there are two major theories of measurement in psychometrics: classical test theory (ctt) and item-response theory (irt). despite its widespread and long use, ctt has a number of shortcomings, which make it problematic to be used for practical and theoretical purposes. irt tries to solve these shortcomings, and provide better and more dependable answers. one of the applications of irt is the as...

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...

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. ...

wireless sensor networks (wsns) are one of the most interesting consequences of innovations in different areas of technology including wireless and mobile communications, networking, and sensor design. these networks are considered as a class of wireless networks which are constructed by a set of sensors. a large number of applications have been proposed for wsns. besides having numerous applic...

all analytical methods are generally based on the measurement of a parameter or parameters which are somehow related to the concentration of the species.an ideal analytical method is one in which the concentration of a species can be measured to a high degree precision and accuracy and with a high sensitivity. unfortunately finding such a method is very difficult or sometimes even impossible.in...

this study intends to investigate samuel beckett’s waiting for godot and endgame under the lacanian psychoanalysis. it begins by explaining the most important concepts of lacanian psychoanalysis. the beckettian characters are studied regarding their state of unconscious, and not the state of consciousness as is common in most beckett studies. according to lacan, language plays the sole role in ...

this thesis basically deals with the well-known notion of the bear-invariant of groups, which is the generalization of the schur multiplier of groups. in chapter two, section 2.1, we present an explicit formula for the bear-invariant of a direct product of cyclic groups with respect to nc, c>1. also in section 2.2, we caculate the baer-invatiant of a nilpotent product of cyclic groups wuth resp...

nowadays in trade and economic issues, prediction is proposed as the most important branch of science. existence of effective variables, caused various sectors of the economic and business executives to prefer having mechanisms which can be used in their decisions. in recent years, several advances have led to various challenges in the science of forecasting. economical managers in various fi...

abstract: about 60% of total premium of insurance industry is pertained?to life policies in the world; while the life insurance total premium in iran is less than 6% of total premium in insurance industry in 2008 (sigma, no 3/2009). among the reasons that discourage the life insurance industry is the problem of adverse selection. adverse selection theory describes a situation where the inf...