"The Effects of International Trade on Gender Inequality: Women Carpet Weavers of Iran"

The process of economic globalization has winners and losers. Iran’s carpet industry provides a good illustration of the adverse side of this process. As the production costs of its rivals have fallen, surging international trade has reduced the market share of Iran's labor-intensive products, especially Persian carpets. This paper reports the findings of an informal survey of carpet weavers conducted in and around the Iranian city of Kashan, showing how harsh international competition has reduced the weavers’ real wages and restructured the labor force of the industry in Iran. Middle-income families have left the industry, and poor Afghan immigrant householders and their children are increasingly taking the place of Iranian weavers. Furthermore, weaving is consistent with the subordinate position of women carpet weavers within the household; as a form of employment, it has hardly affected the social status quo.

"Financing Job Guarantee Schemes by Oil Revenue: The Case of Iran"

Iran's constitution emphasizes social justice and obliges government to provide a job for every citizen. But in fact, the government’s duty to provide jobs has shifted to government support for a measure designed to create new employment opportunities through subsidized loans to the private sector. This policy has not been successful to date, and the current stock of unemployed workers is about three million--12.75 percent of the country's labor force. To realize the desire of the Iranian people to achieve full employment and social justice, the government must implement employment guarantee schemes, or EGS, in the most deprived areas. Elected town and village councils can design and manage the public works with the help of other government, as well as nongovernment, institutions. Programs can be financed using less than 10 percent of the annual oil-exporting revenue that is deposited in the Oil Stabilization Fund.

An Investigation of the Effect of Different Feedback-based Assessments on Oral Performance and Attitudes of Iranian EFL Learners

Feedback is a core component of the learning process which has three levels: teacher feedback, peer feedback and self-feedback. The role of teacher feedback has received considerable attention from second language acquisition (SLA) researchers for the past three decades. Assessment is another factor in improving learning. The present study is an attempt to investigate and compare the effects of peer feedback-based assessment, teacher feedback-based assessment, and self-feedback-based assessment on oral performance of EFL Iranian learners and also learners’ attitudes toward them. The assessments’ rubric criteria used in this study was based on 14 points scale of Yamashiro and Johnson (1997). The participants comprised 84 TEFL students. A mixed method experimentation design was followed with a between-groups comparison in which independent groups have been compared followed by another phase looking for students’ views through an attitude survey. This study used descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation, one-way ANOVA and post hoc test. The results revealed that teacher feedback-based assessment group performed significantly better than the other two groups in oral performance

Contributory Role of Pre-task Planning in Improving Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing of Argumentative Essays: The Case of Accuracy and Complexity

Generally, Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) is an approach which places a high premium on the utilization of tasks as fundamental units of planning language instruction in L2 writing classroom. Accordingly, the present study sought to investigate the extent to which pre-task planning can influence the accuracy and complexity of the sentence structures in the argumentative essays written by male and female Iranian EFL learners with an intermediate proficiency level. As such, a Quick Oxford Proficiency Test (Q.O.P.T) was administered to a population of intermediate students learning English in a language institute in Isfahan. Based on their scores, two intermediate samples, 25 each, were randomly selected and labeled as control and experimental groups. While learners in the control group received writing instruction by a product based approach, the learners in the treatment sample were taught by a task based approach focusing on pre-task planning. At the end of the treatment, a full term, the analysis of the data obtained from the essays written by the participants revealed that pre-task planning improved the accuracy and complexity of the structures in the essays written by both male and female learners in the treatment group compared with those in the control group. Additionally, the results indicated that there was a meaningful interaction between pre-task planning and gender

TEHRAN, THE VIRTUAL ISLAMIC CITY: URBAN VISUAL TRANSFORMATION IN POST-REVOLUTIONARY TEHRAN 1980-1990

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Iranian EFL Teachers\u27 Perceptions of Dynamic Assessment: Exploring the Role of Education and Length of Service

The present study reports on the thematic analysis of Iranian EFL teachers\u27 perceptions of dynamic assessment in relation to their academic degree and length of service. To this end, 42 Iranian EFL teachers participated in the study. Of these teachers, 22 held BA and 20 held MA degrees in ELT-related subjects, with varying lengths of service. Semi-structured interviews were used to inquire into the teachers\u27 perceptions of dynamic assessment. The four major themes which emerged from the content analysis of the audiotaped interviews revealed significant variations in participants\u27 patterns of perceptions and concerns towards dynamic assessment. The major themes comprised of teachers\u27 understanding of dynamic assessment as a classroom practice, viewing their own agency in application of dynamic assessment, the place of learners in this practice, and their awareness about contextual constraints affecting application of dynamic assessment. Suggestions for further research as well as limitations of the study are also discussed

Cisplatin Nephrotoxicity and Protection by Milk Thistle Extract in Rats

The protective effect of methanolic extract of milk thistle seeds and silymarin against cisplatin-induced renal toxicity in male rats after a single intraperitoneal injection of 3 mg kg(−1) cisplatin were studied. Over 5 days, cisplatin-treated rats showed tubular necrosis and elevation in blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (Scr). Pretreatment of animals with silymarin (50 mg kg(−1)) or extract (0.6 g kg(−1)) 2 h before cisplatin prevented the tubular damage. Rats treated with silymarin or extract 2 h after cisplatin had BUN and Scr significantly lower than those receiving cisplatin, but mild to moderate necrosis was observed. These results suggested that milk thistle may protect against cisplatin-induced renal toxicity and might serve as a novel combination agent with cisplatin to limit renal injury

Emotional mediators of psychological capital on well-being: The role of stress, anxiety, and depression

Researchers have tried to investigate multiple factors affecting employees' social, emotional, and psychological well-being. In this study particularly, nurses' emotional and psychological well-being is considered. Of most important factors affecting well-being in place of work has known to be busy work and stress, constructive and destructive emotions, and psychological capital which. Present study considered to test a developed model of psychological capital, constructive and destructive emotions, stress, anxiety, and depression as antecedents of well-being. 296 nurses took part in the survey, using path analysis method hypotheses were tested, and the proposed model was evaluated. Results indicated that nurses' high psychological capital increases their constructive emotions, reduces destructive emotions and eventually increase their well-being. The role of destructive emotions was more prominent in increasing wellbeing as well. Furthermore, stress had an incremental influence on well-being. In general, research results emphasize the need for more attention to the components of psychological capital, and intervention and coping strategies. The conclusions of a more detailed is that to improve nurses' well-being the more emphasize should be on decreasing destructive emotions than increasing constructive ones. In addition, keeping an optimal level of stress is necessary for good functioning and improvement of overall well-being