مطالب

Pension funds are major concerns and future threats to the economy of de-veloping countries. In general, pension funds are among the most sensitive and complicated modern financial institutions in today’s world, as well as an important component of the national economy to achieve the goals of the social security system. The present study was only focused on the dimensions and prioritization of the influential factors in evaluating the impact of pension funds. This could be an important step toward accurate policymaking in this regard within a shorter period and with decreased costs by recognizing the important factors. This was an applied research in terms of the objectives and involved a mixed method in terms of the design. Data were collected in two consecutive stages using the descriptive survey method. The first stage involved a qualitative assessment using the content analysis method, and the second stage was carried out using a decision-making mathematical model known as the fuzzy DEMATEL method. The two stages facilitated the identification of the influ-ence and interaction of the factors and prioritized the identified indexes. The fuzzy DEMATEL technique is a simple and efficient model applied to rec-ognize and rank the most important factors. The factors were calculated based on the opinions of experts using the fuzzy DEMATEL method. Ac-cording to the results, the three most important factors in this regard were upstream rules and regulations, inflation, and investment strategies.

The study of path loss propagation is of high importance in telecommunication, for optimizing the efficiency of wireless communication networks. In this paper, four path loss propagation models; free space path loss (FSPL) model, Okumura model, Okumura-Hata model, and COST 231-Hata model were compared. The models were compared using measurement data from Choba, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The data is gotten from a 4G walk test using two mobile applications. The first mobile application Network, Signal Info (version 5.68.07), was used to acquire the received signal strength in and the distance between the BTS antenna and the mobile antenna. While the second mobile application, G-NetTrack Lite (version 14.8), was used to map out the track path followed during the test. Choba, the study area, is a coastal suburban area with map coordinates 4.8941° N, 6.9263° E. The measured distance range was from 0.09 km to 0.45 km, and a path loss range of 69dB to 81dB. While the BTS and mobile antenna heights were 32 m and 1m respectively, with a carrier frequency of 800MHz. BTS transmission power of 23 dBm was assumed, based on 3GPP eNodeB recommendations. A graph comparison of the studied models showed that Okumura-Hata model and COST 231-Hata model had the closest predictions to the measured path loss. The need for better path loss models for 4G and 5G propagations was observed

In recent years, with the advancement of information technology in education, e-learning quality promotion has received increased attention. Numerous criteria exist for promoting learning quality, such as fitness for purpose, which refers to the extent to which service fits its intended purpose. Multiple purposes are considered in e-learning. One is reducing the knowledge gap between the learner’s perception of educational concepts and what should be understood of training concepts. Identifying and calculating the learner’s knowledge gap is the first step in reducing the knowledge gap. Consequently, this paper presents a new method for calculating the learner’s knowledge gap concerning each concept in the training video content based on the learner’s click behavior. The association between the learner’s knowledge gap and click behavior was determined by categorizing the learner’s click behaviors. Similarly, the Apriori algorithm extracted rules for each behavioral category. The results demonstrated that learning outcome correlated with the learner’s click behavior. Therefore, four behavioral rules regarding the compatibility between the knowledge gap and learner’s click behavior are presented. Experiments were performed by 52 students enrolled in the micro-processing course at Tehran University’s e-Learning Center.

Paralinguistic features are indispensable and crucial aspects of communication without which any utterance would lose its identity. On the other hand, confusion in cross-cultural communication is most often assigned to paralinguistic features. Despite the significant importance of paralinguistic clues in humans’ communication, only limited studies have tackled this issue. More specifically, despite the fact that paralinguistic features are culturally different, no study has investigated the possible relationship between these features and speaking performance of Persian-speaking learners of English. Hence, with this existing gap in the literature, in this study, we tried to scrutinize the impact of paralinguistic cues upon EFL learners’ speaking fluency in the Persian setting. To this objective, we recruited 40 first-year undergraduate female students of Linguistics at the University of Gonabad, utilizing non-random sampling method. Their English proficiency level was determined as lower-intermediate via the administration of Quick Oxford Placement Test. In our pre-test post-test experimental research, we allocated a five-week span of instruction for the purpose of teaching paralinguistic clues to the experimental group to see whether it could have a significant positive impact upon their speaking performance. The instrument we utilized to evaluate speaking capability of our participants was Researcher-Made Speaking Test. The results of our study demonstrated that utilizing paralinguistic features boosted students’ speaking capability. On the light of our finding, it could be concluded that paralinguistic features could be employed for the first-year undergraduate students to enhance their communicative performance. Future studies in diverse EFL settings, could shed light on this conclusion.

The purpose of this research is to explain time based on the constructivist view of substantive motion. This activity has been done in a deconstruction manner. It is the deconstruction, re-reading, and analysis of any subject by decentralizing it and achieving dimensions of the subject that are often overlooked. In general, theories of time are divided into two categories: theories of substantive change, which consider change to be related only to the appearances and names and the superficial layers of the system and all its phenomena, and theories that consider time made by the substantive motion and fundamental change and evolution of phenomena. By challenging the themes in the view of the change of nature, the space was paved for the view to emerge on the constructivism of the transcendent purposeful substantive motion. According to the constructivist approach of purposeful substantive motion, all phenomena of existence, and especially human beings, are moving in the path of the Creator according to their need and poverty. The centralization of the approach to the constructivism of the substantive motion has implications for education. Thus, education is more and more a religious nature and according to the substantive motion, the universe, based on its inherent nature, needs a stimulus that is being created and invented every moment in order to be able to form a momentary identity of the world and man. And the accidental world is an inherent occurrence (not a time occurrence).