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Before teachers can transform the reality and promote a liberating education within mainstream educational contexts, they must first gain a thorough understanding of how learners perceive the world. In an attempt to gauge EFL learners’ perceptions, the present study set out to conceptualize the construct of Critical Digital Pedagogy (CDP) by developing and validating a questionnaire for use in online EFL settings. The researchers distributed a preliminary questionnaire with 65 items to 380 adult Iranian EFL learners and used Exploratory Factor Analysis as well as Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EFA, CFA) to analyze the results. After removing 9 items, the final questionnaire consisted of 56 items on a five-point Likert scale. The analysis revealed that CDP consists of 10 factors, namely “consciousness raising,” “community and collaboration,” “empowerment and agency,” “inclusivity,” “dialogism,” “co-creation of materials,” “praxis,” “problem-posing education,” “teachers as transformative intellectuals,” and “critical thinking and reflection.” Additionally, the convergent validity as well as the reliability of the questionnaire to measure the intended construct was statistically confirmed. These findings have important implications for EFL teachers, curriculum developers, course designers, and language researchers as they increase awareness of CDP and its underlying components.

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Background: low back pain is a common health problem that has many consequences, including disability and absence from work. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of Low Back Pain among women referred to Quds clinic in Tehran, Iran. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on women referred to Quds clinic, in East of Tehran. A total of 100 patients were studied over a period of one month. Two questionnaires were used for this study. The first one contains general information such as age, height, weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), education level, smoking and physical activity. Also the participants were asked whether over the past two weeks had LBP or not and if yes their pain severity was measured through Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). The second questionnaire was Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RDQ) that was only available to persons that expressed a report of pain over the past two weeks. Data were analyzed using SPSS. Results: 52 patients (52%) of the samples reported LBP. Also significant relationship between LBP and functional disability was shown (P < 0.05). More than 48% of patients who had LBP were physically low performance. Age, weight, body mass index, physical activity hours, number of pregnancy and parity and level of education were significantly associated with the severity of LBP (P < 0.05) whereas height, employment status and cigarette smoking were not significantly associated with LBP (P > 0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed individual suffering from LBP were more likely to suffer from disability.

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Throughout the history, women writers, regardless of geographical, historical and cultural variations, have always been faced with the same concerns and challenges. Women's literature depicts a world based on the masculine priorities and logic concerns. So, due to disturbing laws written by men, women writers have tried to use "feminine aesthetic" and find a proper language to express their concerns and aspirations. In this way, they were capable to represent a clear picture of the woman as it should be.  In Iranian and Italian contemporary literature, many women authors have created works based on women's issues. Among these works, we can mention the works of Zoya Pirzad and Alba Deses Pedes who narrate, in a specific manner, the same story about women's challenges and concerns. This paper applies "Theory of the Gynesis in Women Writing" to these two novels formed in two different geographical and cultural origins, and aims to answer the question of how the common characteristics of feminine writing engender fundamental similarities in plot, narrative and characterization? What we can say with certainty is that the characteristics and common factors in both text and meta-text of these two feminine writings engender a realistic and measured image of "women situation" in these two societies

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The oldness of religiousness and literature, and their co-relation ascribe to the first steps of human being toward the reflections and inner contemplations. The contemporary literature is also involved in the representation of themes referring to belief, faith and ontological questions that create man’s point of view. The present article performs a comparative study of Kiss the Beautiful Face of God and Jean Barios. The man’s fundamental questions like faith, religion, unbelief, skepticism, existence of God, love, life and death are represented in a communal manner in two novels. Furthermore, the representation of anxiety, solitude, loneliness and homeless are included in the “religious situation” of the two stories that get to doubt, denial and at last to creed. Moreover, in spite of their different origins and their literary value, these two novels are really successful in representation of a theme like return to the significant as well as agreeable and meaningful roots of spiritual life. The likeable and symbolic end of these novels is among the pleasant themes of comparative literature that displays man’s common experiences, visions and points of view.

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In the modern highly competitive banking era, ability of collecting financial resources has become one of the main prerequisite of effective performance and survival of the banks. Hence, banks have turned to strategies such as electronic banking development to develop their capabilities. This research shows that how and to what extent of applying various electronic banking systems can develop the banks capabilities in collecting financial resources by motivating people to invest in these banks. The research method is of descriptive and solidarity type. The population consists of the customers of Ansar bank branches in Tehran province that are taken by random sampling, and 440 were selected. The results of the research indicate that all 13 studied electronic banking systems have meaningful and positive relationship with the bank capabilities in collecting financial resources, and among them 3 systems of point of sale (POS) and PAYA system (financial resources barter) and Telephone bank system have the greatest positive relation with collecting of financial bank resources. These results show that the electronic banking development is an effective factor in motivating people to invest in studied banks. On this basis, practical and theoretical recommendations are provided for managers and researchers.    

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By emphasizing on the correspondences of linguistics and psychoanalysis, Julia Kristeva has presented new theories about the analysis of literary texts. “The Theory of Abjection”, which is derived of her post-structuralism researches, considers the author as a speaking subject who, through a poetic and semantic language, moves away from the ravages of his around. Kristeva has examined the applicative possibility of this theory in European literature. In this paper we focus on a contemporary Persian poem ("I am concerned for the garden" by Forough Farokhzad) for demonstrateing an application of the analytic approach of  the “Theory of Abjection”. Hence, we aim two principal purposes: firstly, we try to represent an exhaustive panorama of the analytic approach of the Theory of Abjection, and secondly,  we examine the possibility of creative interpretations of this poem According. Finally we try to examine the possibility of application of analytic approaches of this theory for the contemporary Persian poetry.

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For the first time, Julia Kristeva, while exploring Bakhtine's ideas such as "dialogical logic" and their application to literary texts, introduced the term of "intertextuality". She considered intertextual relations and considerations as rationales in freeing the literary text from a limited semantic system. From then on, Kristeva and other post-structuralists such as Roland Barthes extended many of the ideas associated with "dialogism" and they approved that every literary text have a continuous and solid link with other texts. From this perspective, none of the text is lone and novel rather and emerged and derived from different and plural cultural origins. In this paper, for applying the intertextuality theory to the contemporary Iranian poetry, we have chosen poems of Qeysar Aminpour and believe that intertextual relations and considerations in his poetry have institutionalized a remarkable essence of dialogism and have substantially led to complete the meaning of his text. In other words, we believe that the intertextual considerations and relations in Aminpour's poetry fulfill two principal functions: "create the character of dialogism" and "help complete the basic implications of meaning". In this paper, apart from explaining the results which are obtained in the light of intertextual reading of Aminpour's poetry, it aims to examine the possibility of applying this theory to other poetry especially the contemporary Iranian poetry.

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Competency oriented approach to human resources development is considered as one of important empowering strategies in successful organizations. In recent years, emotional and social managers’ competencies and relational competencies have been demonstrated by several research studies. The purpose of current study was to examine the impact of Emotional and Social Managers’ Competencies on improving the technical, contextual and behavioral employees’ competencies. Research method was descriptive – correlation and Employees of Fars gas organization was the research population from which 162 employees were selected based on cluster sampling method. Data was collected through two standard questionnaires, Emotional and Social Competencies (ESC) inventory by Boyatzis (2007) and employees Competencies with Based on the Eye Competency Model of the International Project Management Association (2010). Structural equation modeling (SEM) used to analyze the gathered data. Results show that that emotional and social managers’ Competencies predicts the technical, contextual and behavioral employees’ competencies.

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Yuri Lotmn (1993-1922) is the founder of the Moscow-Tartu school. He has a distinguished role in introducing and developing the “Theory of Intercultural Semiotics”. In Lotman’s opinion, cultural semiotics considers each text as a cultural totality. The existing signs in the text could indicate the way in which the significances are produced to achieve a certain specific meanings in a culture. Hence, cultural semiotics can choose many texts that belong to a social and historical ambiance for recognizing the cultural and social infrastructures of that period. In fact, it could be an analytic approach, which envisages the cultural productions of a particular section and the survey of intertextual relations, interactions and dynamic relationships between them.  In this article, we rely on the movie The Private Life of Mr. and Mrs. M. (2011) directed by Ruhollah Hejazi as a cultural product of a particular period. The analysis of this text's themes and its dynamic relationship with other texts shows a considerable part of the cultural phenomenon in this period. Finally, this study aims to reveal common themes and processes in the meaning interdependency between these texts

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The present study tries to compare differential effects of two types of written corrective feedback, that is, direct corrective feedback and metalinguistic explanation, on Iranian EFL learner acquisition of English conditional sentences and indefinite articles. During both types of feedback, all learners were given sufficient time to revise their writings in the first time. They were not given such a chance in the second time. Then, their accuracy and precision in writing were assessed. It was found that the all types of feedback were effective in their precision and accuracy in writing conditional sentences. It was further confirmed that the effect of direct corrective feedback was more effective that meta-linguistic explanations. Also, giving the learners more chances to revise and rewrite their texts enhanced the effect of the feedback. The results revealed that if the written feedback is given to multiple syntactic structures at the same time, the learners would most probably concentrate on the one which more meaning focused than form focused. As to complex syntactic structures, direct correction of the learners' errors will produce better results than metalinguistic explanations. 

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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.                                                                                                                     

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Sadegh Salimi Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Azad University  Transnational organized crime is one of the most problematic matters for international community in 21 st century. These crimes are committed by organized criminal groups consisting of three or more persons, a unique leadership and strict discipline with cruel sanctions in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit. Illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms is one of the most dangerous activities of these groups. The United Nations, acting on behalf of international community, elaborated an international document named "United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime" with two protocols. These documents were opened for signature of states in 2000. The third protocol named "Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime" was approved by the General Assembly in 2001. The protocol is analyzed as the most comprehensive international document in the matter. Under the protocol, states parties are obliged to consider trafficking in firearms as a crime, to assist technically and educationally, to exchange information, to keep records of and mark firearms, to supervise on brokering of firearms and confiscation of unlawful firearms. The purpose of this protocol is coordination of states national laws and encouragement of states to cooperation. It is based on preventive measures. Since its ratification would create good opportunities to Iran in combating this organized crime, it is recommendable to Iran.

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Aims: The induction of artificial over-expression of miRNAs is an appropriate approach to more effective cell differentiation. The significant role of microRNA-1(miR-1) has been reported in the development and differentiation of cardiac cells. Lentivirus is an effective vector for stable cell line production. The aim of this study was the production of recombinant HEK293T with miR-1 overexpression as a biological model for cardiac studies.
Materials & Methods: In this experimental study, HEK 293T cells were cultured in DMEM medium with 10% Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) and L-glutamine 2mM and Penicillin-Streptomycin 1X in incubator medium. After cloning of miR-1 gene, recombinant clones were selected and the recombination was confirmed by sequencing. The miR-1 carrying vector and auxiliary vectors were packaged in the HEK293T to produce the recombinant virus. The infection of HEK293T by recombinant virus was performed in order to achieve stable cell line. Then, GFP fluorescent marker evaluated the efficiency of transfection and effective virus dilution. Finally, the alteration in expression level of miR-1 was assessed by qPCR. Data analysis was performed by comparing the threshold cycle and Pfaffl method.
Findings: The most GFP expression was detected in transfected cells by 150 micromole dilution. GFP fluorescent marker facilitated optimization and purification of recombinant cells. qPCR investigation demonstrated the significant increase in expression of miR-1 in transfected cells in comparison to controls.
Conclusion: The stable recombinant HEK293T miR-1 over-expressing cell line in lentivirus can be utilized as a suitable biological model for investigation of cardiac evolution and development processes.

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The study aimed at developing a hypothesized model and questionnaire of language glocalization for the first time to accomplish systematic data generation and collection of the teachers’ perceptions regarding the glocalization of language education (LEG) in Iran. Hence, a model was initially hypothesized and the researchers went through scientific phases to generate a reliable and validated LEG questionnaire to test the model. Face validity, content validity and construct validity of the questionnaire were investigated. For exploratory factor analysis, the criterions for the data factorability being met, the researchers ran factor analysis employing Principle Components Analysis (PCA) method resulting in identification of five factors. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used to measure the questionnaire internal consistency. The Cronbach’s Alpha results indicated that the internal consistency was 0.96 for the whole questionnaire, and 0.89, 0.92, 0.88, 0.89, and 0.87 respectively for the five components of LEG as the subscales in the questionnaire. After running exploratory factor analysis, to check whether the questionnaire data fits the hypothesized model of LEG introduced at the beginning of the study, a confirmatory factor analysis was done. Then, the final version of the questionnaire was administered to 270 language teachers to gather the data to feed it to the model to see the extent to which the model fit the data. The results of the study revealed that although the model has been the first one of its kind, it displayed a reasonable degree of reliability and validity as confirmed by the statistical procedures. The developed and validated model and the questionnaire of this study can have many practical applications for Iranian EFL teachers as well as future researches in other contexts.
 

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