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...

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...

abstract objectives gradual increase length and complexity of utterance (gilcu) therapy method is a form of operant conditioning. this type of treatment is very precise and controlled that is done in 54 steps in 3 speech situations consisted of monologue, reading and conversation. this study aimed to examine the effects of gilcu treatment method on reduction of speech dysfluency of school-age...

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...

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...

there is no doubt that human being needs to become integrated with industry and industry needs to be progressed, daily. on the other hand, serious events in industrial units specially in oil industries has been shown that such damages and events are industry related ones. the consequence of such events and damages which resulted in chemical and poisoned explosions and loss of life and property ...

in this thesis, first the notion of weak mutual associativity (w.m.a.) and the necessary and sufficient condition for a $(l,gamma)$-associated hypersemigroup $(h, ast)$ derived from some family of $lesssim$-preordered semigroups to be a hypergroup, are given. second, by proving the fact that the concrete categories, semihypergroups and hypergroups have not free objects we will introduce t...

flow in natural river bends is a complex and turbulent phenomenon which affects the scour and sedimentations and causes an irregular bed topography on the bed. for the reason, the flow hydralics and the parameters which affect the flow to be studied and understand. in this study the effect of bed and wall roughness using the software fluent discussed in a sharp 90-degree flume bend with 40.3cm ...

these days, all department stores make an effort to provide their clients with valuable products in order to project the best image for them. as a result, clients’ comprehension risk will decrease and they will be more willing to repurchase. having a good image is really important for the department stores because it makes an impression on clients’ comprehension of both quality and risk. consid...

uncertainty in the financial market will be driven by underlying brownian motions, while the assets are assumed to be general stochastic processes adapted to the filtration of the brownian motions. the goal of this study is to calculate the accumulated wealth in order to optimize the expected terminal value using a suitable utility function. this thesis introduced the lim-wong’s benchmark fun...