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, ...

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...

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...

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...

abstract listening is a key and main tool in second language skill and its development is of prime concern to teachers and learners. furthermore, the application of technology in language classrooms has become more commonplace in the last fifty years. computer and the internet have made foreign language materials easy to access and use. so, the present study is an attempt to examine the effec...

there is less published research about how teachers in efl contexts respond to students who are relatively less mature and less competent l2 writers. while writing researchers have examined various issues concerning peer and teacher response in writing-oriented classes, little research has centered on the effect of collaborative tasks particularly dictogloss on writing skills. output collaborat...

translation studies have become an accepted academic subject and books, journals and doctoral dissertations appear faster than one can read them all (bassnet and lefevere, 1990). but this field also brought with itself so many other issues which needed to be investigated more, in the heart of which, issues like ideology, ethics, culture, bilingualism and multilingualism. it is reported that ove...

abstract the main purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was any significant difference between the speaking achievement of learners who were trained by means of consciousness raising of sociolinguistic skills and that of learners who were trained without the above mentioned task. the participants of this study consist of 60 intermediate level students participating languag...

the major purpose of this study was to develop the translation teacher competency test (ttct) and examine its construct and predictive validity. the present study was conducted in two phases: a qualitative phase as well as a quantitative phase. in the first phase of the study, the author attempted to find out the major areas of competency required for an academic translation teacher. the second...

this research was conducted to examine the effect of a concurrent training on rest level of leptin of plasma and some hormonal factors in non-athlete subjects. the research population included non-athlete men who didn’t participate in any organized sport activities. 30 men were chosen voluntarily among the above-mentioned population and were divided into 2 groups: experimental (15 subjects) an...