A Knowledge Management View of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in General Educational System (GES) of Iran

AbstractEnglish is the main foreign language in Iran. It is used and taught more than other foreign languages. Teaching this language in General Education System (GES) of Iran, occurs during two high school levels. The process of teaching English during these six years was probed from the viewpoint of knowledge management (KM), using the Delphi method of obtaining information to grasp GES weaknesses. Conducting two rounds of Delphi and exerting Kendall's coefficient of concordance on the acquired informatin from 18 English teachers -who have taught English for thirty years-about the process of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in GES, we could acquire 41 viewpoints that can be counted on as the tacit knowledge of the teachers and may be used in future studies

Leaky Wave Antenna by Spin Photonic Topological Insulators Using 30-degree rhombic unit cell

A new spin photonic topological insulator model with a 30-degree rhombic unit cell is presented and analyzed. Topological band gaps and the robustness against the defects are shown. The edge modes are studied via full-wave simulation of a ribbon of unit cells. By using the structure in the fast wave region, a leaky wave antenna is proposed with a gain of 18.2dB.Comment: 4 page 10 figur

A cross-disciplinary analysis of thematic structure of dissertation abstracts

The ways by which the academic texts are investigated differ from time to time with legacies of each tradition influencing the subsequent approaches. One of the approaches that has not lost its favor ever since it was established is the Australian Systemic Functional tradition. Based on the descriptions provided by this tradition, in this study, the thematic structure (Halliday, 1994) of the gap indication move and the Introduction section (Swales, 2004) of 120 dissertation abstracts from six disciplines was investigated at two levels, i.e. choice of theme type and thematic progression. The simple topical theme was recognized as the typical theme of the rhetorical units in focus across the six disciplines. With respect to the thematic progression, the theme-reiteration and zig-zag patterns were found to be the characteristic patterns. These results indicate that the language of abstracts is remarkably factual and far from abstraction

Studying the Relationship between Learning Styles and Progressive Teaching Methods among High Schools Students in the city of Isfahan

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between learning styles and progressive teaching methods among high schools students in the city of Isfahan. This study is a practical research from purpose view and is a descriptive-correlation one from research methodology perspective. The statistical population of this study includes all of the male and female students of high schools in the city of Isfahan in 2010-2011 academic year. This population consists of 86142 students. A sample of 150 students has been selected from this population through multi-stages cluster sampling. This sample consists of 79 female students and 71 male ones. In order to collect the research data, a standard questionnaire and a self-administrated questionnaire has been used. The first questionnaire that has been developed by Reid was used for examining learning styles among students and the second self-administrated one has been used for investigating the teaching methods. The reliability of the questionnaires has been examined through Cronbachs’ Alpha Coefficient. The coefficient was 0.68 and 0.94 for our questionnaire and confirms reliability of the questionnaires. Also the supervisor and other professors have been asked to review and modify the questionnaire and thereby its face validity has been examined and confirmed. The results of this study revealed that there is not any significant relationship between individual learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods. Also the results indicated that there is not any significant relationship between collective learning styles and students’ preferred teaching methods. Another part of the results showed that the relationship between project learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods is significant. Finally, the observed difference between students’ average of learning styles and their preferred teaching methods in terms of gender was significant. Keywords: Learning, Learning Styles, Teaching Method

Determination of the Best Indirect Selection Criteria for Genetic Improvement of Seed Yield in Sunflower (Helianthus annus L.) Genotypes

Correlation and path coefficient analyses were studied on three diverse genotypes of sunflower in order to understand the relationship and contribution on eight characters towards the seed yield. The seed yield exhibits highly significant and positive correlation with plant height, oil yield and total number of seeds per head. Days to full flowering and head diameter showed significant and negative relation with seed yield. Path coefficient analysis revealed that total number of seeds per head had the highest and positive direct effect on seed yield. On the other hand, days to full flowering and head diameter showed the highest and negative direct effect on seed yield. Hence, the study revealed the importance of total number of seeds per head, days to full flowering and head diameter as indirect selection criteria for genetic improvement of seed yield in sunflower breeding programs especially in early generations

THE RIGHTS OF MINORITY CITIZENS FROM THE QURAN AND SEERAH

Abstract. Humans having or lacking citizenship rights regardless of the acceptance of political sovereignty isa matter of debate and dialogue between different schools of thought. Heavenly religions, especially Islam, claim to universality and because of the great reputation for humans, regardless of race, color, religion, etc places, certainly in interacting with people who initially refuses to accept Islamic rule, or later and out of the shadow of doubt the banner of Islam and a minority in terms of population, has designed solutions. This study titled "Islamic civil rights" by cross-referring to the concept of citizen and religious rule, followed by extracting the most important rights of citizens of Quran and prophetic tradition and its role in the stability and security of society and establish Islamic rule and finally conclude with the presentation of Conclusions and, of familiarity and all citizens of their rights and their impact based on the rule of Islamic civilization is stopped.Keywords: the Quran, Prophet Muhammad, the rule of religious, civil rights

Investigating the Simple and Multiple Relationship between Learning Styles and Preferred Teaching Methods by High School Students in the City of Isfahan

The present study was aimed to investigate the relationship between learning styles and preferred teaching methods by high school students in the city of Isfahan. The study is a descriptive-correlational research. The statistical population of this study includes 86142 male and female students of high schools in the city of Isfahan in 2010-2011 academic years. A sample of 79 female students and 71 male ones has been selected from this population through multi-stages cluster sampling. In order to collect the research data and measure the research variables (learning styles and teaching methods), the standardized questionnaire of Reid(learning styles) and a self-administrated questionnaire of teaching methods have been employed. The results of this study revealed that there is significant multiple correlations between learning style and preferred teaching methods (r: 0.039). Based on the results of this study, it was revealed that there is not any significant relationship between individual learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods. Another part of the results showed that there is not any significant relationship between collective learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods. Finally, a significant relationship has been observed between project learning style and students’ preferred teaching methods

Transcriptional regulatory network refinement and quantification through kinetic modeling, gene expression microarray data and information theory

BACKGROUND: Gene expression microarray and other multiplex data hold promise for addressing the challenges of cellular complexity, refined diagnoses and the discovery of well-targeted treatments. A new approach to the construction and quantification of transcriptional regulatory networks (TRNs) is presented that integrates gene expression microarray data and cell modeling through information theory. Given a partial TRN and time series data, a probability density is constructed that is a functional of the time course of transcription factor (TF) thermodynamic activities at the site of gene control, and is a function of mRNA degradation and transcription rate coefficients, and equilibrium constants for TF/gene binding. RESULTS: Our approach yields more physicochemical information that compliments the results of network structure delineation methods, and thereby can serve as an element of a comprehensive TRN discovery/quantification system. The most probable TF time courses and values of the aforementioned parameters are obtained by maximizing the probability obtained through entropy maximization. Observed time delays between mRNA expression and activity are accounted for implicitly since the time course of the activity of a TF is coupled by probability functional maximization, and is not assumed to be proportional to expression level of the mRNA type that translates into the TF. This allows one to investigate post-translational and TF activation mechanisms of gene regulation. Accuracy and robustness of the method are evaluated. A kinetic formulation is used to facilitate the analysis of phenomena with a strongly dynamical character while a physically-motivated regularization of the TF time course is found to overcome difficulties due to omnipresent noise and data sparsity that plague other methods of gene expression data analysis. An application to Escherichia coli is presented. CONCLUSION: Multiplex time series data can be used for the construction of the network of cellular processes and the calibration of the associated physicochemical parameters. We have demonstrated these concepts in the context of gene regulation understood through the analysis of gene expression microarray time series data. Casting the approach in a probabilistic framework has allowed us to address the uncertainties in gene expression microarray data. Our approach was found to be robust to error in the gene expression microarray data and mistakes in a proposed TRN

A structural equation model of the halal certification and its business performance impact on food companies

Despite the overwhelming popularity of halal certification, there is considerable confusion surrounding its role and business value as well as its relation to business performance. Thus, the aim of this study is to gain better understanding of the relationship between halal certification and the business performance of halal certified food companies in the Philippines. The study was based on a survey and the time horizon was cross-sectional. The survey was carried out using stratified sampling on halal certified food companies operating in the Philippines. Through a self-administered questionnaire, 141 usable responses were acquired from the responding companies. The theorized relationship of halal certification and business performance was tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings of this study revealed that halal certification significantly affect business performance of halal certified food companies in terms of innovative and financial performance. It was also revealed that innovative performance fully mediates the relationship between halal certification and financial performance