---

Concentrations of lead (Pb) were found in the shells of the oyster Saccostrea cucullata and sediments in May 2010. Samples were obtained at four sites on Qeshm Island, at three sites on Hormoz Island, and at three sites in Lengeh Port along the intertidal coast of the Persian Gulf of Iran. The levels of Pb in sediments and shells were analyzed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometer.Mean Pb concentrations in the different sampling stations varied between 613.94 and 0.06 µg g^-1 in the shells of S. cucullata and 180.78 and 0.86µg g^-1 in sediments. Biological effects criteria suggest that Pb concentrations in sediments in three sites from Lengeh Port were higher than ERL (effects range low), but at the all sites were lower than ERM (effects range medium). The present results support the significant differences in shell and sediments’ accumulated concentrations of Pb among sites attributed to input sources of human activities including urban, domestic, industrial, agricultural, shipping and transport, mining activities, and ports and harbors

---

Dictionaries are regarded as the basic criteria in language teaching and research; therefore, they are expected to be free from analytic fallacies. However, it seems that there are some inconsistencies in the definition of the morphological units in Persian dictionaries. In this article, echo reduplications (or Etbâ’) are studied in the text of LoghatNâme by Dehkhodâ. To this end, after defining the process of echo reduplications, all the entries which have been labeled to belong to this category, were extracted and analyzed according to the linguistic definitions available for echo reduplication. The analysis revealed that many of the entries with an echo reduplication label have not been treated correctly, and this error takes its roots from either referring to the echo contractions in other languages, or sticking to the traditional definitions of this issue.      

---

The effects of pyrene on gill, liver and kidney of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) were examined by exposing 30 fish (140 ±10 g to pyrene at sublethal concentrations of 10, 50 and 100 µg/l for 35 days. Samples were taken from the organs and fixed in bouin fixative; then, dehydrated, cleared, parafinated and cut by microtome according to the standard method. Afterwards, all sections were studied by light microscope. In gill tissue, lamella hyperemia, hyperplasia, S shaped, and clubbing were observed, while lamella fusion and necrosis were observed in higher concentration of pyrene. Hepatocytes vacculation, congestion of sinusoids, macrophages loaded with hemosiderin were seen in the liver, while in higher concentrations of pyrene, picnotic and kariolized nuclei, and tissue necrosis were seen. Tubule casts, hyperemia, degenerating tubules were seen in kidney exposed to lower concentrations of pyrene, while hemosiderin-laden macrophages, degenerating tubules with greater intensity as well as necrosis was observed in higher concentrations. The results indicated that pyrene may have negative effects on homeostasis, fish health and vital organs in short time exposure due to histological changes, while it could have greater impacts in long term exposure and higher concentrations.

---

This study attempts to evaluate one of the language use differences among women and men according to the Dominance Theory. The main purpose of the study is thus to investigate speech interruption as the participatory dominance factor based on the Dominance Theory in the Persian community and three affecting factors on interruption (direct statements, subject deviation and verbs and adverbs of uncertainty). Speech interruption and three affecting factors on interruption have been evaluated in the single and cross-sex societies. The data required were obtained from 40 two-stage interviews (10 men and 10 women students in the age range of 18-24 years). The men and women of this study in single and cross-sex societies, based on speech interruption factor, showed different linguistic behaviors and the linguistic representation of gender-based attitude in the Persian community was tangible. The relationship of each affecting factor on interruption with interruption was determined. The findings suggest that the framework provided by Dominance Theory in Persian community is inefficient.        

---

One of the important issues in the study of grammar is the study of the structure and the functions of different sentences of a language, as well as describing the similarities and differences between them. This article aims to study the exclamative sentences of Persian according to a corpus and within a typological framework based on the study done by Zanuttini and Portner (2003). The article seeks answers to these questions: “What is the structure of exclamative sentences in Persian”?, “What are the semantic and pragmatic functions of such sentences”? “How these sentences can be differentiated from declarative and interrogative sentences”? and “What is the position of the negative markers in such sentences”? The results of this descriptive-analytic study showed that Persian Language has two types of exclamative sentences; declarative exclamatives and wh-exclamatives, which are different in terms of their semantic, pragmatic, syntactic and acoustic features.  

---

Proof paradoxes refer to situations in which statistical evidence indicates that a suspect is the perpetrator, yet a conviction based solely on this evidence appears counterintuitive. The prevailing approach to addressing proof paradoxes involves establishing a criterion for distinguishing naked statistical evidence from other type of evidence. Smith introduces normic support as a criterion for the aforementioned distinction. Conversely, Di Bello proposes a modified version of normic support, arguing that the absence of access to undercutting defeaters in naked statistical evidence distinguishes it from other forms of evidence. In this research, we argue, in line with Pollock's perspective, that undercutting defeaters can still be accessed in the context of naked statistical evidence. Furthermore, by focusing on an example of proof paradoxes and drawing on Pollock's arguments-illustrated quantitatively by the base rate fallacy-we demonstrate the effectiveness of undercutting defeaters. Consequently, Di Bello's argument appears to be questionable.

---

Politeness phenomenon is one of the subjects which have been observed by researchers of different domains , e.g. psychology, sociology and anthropology. Politeness has also been investigated in the area of pragmatics. One of the concepts following politeness is linguistic impoliteness. Different people such as Goffman (1967), Brown and Levinson (1987), Bousfield (2008), Culpeper (1996;2003;2011) and  Rudanko (1996) have worked on (im)politeness phenomenon. . In spite of the large amount of investigation on western culture, less research has been worked out on this notion in Persian. So, the aim of this study is investigating the function of this notion through describing it in  Sayyadan drama of  Ruye Sahneye Abi series written by Akbar Radi. The data was investigated through the five strategies proposed  by Jonathan Culpeper (1996; 2003) on linguistic impoliteness and the notions, e.g context, social norms and emotions, he added later in 2011. The most frequently  used strategy was positive impoliteness and the least used one was mock impoliteness. The synthetic ones were at the second level and negative impoliteness was at the fourth level. There was no withhold politeness among the‌ data. Finally, new cases were introduced.                                                                                                                     

---

The present paper is considered with the issue of verbal violence in the language of drama. In evaluation of verbal violence, Jeanette Malkin (2004) proposes six maxims, through which language is known as an arrogant element. The characters in dramatic texts (as in other literary texts) are created, developed, evolved and in some cases destroyed by language. In considerable number of modern plays, language acts as an antagonist who is to destruct and demolish the personality of the other(s) in the play with violence and aggression; so, the theoretical study of dramatic verbal violence as a component of dramatic discourse is considered indispensable to critical discourse analysis of dramatic texts and the study of power relations as reflected in the dialogues.; Focusing on the patterns of dramatic verbal violence introduced by Malkin, this study aims to discuss the dominant patterns of verbal violence in Hamlet With Season Salad, a play by Akbar Radi, and investigates the role of language in shaping, and destroying of human identities    

---

Research subject: Polypropylene (PP) is a thermoplastic polymer that is used in a wide range of applications, including films and sheets, blow molding, injection molding, food packaging, textiles, laboratory and medical equipment, pipes, industrial and construction applications, and the manufacture of automotive components. In the applications of this polymer, improving the surface of PP has been considered. One of the usual methods for improving the surface is the cold plasma method. Plasma is a chemically highly active environment where there are many ions and radicals. In this research, atmospheric pressure gliding discharge plasma was used to increase the hydrophobicity of PP and the surface and depth changes of PP were investigated.
Research approach: The depth and surface changes of PP were investigated by radiating the gliding discharge plasma to the PP polymer surface at the different times. FTIR and XRD tests were performed to investigate volume changes and FESEM investigated the surface changes. The hydrophobicity of PP was investigated by contact angle (CA) test and positron lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) was used to investigate shallow depth changes.
Main results: The results show that the applied cold plasma did not cause volumetric changes in PP, but caused surface changes and roughness. In this polymer, the contact angle has increased from 30.1 ± 0.1 to 34.4 ± 0.1 and the hydrophobicity of the surface has increased. Examining the changes in holes by PALS test shows that after plasma irradiation the volume of the holes increased from 217 ų to 222 ų and their intensity decreased. This is due to the heat of the plasma and the energy of its particles.:
The results show that the cold plasma caused surface and depth changes and the contact angle increased from 30.1 ± 0.1 to 34.4 ± 0.1 and the hydrophobicity of the surface increased.
 

---

The purpose of this research was designing casual model of colluding toxic followership using causal mapping basen on the experiences of Kerman public organizations’ experts. In this regard, after studying the literature and identifying 16 effective factors on colluding toxic followership, a half-closed questionnaire was developed based on Likert scale and distributed among 31 experts using concept and snowball sampling. In order to screen data average fuzzy analysis was used, so the result caused to omission of a factor. Then, a matrix-structure questionnaire was designed so that data be collected based on causality among factors. In the following, after gaining confidence about lack of a significant relationship between expertise indexes and complexity and domain indexes of cognitive maps and also examining similarities of experts cognitive maps, which showed that personal features and experts membership in various organizations couldn’t create a significant difference between experts maps, the experts consentaneous map based on relatively strong relations among factors was extracted. The result led to a model that based on it the effective process factors included forthright ambitions, conservative egoism, and hypocritical adaptability of colluders, colluders greed, and finally leader- follower consistency and accommodation.

---

According to Sheridan and Gillett (2005), one fundamental form of inequality, being on the rise since 9/11, is religious discrimination. The main source of experiencing and being exposed to such inequalities and discriminations can be television which ‘is such an important source of information and entertainment that viewers cannot escape its gradual encroachment into their everyday lives’ (Laughey, 2007, p. 20). American TV series are so major and worldly-known entertaining media that many of them have millions of viewers around the world. So, it will be of great importance to make sure if they want to keep and even worsen this picture of Islam and Islamophobia. Therefore, this paper investigates the role of American TV series in promoting Islamophobia in public view. To do so, one has to analyze two main aspects of the TV shows which are the conversations and the picture frames. For analyzing the former, we have chosen Norman Fairclough’s (1992a, 1995, 2001) approach to Critical Discourse Analysis, and for the latter, Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design. American TV series, named Homeland (2011- still on air in 2017), broadcasted by Showtime® in the U.S has been the corpus of the present study. Its story that is mainly connected to the Middle East with lots of Muslim characters explains our choice. Consequently, the present study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. Do the analyzed sequences of Homeland have Islamophobic elements based on Fairclough’s (1992a, 1995, 2001) CDA framework? 2. Do the analyzed sequences of Homeland have Islamophobic elements based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design? 3. Are there any combinations of visual and discursive elements to promote Islamophobia in the analyzed sequences of Homeland which can be analyzed by an integration of Fairclough’s (1992a, 1995, 2001) CDA framework and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design?
Our work has led us to the conclusion that many cases in Homeland TV series, either discursive (based on Fairclough’s CDA framework (1992a, 1995, 2001)) or visual (based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design (2006)), were Islamophobic. Furthermore, there were cases in which both visual and discursive (audio) elements were used to promote Islamophobia. As a result, all of the research questions receive a positive answer. Moreover, it can be concluded that a combination of Fairclough’s (1992a, 1995, 2001) CDA framework and Kress and van Leeuwen’s Grammar of Visual Design (2006) can create a powerful approach in critical media analysis to expose the real policies of the media and power owners and decode the encrypted messages behind what is shown to the public. It is worth noting that analyzing a greater number of TV series could result in a higher generalization of our results.

---

---

In this paper, attempts have tried to study Fairclough’s theory of “inequality of power in the dialogue" by analyzing the dialogues between identical and opposing characters in the novel Fire without smoke by Nader Ebrahimi to identify powerful or passive characters, and decode the novel from the ideological perspective of the author.
To more regulate, this theoretical framework, the questions raised in the Shorter’s model (1996), were used to analyze power relations in the dialogues of characters with the aim of determining the type of relationship and the dominance of the personality poles of the story: Galan - the hero that relies on his physical strength - and Alani - the hero who relies on the power of thought and mind.
The analysis of data suggested that the way the two main characters of the novel interacted with others in their discourse was directly related to the up and downs of their lives. Galan's interaction was limited to an esoteric group of people around them, and as this circle of friends was limited down, his power diminished too, so that with his death, the coercive hegemony and compulsory domination associated with his behavior came to end.
In contrast, Alani not only struck a conversation with people from all aspects of life, especially women and the lower classes of the community, but also urged them to play a key role in the dialogue with the people around them. This contributed to the recognition of his intellectual and political authority and conduct, and even after his death, his thoughts continued to touch the speech and practice of the next generations.
 

---

---

Commonly, facing the works of art within a historical theme, we either expect the work to match exactly with history, or expect to see some kind of artist's point of view from that historical period. The former cannot be recreated or represented in the world of art. The latter, however, does not have the same application. Therefore, with sufficient knowledge of the author and the discourse conditions and power relations during his life period, his perspective on history in a historical work can be analyzed better. In this article, through a comparative and historical method, two plays Death of Yazdgerd written by Bahram Beyzai and Romulus the Great written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt were examined from the perspective of new historicism to show how two playwrights were affected by history in two different places and times, and consequently influenced the history of their time. This comparative research shows that choosing a specific period of history to write a play was purposeful. Also, writing about a historical period is affected by the period of the playwright's life and culture, and the reason for the difference in the power relations and the ending of the texts lies within the same context.
 
 

---

Gorani is one of the Northwestern Iranian languages spoken in Kermanshah and Kurdistan provinces of Iran, as well as a part of Iraqi Kurdistan. This language is highly endangered due to the heavy influence of its neighboring commonly spoken languages such as Persian, Arabic, and Kurdish. Gorani has maintained some very interesting grammatical features of the Middle Iranian languages, including gender, to which scholars like Mackenzie (1966) and Sajjadi (2014) have briefly made references. With respect to the notably effective role of gender in Gorani morphology and syntax, this essay sets out to address its uses and different forms by the field data of Hawrāmī Lahun and Hawrāmān Takht dialects. Considering the Corbett’s framework of gender (1991), methods for identifying the gender of loanwords and compound words are suggested. The results indicate significant differences in the grammatical gender of borrowed words from other languages, in the use of masculine and feminine case markers, and in the use of personal endings. Moreover, the findings show how the gender of nouns can influence some modifiers, such as the nominal dependent, in the above mentioned dialects

---

In this study an innovatively designed tractor-mounted, ground-wheel driven, triple unit, row crop precision planter capable of planting three rows of garlic (Allium sativum L.) cloves on each raised bed was designed, fabricated and tested. The major components of this planter include; chassis and transport wheels, lister-bedder unit, seed hopper, seed metering drum, sweeper, knocker, seed tube, furrow openers and seed coverers. The me-tering drums and sweepers are driven by two ground wheels through a chain drive sys-tem. Laboratory evaluation of the planter components, especially the seed metering mechanism revealed a satisfactory performance of the planter components, except a few modifications which were needed before conducting field tests. The performance parame-ters measured/calculated during the field tests included: seeding mass rate, seeding depth, seed spacing, miss index, multiple index and seed damage. The results showed that the new machine is capable of planting 220,000 plants ha-1 at the seeding depth and spacing of 12.3 and 22.7 cm, respectively. Also, miss index, multiple index and seed damage were measured as 12.23, 2.43 and 1.41 percent, respectively.

---

The agency of literature is one of the keywords of New Historicism. New historicists believe that literature is not simply a product of history; it actively makes history. History, power discourses, marginalized parts of society, and the mutual relationship between literature and culture are central concerns in new historicism. Both Ferdowsi and Shakespeare, although from two diverse cultures and six centuries apart from each other, their works share similar characteristics seen from a historical and literary perspective. Ferdowsi was contemporary with the Sāmānids age of reviving the Persian language and culture after a long period of repression. Shakespeare also lived during the Renaissance age of change in beliefs, views, and worldviews. In addition, challenging the dominant discourses of power and cultural clichés, they created new outlooks towards women in their respective culture. Women who were so far voiceless and marginalized during the times, now get an active presence in their works. The passive, silent Persian woman, kept marginalized for centuries, has an active role and presence in the Shahnameh. Silent and obedient women considered sinful during Shakespeare’s era, have a voice and dynamic presence in his plays. This study tries to depict women’s dynamic personalities both in their contemporary societies and selected literary works. By examining the dominant discourses regarding women, reading their contemporary texts, and analyzing the role of women in their literary works, it is found that both writers in the selected works had different viewpoints towards women compared to the dominant discourses of their time.

 

---

This paper examines the impact of official development assistance on government fiscal behavior in the Selected Asian developing countries by using Panel Data over the period 1990-2009. The aim of official development assistance is to help developing countries to speed up economic growth and development, income distribution and poverty reduction. But official development assistance is mainly channeled to the domestic economy through the public sector. However, the economic effectiveness of official development assistance has always been a controversial issue. While some researchers argue that such aid results into the growth of bureaucracies, others argue that it can lead to economic growth. The final effects of official development assistance depend on how it influences fiscal policy. Empirical results indicate that official development assistance has a positive and significant effect on capital expenditures and does not have a significant effect on government consumption expenditures and government revenues. Also, official development assistance is a substitute for government borrowing.  

---

The main question of this inquiry is the psycholinguistic reality of evidentiality hierarchy arranged from direct(witnessed) to indirect (reported, inferred, argued, etc). This study investigates processing of sentences containing evidentials by the cross-modal lexical decision method run by DMDX software. The theoretical framework is mainly based on episodic processing in which mental representations of linguistic items are not as abstract as it seems, but it is subject to the sensory input by which the representation is formed. The independent variable is evidential type and the dependent one is the subjects' reaction times to the visual stimuli. Subjects were 30 university students aging 20 to 22 classified into two groups of male and female. As for the results, they show that in Persian along evidentiality hierarchy, sentences containing direct witnessed evidentials are processed later and longer than the second- hand inferred evidential, besides the fact that there is a significant difference between sensory and non-sensory/ second hand evidentials. The explanation is that processing a direct evidential needs much more cortical activation areas like memory and attention leading to much more cognitive load than inference which is limited just to frontal lobe. Findings approve the psychological reality of this theoretical hierarchy in Persian classifying them into direct/sensory and indirect/non-sensory evidentials. The aim is to examine the psychological reality of evidentiality hierarchy experimentally.
 
1. Introduction
Different linguists have proposed different definitions for examining the psychological reality of various theoretical linguistic issues. This study investigates processing of sentences containing different types of evidentials of Persian by the cross-modal lexical decision method.  This psycholinguistic method has been used classically by Shapiro (1990) to estimate the cognitive load across the mind. The main question of this inquiry is the psycholinguistic reality of evidential complexity hierarchy. The theoretical framework is mainly based on episodic processing in which mental representations of linguistic items are not as abstract as it seems, but it is subject to the sensory input by which the representation is formed. Also the classification of Omidvari and Golfam. (2017) on evidentials has been applied here. They divided  Persian evidentials in to two broad categories of direct and indirect analyzed in detail.
3
2. Literature Review
The method used in this research is the cross modal lexical decision method, which will be detailed due to its importance.  Theoretical framework applied here is that of Shapiro (1990) in psycholinguistics. Independent variable is the type of Persian evidentials used in the verb form and the dependent variable is subjectsˈ reaction times. 30 students of universities aged 18-30 participated in this study. The results of two experiments show that the psychological reality of the complexity of representation of Persian evidentials according to Persian data is confirmed and there is a significant difference between the processing time of sentences containing different types of Persian evidentials .
 
 
 
3. Methodology
It was found out that Persian has two types of evidentials: direct and indirect. The theoretical framework is mainly based on episodic processing in which mental representations of linguistic items are not as abstract as it seems, but it is subject to the sensory input by which the representation is formed. The independent variable is evidential type and the dependent one is the subjects' reaction times to the visual stimuli. Subjects were 30 university students aging 20 to 22 classified into two groups of male and female.

4. Conclusion
As for the results, they show that in Persian along evidentiality hierarchy, sentences containing direct witnessed evidentials are processed later and longer than the second- hand inferred evidential, besides the fact that there is a significant difference between sensory and non-sensory/ second hand evidentials.
The explanation suitable for the found results is that processing a direct evidential needs much more cortical activation areas like memory and attention leading to much more cognitive load than inference which is limited just to frontal lobe. Findings approve the psychological reality of this theoretical hierarchy in Persian classifying them into direct/sensory and indirect/non-sensory evidentials. As the aim was to examine the psychological reality of evidentiality hierarchy experimentallythe results showed the psychological reality.