we have devided the thesis in to five chapters. the first recollects facts from purely algebraic theory of jordan algebras and also basic properties of jb and jb* - algebras which are needed in the sequel. in the second chapter we extend to jb* - algebras, a classical result due to cleveland [8]. this result shows shows the weakness of jb* - norm topology on a jb* - algebera. in chapter three, ...

this study investigated how group formation method, namely student-selected vs. teacher-assigned, influences the results of the community model of teaching creative writing; i.e., group dynamics and group outcome (the quality of performance). the study adopted an experimental comparison group and microgenetic research design to observe the change process over a relatively short period of time. ...

“any science seeks generalities; the aim is to transcend knowledge of particular cases by discovering general regularities or laws” (chesterman, 2001, p. 1). these were the words of chesterman whose paper has served as a typical example of numerous papers carried out on ‘translation universals’ since the mid-nineties. blum-kulka (1986) is among translation studies scholars who proposed ‘explici...

armenias geopolitics and its historical experience have had a determining impact on the character of its foreign policy .present-day armenia is a small, landlocked country with _11,620 square miles area armenias landlocked nature makes it dependent on the benevolence of its neighbors for access to the outside world a fact that gives it a sense of isolation and vulnerability. as it was indic...

this study was conducted to investigate the impact of podcasts as a learning and teaching tool on iranian efl learners’ motivation for listening as well as on their listening comprehension ability. the study also investigated the learners’ perception towards listening to podcasts and examined whether the learners were likely to accept podcasts. out of fifty-five intermediate learners studying e...

as far as bandura’s (1977) conceptualization of the sense of self-efficacy is concerned, it is argued to be context- and even task-specific, compared to other concepts like self-esteem (brown, 2000); therefore, upon the previous research studies, related theories and definitions, and the ideas and views obtained from the interviews conducted with the scholars, the current research study aimed a...

in this thesis, barium ferrite nano particles were prepared by sol-gel method. their structural and magnetic properties of samples have been investigated using thermo gravimetric analysis (tg-dta), x-ray powder diffractometer (xrd), fourier transform infrared (ftir), scanning electron microscopy (sem), field emission scanning electron microscopy (fesem), ac susceptometer, vibrating sample magne...

in the first part of this thesis we explored wetting and its dynamics for small droplets. first, we showed how a simple feature of water droplets on a surface, i.e. laplace pressure, can be exploited to build a micropump. we investigated capillary pumping in microchannels both experimentally and numerically. putting two droplets of different sizes at the in/outlet of a microchannel, will ge...

while performance-based language assessment has led to an increased authenticity and content validity in the practice of writing assessment, the reliability of ratings has become a major issue. research findings have shown different reactions by native english speaker (nes) and non-native english speaker (nns) teachers to students’ writings. the focus of this study is on investigating whether i...

abstract the present study deals with a comparison between reactive and pre-emptive focus-on-form in terms of application and efficiency. it was conducted in an intermediate english class in shahroud. 15 male learners participated in this research and their age ranged from 18 to 25. a course book, new interchange 3, and a complementary book were used. every session the learners gave lectures o...