phatic communion is a cultural concept which differs across cultures. according to hofstede (2001), the u.s. tends to have individualistic culture; however, asian countries tend to have collectivistic cultures. these cultures view phatic communion differently. in individualistic cultures like u.s., phatic communion reflects speakers’ socio-cultural relationships in conversations. to see whether...

it is definitely necessary to understand the concept and behavior of causation of life insurance policies and its determinants for insurance managers, regulators, and customers. for insurance managers, the profitability and liquidity of insurers can be increasingly influenced by the number of causation through costs, adverse selection, and cash surrender values. therefore, causation is a materi...

insurers have in the past few decades faced longevity risks - the risk that annuitants survive more than expected - and therefore need a new approach to manage this new risk. in this dissertation we survey methods that hedge longevity risks. these methods use securitization to manage risk, so using modern financial and insurance pricing models, especially wang transform and actuarial concepts, ...

abstract in aggregate, active forms of reactive silica with mineral names are sometimes associated with sand and gravel in concrete mixture. alkali hydroxides originated from alkalis in the cement or other resources form an alkaline silica gel with this reactive silica which becomes swallowed and expanded during time causing damage to concrete. there have been growing researches on alkaline r...

seismic retrofit strategies have been developed in the past few decades following the introduction of new seismic provisions and the availability of advanced materials and methods. it can be observed that new approaches to deal with more lateral forces are more innovative and more energy absorbent. in line with this, there is a growing trend toward the use of steel shear walls as a system with ...

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. ...

in reality, most structures involved in geotechnical engineering are three dimensional in nature, and although in many, plane strain or axisymmetric approximations are reasonable, there are some, for which 3-d treatment is required. the quantity of data, and the size of the various vectors and matrices involved in such analysis, increase dramatically. this has sever implications for computer r...

abstract although music possesses some kind of power and using it has been welcome by many students in language classrooms, it seems that they take a non-serious image of the lesson while listening to songs and they may think that it is a matter of fun. the main objective of the present study was to investigate whether learning a foreign language through musical texts (songs) can have an impac...

august wilson is undoubtedly one of the rare black playwrights whose works have attracted streams of attention and worldwide audience. the present study aims at analyzing fences and piano lesson which are two of the most successful plays in his pittsburgh cycle from the perspective of michel foucault’s theories and ideas. studying these two plays from foucault’s perspective opens new windows in...