data envelopment analysis (dea) is a powerful tool for measuring relative efficiency of organizational units referred to as decision making units (dmus). in most cases dmus have network structures with internal linking activities. traditional dea models, however, consider dmus as black boxes with no regard to their linking activities and therefore do not provide decision makers with the reasons...

charles dickens was a voracious reader even in his childhood. his early reading of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century picaresque fiction greatly influenced his writing style. his first novel, the pickwick papers, is a tale of rogues and swindlers, adventures and quests, satire and comedy, and innocence and experience. oliver twist, dickens’ second novel, is a young boy’s progress through a cor...

over the past decades a number of approaches have been applied for forecasting mortality. in 1992, a new method for long-run forecast of the level and age pattern of mortality was published by lee and carter. this method was welcomed by many authors so it was extended through a wider class of generalized, parametric and nonlinear model. this model represents one of the most influential recent d...

most specialists in the field of foreign language teachingconsiderreading skill as an interactive process between the reader’s prior knowledge and the text.accordingly, the activation of prior knowledge for an effective comprehension is very important. it is generally agreed that the pre-reading phase is the stage where this type of interaction and activation may be enhanced throughcertain stra...

abstract the aim of the present study is to explore the impact of the cognitive reading strategy instruction on learners reading self-efficacy and their reading achievement. in order to fulfill this purpose, from 120 participants, 90 intermediate efl learners as an experimental group were chosen from three different educational settings namely, yazd university, yazd science and art un...

this ethnographic case study research was carried out in a private school setting in the context of iran. the research tried to explore the analysis and identity construction of a group of learners and teachers along with the content analysis of books on the basis of four types of commodified, political, national and narrative identities. how english language learners and teachers in an informa...

nowadays enhancing critical thinking in learners is considered one of the foreign language teachers’ tasks due to its high position in foreign language classrooms. when it comes to selecting materials for language classrooms, there are obviously some criteria that teachers should apply. the present study aimed at a critical thinking based analysis of ten picture story books and ten folktales th...

abstract the present thesis seeks to critically read george orwell’s nineteen eighty-four and animal farm in the light of louis althusser’s thought and theory. the present thesis proceeds to examine and demonstrate althusser’s major concepts including ideological state apparatuses (isas), repressive state apparatuses (rsas), the structure, the subject, and ideological interpellation which r...