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, ...

this study focuses on tracing the clearly defined elements of magic realism in toni morrison’s song of solomon as an illustrious african american example of the mode. magic realism is a fictional technique that combines fantasy with raw physical reality in a search for truth beyond that available from the surface of everyday life. toni morrison, as a distinguished african-american practitioner ...

abstract the current study set out to address the issue as to whether the implementation of portfolio assessment would give rise to iranian pre-intermediate efl learner autonomy. participants comprised 60 female in pre-intermediate level within the age range of 16-28.they were selected from among 90 language learners based on their scores on language proficiency test -key english test. then, t...

increasing academic and professional language demands around the world are not a deniable fact. the purpose of this study was to investigate english language needs and communication needs of the chemistry students at master and ph.d. levels at the iranian universities. in this research, different methods were used including un-structured interview, structured interview, and two sets of question...

according to coates’s (2004, as cited in zhang, 2010) definition of "conversational dominance" (p.111), it refers to the phenomenon of a speaker dominating others in interaction. specifically, it means how a speaker makes use of certain strategies to get the floor and maintain the floor. thus, the amount of talk is the main measurement for the dominance of the conversation. whether a speaker do...

the purpose of this study was to examine the status of supervision on departments’ heads at ferdowsi university of mashhad (fum) and realize some applied themes to provide a fit model for supervising departments’ heads in fum. the method was case study under a research category aimed for applied one. using purposive sampling, interviews were conducted with top fum managers, head departments, an...

this study investigated the effects of three kinds of gloss conditions, that is traditional non-call marginal gloss, audio gloss, and extended audio gloss, on reading comprehension and vocabulary gain of iranian upper- intermediate efl learners. to this end, three experimental and one control groups, each comprising 15 participants, took part in the current study. in order to ensure that the pa...

abstract the current research tried to examine the impact of multiple intelligence (mi) and its components on multiple choice (mc) and open ended (oe) reading comprehension tests. ninety six students of high school in grade four took part in this study. to collect data, participants completed multiple intelligence (mi) questionnaires along with a multiple choice (mc) and open ended (oe) forms ...

abstract over the past two decades, applied linguists and language teachers have shown a great deal of interest in genre-centered approaches , mainly because of pedagogic concerns . this has been due to the need to help non-native readers enhance their ability to understand academic and scientific texts. following swales’ (1981) works on genre analysis, studies of different sections of resear...

‏‎the community dynamics of aquatic coleoptera(insecta)in one of the spring-stream habitats of bammo national park in fars province called cheshmeh-ye-ghanbari is studied as a pilot project and model for acquaintance with and furthering the biodiversity studies on fauna of iran. sixteen species-populations out of nineteen of this community were already identified for their taxonomy and for thei...