درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Background: Research shows that there is a relationship between religion and spirituality with social behavior and mental health. Among the different religions, Muslims have the largest number in the world. Muslims pray five times a day. Aim: The purpose of this study was to review previous findings on the effect of Salat (Muslim prayer) on the mental and psychological health of people. Materials and Methods: More than 50 articles were reviewed and finally the most relevant articles were separated and analyzed. Results: The results indicate that there is a direct relationship between Salat and increasing the desire to live, hope, endurance of hardship, feeling happy and happiness, hope for recovery in patients. Also, prayer has an inverse relationship with anxiety and depression, despair, despair, dissatisfaction with life, discomfort with illness and problems. Conclusion: According to these findings, doctors and researchers in the health sector are expected to conduct new studies without religious and belief bias in order to understand and improve the mental and psychological conditions of patients, so that the mechanisms involved in these positive effects are revealed and possibly insight new in the process of improving people's mental and psychological conditions.

Bien que les enseignants de langues aient souvent émis des critiques à l'encontre de l'utilisation de la traduction comme outil d'apprentissage, cette pratique est très répandue chez les apprenants de langues étrangères et secondes. Toutefois, les recherches portant sur le rôle de la traduction dans l'apprentissage des langues et le développement des stratégies d'apprentissage ont été relativement peu nombreuses jusqu'à présent. L'objectif de la présente étude est d'explorer l'impact de la traduction sur l'élargissement des stratégies d'apprentissage des langues étrangères chez les apprenants eux-mêmes. Pour atteindre cet objectif, un questionnaire en six sections comprenant 30 items a été préparé et validé. Le questionnaire a été distribué aux apprenants de français langue étrangère. Après avoir collecté les données, les résultats ont montré que, du point de vue des apprenants du français langue étrangère, la traduction contribue à élargir davantage les stratégies d'apprentissage directes. Les résultats ont également montré que l'utilisation de la traduction, du point de vue des apprenants, développe des stratégies affectives, sociales et métacognitives, par ordre de priorité, parmi les stratégies d'apprentissage indirectes. Le recours à la traduction peut aider les apprenants de langues étrangères à développer leurs compétences cognitives, de mémoire et de compensation, dans cet ordre, parmi les stratégies d'apprentissage directes. Les résultats de cette étude permettent aux enseignants de langues d'identifier les croyances et les stratégies des apprenants, ce qui est essentiel pour adapter les stratégies d'enseignement et favoriser un apprentissage plus efficace. .

Through an epistemological lens, this article asserts that the dawn of the internet of data (IoD) era marks a profound shift in our understanding of human existence, one that challenges the notion of modern man as a singular and distinct entity. Delving deeper, the analysis presents an ontological exploration of the transition from a human-centric approach of the 19th and 20th centuries to the added-value man of the 21st century, examining the ideological underpinnings of concepts such as the Information Society and Society 5.0 respectively as representatives of the above two insights. In particular, the article meticulously dissects the stance of each approach towards humanity, highlighting the paradigm shift in our perception of the human experience. This piece offers an insightful commentary on the evolution of our understanding of human nature, encouraging us to rethink our place in the rapidly changing digital landscape.

It is generally perceived that serious games are more interesting to people who are more educated. But is this perception really true? This paper tries to answer this question and some other related questions to provide a clearer picture of who plays strategic games in the US. Data were taken from a large dataset of one of the PEWs surveys. The American Trends Panel is a probability-based online panel which is carried out nationally using a sample of adults in the United States living in households. This survey was fielded for the Pew Research Center by Abt Associates from April 4 to April 18, 2017. Overall, 4,168 participants completed the Wave 26 survey. The results found that in comparison with non-strategic gamers, strategic gamers are more likely to be men, more educated and wealthier, though the differences are small. It seems the old stereotypes about Sgamers and NSgamers should be re-evaluated, if we want to know how to use serious games for educational purposes. 

This article reviews the legal framework governing the protection of critical infrastructure in Africa with an emphasis on threats like cyberwar and cyberterrorism. As African governments and businesses increasingly depend on the internet and information systems, there is a need to enact appropriate laws to protect critical infrastructure from cyberattacks that could jeopardize the economic and national security postures of African countries. The article outlines the need for appropriate legal instruments to protect critical infrastructure as African businesses increasingly rely on the internet and information systems. The lack of adequate laws regulating critical infrastructure does not translate to the absence of critical infrastructure in African countries. Ghana, for instance, has a legal framework governing critical infrastructure. These infrastructures are common in most African countries but lack the required legal framework to protect them. It is important to note that despite the Budapest Convention and African Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection, there is no international legal framework regulating cyberwar and cyberterrorism. Considering these factors, this article reviews Ghana's Cybersecurity Act and the Directive on Critical Information Infrastructure and uses the United States framework for comparative analysis. In addition to reviewing the types of attacks critical infrastructure could face, the article looks at the legal framework for managing incidents that could arise from cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure.

Following the invasion of the allied forces in September 1941, chaos and crisis characterized the Iranian socio-political life for more than a decade. The “issue of oil” emerged in such an environment. First a round of negotiation began in order to “regain the right of the people to Southern oil”. The initial demand of the Iranian government was to acquire more benefits; at the same time, however, outside the government, another approach was being formed, in which a political understanding of the oil issue was predominant with a less materialist understanding of the stakes. As a result, the oil issue could be seen as either economic or political; two discourses, though both were more or less inspired by anti colonialist discourses of the time, emerged and each sought hegemony. This article seeks to reveal the way in which discursive struggle emerged and the way in which a shift to the political discourse made significant political changes possible. Its main argument is that the discursive conflict in a society, where national identity was a matter of contest, led to a fundamental change in the representation of the issue and, in the course of time, even the identities of the political actors evolved. It was when this discursive conflict led to the hegemony of the political understanding of the oil issue that Razmara’s administration became delegitimized and the national movement for oil nationalization acquired legitimacy.

Formal relationship between Iran and Brazil commenced in 1903 with the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce. Since then, their bilateral relations have been shaped by political and economic changes in both countries. A pivotal moment after the 1979 Iranian revolution occurred in 2005, when leaders Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ahmadinejad of Iran showed mutual interest in cooperation, driven by Iran's need to balance US threat and Brazil's aspiration to balance US power. However, shifts in the Brazilian foreign policy towards Iran and escalating tensions between Iran and the West impeded further progress. With Lula da Silva's return to power in 2023 and Iranian President Raisi's heightened focus on Latin America, both countries witnessed renewed discussions about the potential for positive balancing between Iran and Brazil. This study delves into the successes and setbacks of Iran-Brazil bilateral approximation through the lenses of positive balancing theory and historical analysis method. During Lula's administrations, Iran's balancing strategy towards Brazil proved beneficial for both nations: Iran sought to counter US threats by fostering a friendly relationship with Brazil, while Brazil aimed to elevate its Global South agenda by mediating in Iran's nuclear program. This engagement also aimed to unite anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist movements under emerging political leaders. Despite these efforts, the US pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program and on Brazil to limit its influence hindered constructive engagement between the two countries. Nevertheless, slow but steady economic interactions and Iran's inclusion in BRICS provide hope for the restoration of Iran's balancing strategy in Brazil and its reinforcement in Latin America.

This paper is an attempt to reconsider the legacy of universalism of traditional empires from the perspective of systems theory. In the West, the system ideas were already present in ancient Greek/Roman philosophy and developed further since the Renaissance within the domain of natural sciences (anatomy, mechanics or astronomy), whereas they did not develop as much in social sciences and particularly in politics, which lacks a holistic understanding. In the universal empires of the East (such as Iran, China and Russia) the system paradigm developed from the political life of centralized statehood. The core concept of the traditional imperial universalism was a particular understanding of “justice”, not as equality or absence of coercion, but as a certain form of social order. As the Chinese philosopher Xunzi and the Persian philosopher Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, noted, “justice” is primarily an “equilibrium”, that is a way of maintaining optimal interrelationships between different aspects of society within a single political whole. Traditional imperial universalism understood “just order” as a centralized hierarchical order. However, the current state of the systems approach and the complexity theory allows the reconsideration of the legacy of traditional universalism as the principle of totality of organizational connections and hierarchies of “systemic elements”, in the terminology of Russian philosopher, Alexander Bogdanov. It is concluded that the three Eastern thinkers share similar systematic understanding of “justice” as a hierarchically-arranged political order, coordinated on the basis of a single plan, which permits to maintain a dynamic balance.

Background: Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS) is a new neuro-modulatory technique.Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effect of a-tDCS on dynamic balance after exhaustion.Material and Methods: Fifteen endurance-trained men voluntarily attended five separate sessions. In the first session, Maximal aerobic speed (MAS) was measured. Then, the participants were randomly assigned to four different conditions: 1. Mental fatigue (MF)+a-tDCS, 2. MF+sham (s-tDCS), 3. a-tDCS, and 4. s-tDCS. In each session, after dynamic balance measurement, the participants were exposed to the conditions and received 20 min of anodal tDCS over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Then, the participants performed a submaximal endurance activity at 70% of MAS until exhaustion. Immediately after exhaustion, dynamic balance was measured again.Results: After exhaustion, the dynamic balance of the right leg under the a-tDCS condition was significantly higher than the MF+s-tDCS (P= 0.008). The dynamic balance significantly decreased from pre- to post-test in MF+s-tDCS and s-tDCS conditions (P= 0.0001). In the left leg, the dynamic balance under the a-tDCS condition was significantly higher than MF+s-tDCS (P= 0.025).Conclusions: Anodal stimulation of the DLPFC could be beneficial for the dynamic balance and may have a protective effect against the negative consequence of exhausting activity on the dynamic balance in endurance-trained men.

Toulmin's (1958) model of argumentation and Abdi et al.'s (2010) model of metadiscourse, mapped onto Grice's (1975) Cooperative Principle, are both attempts to elaborate on the process and contribute to the goal of obtaining persuasion. This study is an attempt to integrate the use of metadiscursive and argument strategies to provide a common logical rationale for their employment. Through a qualitative investigation of 40 ELT research articles (RAs), we propose a convergent framework for employing CP-based metadiscourse and argumentation model in RA arguments. As a result, endophoric markers were identified to be used as warrants to meet quantity, while transitions, frame markers, and code glosses were found to be employed as conclusions and data to fulfill manner. Furthermore, evidentials were found to be employed in conclusion, backing, and warrant; hedges were seen to be used as qualifiers; and finally, disclaimers were recognized to be employed in rebuttals; to meet quality. The findings reveal that argumentations are built metadiscursively which has implications for writers and educators. For writers, it could help to develop a deeper understanding of the positive role of metadiscursive strategies in RA arguments and as such could guide a more efficient employment of it to facilitate persuasion. For educators, the findings could provide a model for building and ensuring basic logical and rhetorical characteristics of an argument in academic writing. 

The question of whether specific patterns of impairment across different language modalities are isolated, associated, or doubly dissociated has been a major theoretical issue in aphasiology. In this paper, we describe modality- and task-specific language impairments in a Persian-speaking patient (AG) with ischemic stroke. AG’s overall language impairments were evaluated using the bedside version of Persian Western Aphasia Battery (P-WAB-1), which indicated an Aphasia Quotient (AQ) index of 86. Moreover, his performance on the Reading subtests of the Persian Diagnostic Aphasia Battery (P-DAB-3) indicated a Language Quotient (LQ) index of 60. We also evaluated his word reading, sentence reading, and sentence repetition using the subtests of the Persian version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT). Based on his performance on these assessment tools during the chronic post-onset time, AG was diagnosed with transcortical motor aphasia. Notably, he exhibited two striking characteristics, namely, (a) a modality-specific dissociation, with severely impaired reading comprehension in the face of relatively spared auditory comprehension; and (b) a set of task-specific agrammatic symptoms in verbal expression and out-loud sentence reading in the context of relatively well-preserved sentence repetition. The general characteristics of our patient’s grammatical violations also highlight certain universal and language-specific agrammatic impairments. The present clinical linguistic data argue against the existence of monolithic speech-related regions in the brain.

Idioms and collocations are part of lexical phrases which are of high importance in lexicography. One of the criteria for distinguishing these two types of phrases from each other is the inflexibility of their constituent elements. Idioms, unlike collocations, are not flexible in terms of word order and are always used in a fixed and specific form. The purpose of the present article was to show firstly whether all Persian idioms are inflexible against syntactic changes or some are flexible; secondly, to indicate how a new lexical phrase is created as a result of converting an idiom into a collocation. To illustrate this phenomenon, a new and practical definition for idioms and collocations, based on syntactic criteria not merely semantic, was provided. According to Construction Grammar, idioms were analyzed based on four syntactic tests: ‘passivization’, ‘clefting’, ‘dislocation’, and ‘interrogation’. Two hundred idioms were collected from two of the most up-to-date and comprehensive sources, namely Farsi Amiyaneh Dictionary (Abolhassan Najafi, 2008) and the two-volume Dictionary of Kenayat-e Sokhan (Hassan Anvari, 2019). Some idioms were flexible to syntactic changes, and behaved similarly to collocations. The flexibility of idioms led to introducing a new definition of these phrases based on syntactic criteria. Thus, such phrases were considered a kind of collocation, not an idiom. The result showed that converting an idiom into a collocation always creates a lexical phrase or lexeme with a new meaning. Finally, a plan was introduced to represent such idioms practically in Persian dictionaries.