data envelopment analysis (dea) is a powerful tool for measuring relative efficiency of organizational units referred to as decision making units (dmus). in most cases dmus have network structures with internal linking activities. traditional dea models, however, consider dmus as black boxes with no regard to their linking activities and therefore do not provide decision makers with the reasons...

seismic retrofit strategies have been developed in the past few decades following the introduction of new seismic provisions and the availability of advanced materials and methods. it can be observed that new approaches to deal with more lateral forces are more innovative and more energy absorbent. in line with this, there is a growing trend toward the use of steel shear walls as a system with ...

this study aimed to investigate the effects of listening strategy training on iranian efl learners listening comprehension and use of such strategies. this work, employing an experimental methodology, was conducted among 60 adult efl learners from a language institute in isfahan, iran, as participants. the participants, who were selected based on the results of a placement test, were assigned t...

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 many approaches for solving variety combinatorial optimization problems (np-compelete) that devided to exact solutions and approximate solutions. exact methods can only be used for very small size instances due to their expontional search space. for real-world problems, we have to employ approximate methods such as evolutionary algorithms (eas) that find a near-optimal solution in a r...

abstract amino acids are building blocks of proteins, and play a vital role in living beings existence and their functionality. the interaction of these compounds with metal ions is of great importance to biochemists, and chemists, because their functions can be utilized as a model in understanding enzymes mechanism for transport of metal ions to tissues. among twenty essential amino acids w...

iv abstract this study examined the linguistic behaviors of two iranian efl teachers each of them teaching learners of two similar proficiency levels, a beginner level and an intermediate level, to investigate the relationship between the learners proficiency levels and the amounts and purposes for l1 use by the two teachers. the study was carried out to investigate whether there were differe...

the current study examined iranian undergraduate efl students’ willingness to communicate with regard to their vocabulary knowledge. in general, participants were somewhat willing to communicate in english. the total mean score of 730 university students’ perception of willing to communicate was 83.53 out of 135. results, regarding four parts of willingness to communicate, revealed that part...

the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between teachers’ immediacy behaviors and iranian students’ willingness to talk in english classes. analysis of the results from willingness to talk scale represents a relatively high level of willingness to talk in english classrooms among iranian language learners. the total mean score of students’ willingness to talk was 66.3 ou...