درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Although there have been many studies concentrating on writing development and techniques to improve it, there still remains the need to investigate more and give extra insight to the EFL language learners and teachers on these issues. Using a grounded model of research, the researchers performed an investigation to examine the various aspects concerning writing challenges, and requirements to improve it. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with an aim to achieve a thorough understanding of the topic by recruiting 25 male and female experienced EFL teachers along with 25 male and female intermediate EFL learners from language institutes in Tehran as the participants of the study through purposeful sampling technique. Then, 5 distinctive questions were chosen for the teachers and another set of 5 different questions for the learners to elicit their perceptions. After gathering the data and identifying the initial codes, the sub-categories emerged and helped the researcher to form the final model. Among the categories, writing strategies like collaborative and game-based, requirements like background, vocabulary, and grammatical knowledge were found to be essential. Based on the findings, a model was developed which is believed to support EFL learners in improving their writing proficiency.

In addition to its functional aspects, architecture holds a deeper significance that communicates with the observer or user of the architectural work. Perception plays a crucial role in various fields, as an individual's perceptions, emotions, and mental states, alongside visual characteristics, can lead to diverse or multiple interpretations, allowing the landscape to be understood in myriad ways. Every architectural design maintains a connection with its surroundings through its distinct visual attributes. Aligning with this notion, the present study aims to elucidate the visual aspects of workplace architecture and its impact on the performance of private bank employees in Rafsanjan city. This research adopts an applied developmental goal and employs a descriptive-analytical methodology. Data collection utilized both field methods (public questionnaires) and a combined approach (quantitative-qualitative) for data analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were applied using SPSS software. The findings revealed a direct correlation between the visual characteristics of workplace architecture and job performance in private bank branches in Rafsanjan. Thus, emphasizing visual elements in bank architecture holds significant importance, as these factors can influence employee performance, alertness levels, and concentration at work. The visual features of workplace architecture directly impact visual and psychological needs. Therefore, to enhance the performance quality of banks, these characteristics must be regarded as pivotal factors in workplace environments.

In the real world, situations frequently occur when we want to allocate a fixed cost between a set of decision-making units (DMUs) such as institutions, organizations. In this paper, we use the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to allocate fixed costs among DMUs. First, we introduce semi-additive production technology in DEA and present efficiency evaluation models in this technology. In estimating the frontier of this technology, in addition to the observed DMUs, the set of all aggregations of these DMUs are also used. In the following, we propose an interactive process for fixed cost allocation between DMUs in DEA based on the concept of cross-efficiency. We show that our proposed iterative approach is always feasible, and ensures that all DMUs become efficient after the fixed cost is allocated as an additional input measure. The cross-efficiency scores corresponding to all DMUs are improved at each stage of the interactive process. We also illustrate the proposed approach with a numerical example. The proposed approaches are demonstrated using an application of the fixed cost allocation problem for branches of commercial banks. Finally, we bring the results of the research.