealed that at pH ≅ 7, optimal conditions for initial CIP concentration, Fe2+ concentration, [H2O2]/[Fe2+] molar ratio, initial EDTA concentration, and reaction time were 14.9 mg/L, 9.2 mM, 3.2, 0.6 mM, and 25 min, respectively. Under these optimal conditions, CIP removal and SIR were predicted at 85.2% and 2.24 (gr/M). In the next step, multilayer perceptron (MLP) and radial basis function (RBF) artificial neural networks (ANN) were developed to model CIP and SIR. It was concluded that ANN, especially multilayer perceptron (MLP-ANN) has a decent performance in predicting response values. Additionally, multi-objective optimization of the process was performed using Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) to maximize CIP removal efficiencies while minimizing SIR. NSGA-II optimization algorithm showed a reliable performance in the interaction between conflicting goals and yielded a better result than the GA algorithm. Finally, TOPSIS method with equal weights of the criteria was applied to choose the best alternative on the Pareto optimal solutions of the NSGA-II. Comparing the optimal values obtained by the multi-objective response surface optimization models (RSM-CCD) with the NSGA-II algorithm showed that the optimal variables in both models were close and, according to the absolute relative error criterion, possessed almost the same performance in the prediction of variables.acceptedVersio

Sr Isotopic Ratios of two Magmatic Series Unraveling the Role of Crustal Contamination in NW Firoozeh, NE Iran

AbstractTertiary basalts of NW Firoozeh in northeastern Iran are alkaline and evolve gradually towards the subalkaline andesites and dacites. Unvariant Sr isotopic ratios in the basalts, andesites and dacites indicate that the evolution of their parental melt towards progressively more differentiated melt occurred in the absence of crustal contamination. On the contrary, progressively higher Sr isotopic ratios in the alkaline basaltic trachyandesites to trachytes from NW Firoozeh suggest that crustal contamination played a significant role in the evolution of the alkaline rocks

Petrological characterization of the Cenozoic igneous rocks of the Tafresh area, central Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc (Iran)

We report a petrographic and whole-rock geochemical characterization of the Cenozoic volcanic rocks cropping out in the Tafresh area of the central Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc of Iran. The investigated rocks range mainly from basaltic andesite to dacite, and are considered to be genetically linked by (mostly) closed-system evolutionary processes involving fractionation of ferromagnesian minerals and plagioclase first, then of plagioclase and lesser amphibole (plus minor clinopyroxene) and finally of plagioclase with lesser alkali feldspar and minor amphibole. These represent a typical calcalkaline series emplaced in a subduction-related setting, producing the observed LILE-enriched and HFSE-depleted geochemical signature. The basaltic andesite compositions likely derived from an unsampled hydrous primitive melt equilibrated in a spinel-bearing metasomatized peridotite source, evolving at shallow to moderate crustal depths.Additional lithotypes cropping out in the Tafresh area include much rarer strongly evolved leucocratic rocks and evolved rocks with adakitic signature. The first are thought to derive from crustal anatexis of a meta-sedimentary source, whereas the latter are interpreted as the product of the melting of a meta-mafic source rock with residual garnet and amphibole. The association of magmatic rocks pointing to all such different petrogenetic processes in a relatively limited area is strongly suggestive of emplacement in a post-collisional stage

A social work study on relationship between transactional and laissez-fair leadership style and personality traits: A case study of educational system

Leadership style plays an essential role on personality trait in educational systems. In this paper, we present a study among 180 school principals in city of Khomeinishahr, located in province of Esfahan, Iran. The study selects a sample of 123 principals and examines ten hypotheses including the effects of personality trait neuroticism, extroversion, resilience, participative, conscientiousness on leadership style. The study examined the effects of two groups of leadership, namely transactional leadership and Laissez-fair leadership styles on five personality traits. The results have shown that there were some meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait extraversion, resilience, participative and consciousness but there was not meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait neuroticism. In addition, while there were meaningful and positive relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait extraversion as well as being resilience, our survey did not find any meaningful relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait neuroticism, extraversion and being consciousness