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 i the purpose of this study was to launch a thorough investigation concerning the possibility of differing orientations to the writing proficiency construct by native and non-native english speaking teacher raters. it mainly revolved around the international english language testing system (ielts) that is widely administered and employed as a measure of general proficiency in englis...

this study examined the effects of collaborative strategic reading and direct instruction in persuasion on iranian high school students persuasive writing and attitudes. students in three intact classes were assigned to one of three treatment conditions: collaborative strategic reading and direct instruction in persuasion or direct instruction in persuasion or a control group. treatment effects...

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...

in the past couple of decades sociocultural theory of sla and its implications in efl contexts have attracted attentions of research circles worldwide and aroused some controversies. firth and wagner (1997) have questioned the principles of the cognitive view which gives importance to mental constructs in favor of sociocultural view which highlights social and contextual constructs. but if soci...

based on the latest records of typhlops vermicularis merrem, 1820 from iran, this species is distributed in the northern and southern regions of the country. in this study, new records of typhlops vermicularis are presented and it is shown that distribution range of this species is extended towards the eastern and western iran, and according to the new distribution map, it can be assumed that t...

terms of address as an important linguistics items provide valuable information about the interlocutors, their relationship and their circumstances. this study was done to investigate the change route of persian address terms in the two recent centuries including three historical periods of qajar, pahlavi and after the islamic revolution. data were extracted from a corpus consisting 24 novels w...

today, the route for economic development in most countries is the same as international open competitive economy. economic institutes well known that supportive public economy belonged on the past and they may compete in the global economy. it is obvious that if they have no competitive potency or not familiar with competition technique, they may be devastated. banking system aims to collect t...

the present study aimed to investigate representation of discourse markers and metadiscourse markers in conversations and readings of general elt coursebook series used in the language centers of iran. to this aim, four elt coursebooks popularly taught in language centers of this country were analyzed based on fung and carter’s (2007) framework regarding discourse markers and hyland’s (2005) fr...

abstract the following study, in the first place, attempted to examine the effect of less experienced teachers participation in experienced teachers classes on their own skills and teaching methodology, in the second place, attempted to find out the role of teachers training in students achievements. for this purpose, 21 efl teachers were selected according to available sampling in kish l...