EFL Teachers' Reflective Teaching, Use of Motivational Strategies, and Their Sense of Efficacy

The present study aimed at systematically investigating the relationship among EFL teachers' Reflective Teaching (RT), Use of Motivational Strategies (UMS), and Sense of Efficacy (SE). The participants of the study were 194 male and female EFL teachers, between 20 to 30 years of age (Mage = 25) and with 1 to 10 years of teaching experience. The participants were asked to fill out three questionnaires: the RT questionnaire by Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand (2010), the questionnaire of UMS by Cheng and Dörnyei (2007), and the questionnaire of SE by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001). Analyzing the data through running the non-parametric Spearman's rank order coefficient of correlation indicated that there was a significant and positive correlation between RT and UMS, RT and SE, and between UMS and SE. Furthermore, running a multiple regression analysis revealed that RT could more significantly predict the SE among EFL teachers. Regarding the limitations and drawing upon the findings, the article concludes with some pedagogical implications and some avenues for future research

Prevalence of Different Subtypes of Renal Cell Carcinoma among Patients who have Undergone Nephrectomy; Statistics of a Referral Medical Center in Iran

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the third most common genitourinary cancer in the world, and has the highest mortality rates among these types of cancers. In the present cross-sectional assessment, the prevalence of RCC subtypes in a sample of Iranian patients diagnosed with RCC which have undergone nephrectomy surgery between years 2014 to 2019 in a referral medical center has been investigated. We have studied 68 patients, including 47 male and 21 female individuals with an average age of 55. The patients have been studied for demographic and pathologic information such as age, sex, tumor size, tumor subtype, TNM staging, Fuhrman nuclear grading, and other pathological information. The statistical analysis was done via SPSS software version 21. Quantitative data were examined by T test and qualitative data were assessed by Chi square test. As we observed in the results, the most common RCC subtype among these patients was clear cell 53%, followed by papillary 22% and chromophobe 19%, emphasizing the higher rates of chromophobe RCC compared to the statistics worldwide

Buzano, Kre\u{i}n and Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities

The Cauchy-Schwarz, Buzano and Kre\u{i}n inequalities are three inequalities about inner product. The main goal of this article is to present refinements of Buzano and Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities, and to present a new proof of a refined version of a Kre\u{i}n-type inequality. Applications that include Buzano-type inequalities for contractions, operator norm and numerical radius inequalities of Hilbert space operators will be presented

A convex treatment of numerical radius inequalities

In this article, we prove an inner product inequality for Hilbert space operators. This inequality, then, is utilized to present a general numerical radius inequality using convex functions. Applications of the new results include obtaining new forms that generalize and extend some well known results in the literature, with an application to the newly defined generalized numerical radius. We emphasize that the approach followed in this article is different from the approaches used in the literature to obtain the refined versions

The common fixed point of single-valued generalized φf-weakly contractive mappings

AbstractFixed point and coincidence results are presented for single-valued generalized φf-weakly contractive mappings on complete metric spaces (X,d), where φ:[0,∞)→[0,∞) is a lower semicontinuous function with φ(0)=0 and φ(t)>0 for all t>0 and f:E→X is a function such that E⊆X is nonempty and closed. Our results extend previous results given by Rhoades (2001) [1] and by Zhang and Song (2009) [2]

The comparison of plasma fibronectin in term and preterm delivery: A cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study

Background: Preterm delivery is one of the main causes of infant death. Therefore, prediction of preterm delivery may eliminate a large number of prenatal complications. Objectives: The present study aimed to understand if preterm delivery can be predicted by assessing maternal plasma fibronectin concentration. Materials and Methods: Serum samples from 105 pregnant women participating in this study were collected. The plasma fibronectin were measured at 24-28 wk of gestation and again at 32-36 wk of gestation. Unfortunately, only 65 of the 105 pregnant women, returned for the second sampling. The plasma fibronectin was analyzed using ELISA method and its concentration in term and preterm deliveries was compared. The delivery dates of all the women were also recorded. Results: Out of 105 pregnant women, 28 delivered preterm (26.7%). The Plasma fibronectin concentrations in women with preterm delivery were higher than in those who delivered at term (p = 0.001). Accordingly, Plasma fibronectin concentrations were significantly higher in the second serum samples (p = 0.01). Plasma fibronectin concentrations was also higher in obese women and in those suffering from preeclampsia (p = 0.12) and gestational diabetes (p = 0.81). Conclusion: Plasma fibronectin concentrations test could be used as an optional screening test for preterm delivery at 28 to 34 wk of gestation in pregnant women who prefer to avoid vaginal sampling. Key words: Premature birth, Fibronectin, Maternal serum screening tests