درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

SUBJECT AND OBJECTIVES : New spiritualities (New Age) have a special and new view on the human and its place in the universe, leading to certain anthropology bases. Among these bases is perfectionism (spiritual and biological). Both Chopra and Mulla Sadra have discussed various issues on spiritual perfectionism. According to Mulla Sadra’s views, this research seeks to answer the question: What are the objections to Deepak Chopra’s spiritual perfectionism? METHOD AND FINDING : The method is theoretical and it is library research. The study finding is presented under the titles the nature of spiritual perfection, end of spiritual perfection, ways, and obstacles of spiritual perfection. All these titles are explained according to Chopra, and Mulla Sadra separately, and in a comparative way finally. CONCLUSION : The result of the study and analysis of Chopra and Mulla Sadra’s views, based on their works, is that although there are similarities between their views, Sadra’s perfectionism is in the direction of attainment of Almighty God. All the ways and obstacles of perfection discussed by him will help the wayfarer in his wayfaring. In contrast, Chopra’s perfection is not completely divine and is more biological and looks mainly for inner calmness and solving worldly human problems.

As in many other countries, universities in Indonesia have been closed since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and lecturers have been forced to adapt to online learning. Students in this online course admitted to feeling anxious when studying public speaking. This descriptive quantitative study aims to analyze the potential factors (English oral proficiency, personality, lecturer's scoring criteria, classmates' responses, pronunciation, audience familiarity, unfamiliar speech topic, preparedness, English grammar, vocabulary) affecting the students' public speaking anxiety at four different stages. The respondents of this study were 60 undergraduate students. A questionnaire adapted from McCroskey (1970) was used, and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of IBM SPSS statistics 26 software. The findings of this study revealed that the factors affecting the students' public speaking anxiety through online learning varied by stages. Through online learning, English oral proficiency and topic familiarity could be the most influential factors on students' public speaking anxiety. The findings of this study are useful for educators in helping EFL students overcome their public speaking anxiety and enabling them to perform better in public speaking.

Despite many studies on the concept of learner autonomy and the relationship between teacher autonomy (TA) and learner autonomy, scant attention has been devoted to TA on its own. To bridge this gap, the present study used narrative accounts to discover language teachers’ autonomy in terms of self-directed professional development (PD), capacity for self-directed PD, and freedom from control over PD. To this end, eight English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers narrated their past stories regarding these three dimensions. The thematic analysis of their narratives showed that their main activities for self-directed PD included peer observation, peer coaching, making use of technology, continuing education, action research, interacting with professionals, and attending workshops. Regarding capacity for their self-directed PD, the teachers claimed they had the capacity and willingness to self-direct their teacher learning. External support, experience, motivational factors, and reading books and articles were instrumental in teachers’ capacity development. Moreover, the findings revealed that although teachers viewed financial problems, conference attendance, lack of time to do PD activities, and rules of the institutes as obstacles to their freedom over PD, they employed strategies to change them into opportunities. The findings suggest implications for teachers and teacher educators to acquaint themselves with different PD strategies and to raise teachers’ awareness about the value of PD, respectively. The findings might bear implications for institute managers as well.

This study intended to compare the effects of prescriptive and collaborative models of observation on EFL teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. From among 80 participants, 40 teachers, including 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the collaborative observation group (experimental group) and another group of 40 teachers, which comprised of 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the prescriptive observation group (control group). A sequential explanatory design was employed so that both quantitative and qualitative data collection/analysis procedures could be employed. The quantitative data were collected through The Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES) (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), and the qualitative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data revealed (i) the significant difference between prescriptive and collaborative observation in terms of teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy, and that (ii) in the collaborative observation group, there was a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. The study has implications for both teachers and teacher educators, suggesting that collaborative observation could enhance EFL teacher development.              

Recent studies within the past four decades have confirmed the effectiveness of Student-Centered Learning (SCL) over Teacher-Centered Learning (TCL). Furthermore, the emergence of 21st-century learning skills and competencies necessitates education systems to change their previous practices and equip their students with these skills and competencies. However, implementing SCL has not gained considerable attention among education authorities and EFL teachers in Iranian high schools. This study aims to explore EFL teachers' understanding of SCL and their perceptions of the obstacles to implementing it in Kermanshah, Iran. To this end, the study employed a convergent mixed-methods design that combined 24-item questionnaire data with 9 structured interviews using the NVIVO Software Version10. The questionnaire analysis revealed that there is a wide gap between the participants’ perceptions of SCL and their practices in the classroom. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews led to extracting three main themes of institutional, teacher-student-parent, and socio-cultural obstacles that impede implementing SCL in EFL classes and indicate that TCL practices are still running. The results revealed that teachers hold general perceptions of SCL. However, due to some constraints, they adhere to the TCL.            

Asset allocation has always been a challenging issue / for individuals and businesses to survive in our competitive world. One of the famous businesses, which has an enormous impact on people's lives worldwide, is the pension industry. Pension funds- as Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution, or others- accept reserves from contributors and try to invest them in a way to keep up with their obligations in the future or even pay more than that. The equity market has been one of the good choices for investment as pension funds try to reach a particular rate of return to maximize their wealth while considering not crossing red lines in taking risks. This paper will detail the new mathematical model for finding optimal stock portfolios using Generalized Co-Lower Partial Moment as a risk measure to minimize portfolio optimization. On the other hand, it introduces new tailored Expected Utility as a performance metric to maximize in this model. The proposed model's issue against previous studies is considering risk aversion and target rate of investment return as two significant investor characteristics. This is based on price returns' simulation of candidate stocks in TSE while using accurate and nonparametric Probability Density Function in historical data analysis.

One of the most critical bottlenecks in the country’s oil industry is the lack of sufficient liquidity and a suitable and codified method for financing projects in the downstream sector of Iran’s oil and gas industry. These projects include the construction of oil and gas refineries and petrochemical plants. Oil and gas projects require a very high volume of investment, and the limited financial resources and insufficient attractiveness of the currently defined instruments do not meet the new investment needs of downstream projects to achieve the 1404 vision. Therefore, in this article, due to the novelty of the issue, numerous interviews were conducted with staff and operational managers and other relevant officials in the field of financing the downstream part of the oil and gas industry. Then, with the help of Maxqda software, all independent ideas in the form of concepts and sub-themes were identified. With the help of the Delphi method based on the process of Islamic financial engineering based on responding to existing needs by identifying the needs of the parties to the transaction, asset base, and related cash flow analysis, appropriate structured instrument in this sector were designed in six instruments. From experts and related tests, as well as analysis and comparison of their various risks by AHP using Expert Choice software, finally based on the tests performed on the results obtained from questionnaires and interviews of experts, structured financing instrument in the form of convertible securities parallel Istisna Sukuk–Lease (Ijarah) and Sukuk–stock was approved.

Forensic accounting, as a process of legal inspection of corporate accounting practices, has become an important strategy to prevent fraud and financial misconduct, creating information transparency for investors to make financial decisions. Among the capital market companies, oil companies can strengthen the forensic accounting paradigm to provide documentation and transparency of decision-making to prevent market distrust caused by investor risks and contribute to the sustainable development of its presence in advancing competitive strategies. This study aims to develop an effective forensic accounting paradigm based on the risks of investors in oil companies. In this study, the components (dimensions of forensic accounting) and research propositions (investor risk themes) were used to from a combined analysis with 15 accounting experts at the university level. In the quantitative part, the components and propositions identified in the form of matrix questionnaires were evaluated by the interpretive ranking process (IRP) by 20 financial managers of oil companies in the capital market. The results showed that the statements of inflation and credit risk as the most influential themes threaten investors in oil companies, strengthening the focus on legal mechanisms as a component of the forensic accounting paradigm. This result shows that, in the presence of inflationary and credit risks for oil companies’ investors, the importance of legal mechanisms in judicial accounting can lead to increased information transparency to protect the interests of oil companies’ investors