in the first part of this thesis we explored wetting and its dynamics for small droplets. first, we showed how a simple feature of water droplets on a surface, i.e. laplace pressure, can be exploited to build a micropump. we investigated capillary pumping in microchannels both experimentally and numerically. putting two droplets of different sizes at the in/outlet of a microchannel, will ge...

this thesis attempts to measure learning styles, self efficacy and intrinsic motivation as predictors of iranian ielts reading comprehension. in order to address this issue, a quantitative study was conducted on some randomly selected intact students at ferdowsi university. these two groups were assigned as they were undergraduate (ba=91) and graduate (ma =74) students; they were all aged betwe...

the present dissertation aims to investigate four-word lexical bundles in applied linguistics research articles by iranian and internationally-published writers. the aims of this study are two-fold: first of all, attempts have been made to create a comprehensive list of the most commonly used four-word lexical bundles categorized by their type and token frequency, their structural characteristi...

different researchers in different parts of the world have investigated the strategies used to translate written works ranging from novels to classroom assignments. however, by the significant increase in the number of postgraduate students in iran in the last few years, a very common kind of translation in iran includes translating abstracts of master’s theses. in this work, the researcher hav...

hedging is a multi-purpose rhetorical strategy which is usually used in scientific arguments to secure ratification of claims, reduce the risk of negation, avoid conflict, manage disagreement and leave room for the audience to assess presented information. hedges are frequently used in research articles to mitigate the findings of research endeavors. the present research aims to investigate the...

over the past decades a number of approaches have been applied for forecasting mortality. in 1992, a new method for long-run forecast of the level and age pattern of mortality was published by lee and carter. this method was welcomed by many authors so it was extended through a wider class of generalized, parametric and nonlinear model. this model represents one of the most influential recent d...

this ethnographic case study research was carried out in a private school setting in the context of iran. the research tried to explore the analysis and identity construction of a group of learners and teachers along with the content analysis of books on the basis of four types of commodified, political, national and narrative identities. how english language learners and teachers in an informa...

power transformers are important equipments in power systems. thus there is a large number of researches devoted of power transformers. however, there is still a demand for future investigations, especially in the field of diagnosis of transformer failures. in order to fulfill the demand, the first part reports a study case in which four main types of failures on the active part are investigate...

the study reflected in this thesis aims at finding out relationships between critical thinking (ct), and the reading sections of tofel and ielts tests. the study tries to find any relationships between the ct ability of students and their performance on reading tests of tofel and academic ielts. however, no research has ever been conducted to investigate the relationship between ct and the read...

most specialists in the field of foreign language teachingconsiderreading skill as an interactive process between the reader’s prior knowledge and the text.accordingly, the activation of prior knowledge for an effective comprehension is very important. it is generally agreed that the pre-reading phase is the stage where this type of interaction and activation may be enhanced throughcertain stra...