مطالب

One of the strategies used in active portfolio management is the "network matrix model "which can be used to form different portfolios with different characteristics of stocks or companies. In this study, with the data of 156 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2011 to 2018 using the network matrix model and based on throughput accounting criteria, portfolio formation and their performance with the portfolios of the new network matrix model (Defensive, neutral and aggressive stocks) and market portfolio were compared. The results show that the proposed network matrix model portfolios based on throughput accounting criteria have higher performance than the new network matrix model in terms of Sharpe, Sortino, upside potential, and omega criteria. Also, portfolios consisting of stocks of companies with high system performance, in addition to the above criteria, have higher performance in terms of Jensen's Alpha criteria than the new network matrix model, and in terms of upside potential and omega criteria, have higher performance than the market portfolio. The performance of portfolios consisting of stocks of companies with low system performance has a stronger correlation with the market portfolio compared to the new network matrix model.

This study examines the relationship between stock liquidity and return predicta-bility of 116 publicly-traded firms in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). To this end, we constructed a dated-regular frequency of time series with total 40128 stock-firm observations. After calculating daily bid-ask spreads and stock returns, the observations were classified based on liquidity into three classes and the return predictability was investigated across different classes using a set of parametric tests. The results exhibit signs of return autocorrelation and non-independence over three liquidity groups. Our findings didn’t show a connection between stock liquidity and market efficiency. The Hurst exponent also revealed mean reversion of returns series across different liquidity classes. We conclude that stock liquidity doesn’t play a significant role in market efficiency and return predictability of stocks in TSE. In case of TSE as other emerging markets, due to the small num-ber of traders (the need for more trading activity) and low market making activi-ties, both the cost of trading increases and the reaction to stock price information is delayed, resulting in predictability of price /return.

This research aims to evaluate the effect of consumer traits, service quality, perception-based factors, customer satisfaction, and e-trust on electronic brand love and e-loyalty. In this study, a cross-sectional survey is conducted based on the questionnaire method to collect data from a sample of 300 customers of the Digikala Website in Isfahan, Iran. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the research hypotheses. According to the results, the service quality, consumer traits, and perception-based factors significantly affected customer satisfaction. Also, e-brand love had a significant impact on e-trust and e-loyalty; e-trust significantly affected e-brand love and e-loyalty, and e-brand love had a significant impact on e-loyalty. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research stands among the first to evaluate the factors affecting electronic brand love and loyalty. The evaluation of brand love on loyalty demonstrated that the greater the amount of love and fascination with a brand, the higher the positive effect on consumer loyalty. Overall, managers are recommended to do their best to eliminate misunderstandings and create an interest in consumers, ultimately leading to greater customer loyalty. Managers should pay more attention to brand experience dimensions, such as sensory marketing. In this regard, creating a brand community by e-retailers is very helpful.

The aim of this paper is to consider whether critical rationalism has any ideas which could usefully be applied to the internet.  Today we tend to take the internet for granted and it is easy to forget that it was only about two decades ago that it began to be used to any significant extent. Accordingly in section 1 of the paper, there is a brief consideration of the history of the internet.  At first sight this makes it looks implausible that any of Popper’s ideas could be applicable to the internet, since Popper died before the internet came into general use.  However, section 2 argues that Popper’s theory of World 3 does apply very well to the internet.  This application is significant because, as shown in section 3, it leads to the problem of misinformation, which is one of the most significant problems generated by the internet.  In section 4 there is an attempt to solve this problem using ideas taken from Popper’s epistemology. It is argued that there should be changes in education designed to prepare students for the internet age. Teaching in the internet age should focus on presenting to the students not just the accepted theories but also the evidence on which they are based. An illustration of how this might be done is given by considering an example from science teaching, namely the teaching of Newtonian mechanics in the last years of school or first years of university.

Since Critical Rationalism is considered by some more of an attitude or mindset and by others a methodological approach to philosophical thinking and practical problem-solving, its application, or more accurately, its epistemological testing grounds, should be expected to be much more wide-ranging than they have been so far. With the exception of some published anthologies on Critical Rationalism and occasional nods to the legacy of Karl Popper’s falsificationist methodology, relatively few applicaions of a critical rational approach to contemporary theoretical debates in the social sciences have been published. I wish here to critically challenge the (optimistic) Hegelian and by extension the neoliberal view of the progress of American capitalism by reframing it with the Marxian notion of expropriation as applied to enslavement on plantations. The logic of enslavement as a process by which brutal exploitation has been practiced for centuries offers a falsifying test case of the rationality of capitalism and its promise of individual freedom of choice. This essay is an explicit exercise in the potential power of a version of Popperian critical rationalism being applied to the intersection of modern liberalism and capitalism, exploring the imbrication of a critical and rational analysis.

This study compared the Discussion section of theses written by M.A. English L1 and L2 students regarding lexical sophistication. Certain linguistic features were applied to investigate whether texts written in English L2 had any similarities or differences with native speakers’ (NSs) texts. To achieve this, 20 English L2 theses authored by Iranian M.A. students of Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khorasgan), were sampled. As such, 20 English L1 theses written by M.A. English NSs of the same major in the US and UK were randomly downloaded as a comparison corpus of English L1. The corpora were later uploaded to Coh-Matrix that processes text and discourse at different levels of language. Two main statistical procedures for data analysis were the MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) and Discriminant Function Analysis. According to Coh-Metrix analysis, the results revealed certain similarities and differences between the corpora. Specifically, more CELEX content words were used in the NSs theses. However, the differences between the two corpora did not reach a statistical significance in terms of other indices of lexical sophistication (i.e., polysemy, concreteness, hypernymy, age-of-acquisition scores, and lexical diversity). Concerning these similarities and differences, academic writing pedagogy and theses writing abilities of Iranian English L2 learners can be improved by applying both word processing tools like Coh-Metrix, appropriate writing strategies and techniques according to the given results of current contrastive corpus study.

Online teaching ultimately encourages language teaching to use established and best practices to provide this teaching modality in empirically validated ways. The use of the media in classrooms leads students to learn about the subject more creatively and objectively.  The study investigated the relationship between teachers' media literacy and their attitude toward online teaching. Three hundred eighty-three males and females EFL teachers participated in the present study. All participants had a Master of Arts in TEFL. The participations were selected through convenience sampling. Then, the researcher used the Pearson correlation to investigate the correlation between teachers’ media literacy and their attitude toward online teaching. The results showed that there was a positive significant relationship between teachers’ media literacy and their attitude towards online teaching.

This study was done to investigate the relationship between technological pedagogical content knowledge and reflective teaching of Iranian ESP teachers in online classrooms. To meet the goals, 254 ESP teachers from different universities in Iran were selected to take part in the study. The technological pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ reflective teaching questionnaires were used as the main instruments of the study. Pearson correlation and multiple regression were calculated to analyze the data gathered from the questionnaires. The findings showed that the relationship between Iranian ESP teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge and their reflective teaching in online classrooms was significant and the components of TPCK significantly predicted the Iranian ESP teachers’ reflective teaching. The findings of the study assist ESP teachers to employ technological pedagogical content knowledge to enhance their reflective teaching in the teaching process.

Self-directed learning and digital literacy are the most effective issues in the process of foreign language learning. Due to the importance of digital literacy and self-directed learning in the process of foreign language learning, the present study aimed at investigating the relationship between Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ digital literacy and their self-directed learning. For the purpose of the study, 210 male and female Iranian EFL learners from Mashhad English language institutes took part in the study through using convenience sampling method. The digital literacy and self-directed learning questionnaires were distributed among intermediate EFL learners to measure their attitudes towards digital literacy and the self-directed learning process. To conduct the study, a correlational design was used. The results of Pearson Correlation analyses revealed that there was a positive relationship between the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ digital literacy and their self-directed learning. The results of the multiple regression analyses also showed that information communication technology literacy and information literacy as the two components of the digital literacy questionnaire significantly predicted the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ self-directed learning. It can be concluded that high levels of digital literacy and self-directed learning tend to result in better academic performance and learning motivation. It is important that educational contexts, as well as lan guage institutes administrators provide opportunities for en hancing learners’ self-directed learning and media literacy and consequently improving EFL learners’ achievement and motivation.