fatemeh mozaffari

Social support is a crucial factor in how well older adults adjust to the aging process and related challenges, such as anxiety about death. Body image in older adults is a complex and important concept, yet it has been under-researched. This study examined the correlations between social support, death anxiety, and body image in older adults residing in Yazd City, Iran.

This cross-sectional study involved older adults from Yazd City, Iran, who visited comprehensive urban health centers in 2022. A convenience sample of 200 participants was selected. They completed questionnaires on demographics, social support perception, body image concerns, and death anxiety.

The total social support score (p < 0.01) as well as the score of family support (p < 0.05) and others' support (p < 0.01) showed a significant negative correlation with death anxiety. However, no significant association was found between death anxiety and body image, nor between social support and body image. Regression analysis revealed that only "support from others" was a significant predictor of death anxiety (p < 0.01). Men reported receiving more friends' social support than women (p < 0.05). Participants with higher socioeconomic status were more likely to receive greater family’s social support (p < 0.01) and experience less death anxiety (p < 0.05).

Social support positively impacts the mental well-being and morale of older adults. It can, therefore, be considered a readily available resource and a form of social capital to reduce death anxiety, enhance their sense of purpose, and improve their quality of life.

The telecommunications industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world. Because of the high cost of customer acquisition and adverse effects of customer churn on the company's performance, customer retention becomes an inseparable part of strategic decision-making and one of the main objectives of customer relationship management. Although customer churn prediction models are widely studied in various domains, several challenges remain in designing and implementing an effective model. This paper attempts to address the customer churn prediction problem with a practical approach. The experimental analysis was conducted on the actual customers' data gathered from available data sources at a telecom company in Iran. First, the partial churn was defined in a new way which exploits the status of customers based on the criteria that can be measured easily in the telecommunications industry. Moreover, a hybrid feature selection approach was proposed in which various feature selection methods, along with the wisdom of the crowd, were applied. It was found that the wisdom of the crowd can be used as a useful feature selection method. Finally, a predictive model was developed using advanced machine learning algorithms such as bagging, boosting, stacking, and deep learning. The partial customer churn was predicted with more than 88% accuracy by the Gradient Boosting Machine algorithm by using 5-fold cross-validation. Comparative results indicate that the proposed model performs efficiently compared to the ones applied in the previous studies.

Studying L2 classroom interaction can potentially help teachers and researchers to analyze classroom discourse in order to gain insights into class-based learning and promote teachers' awareness of their teaching. To measure, analyze and describe the interaction and the behavior of participants in classrooms several approaches can be used. One of the most powerful methodologies in Applied Linguistic research and L2 classroom interactions has recently been conversation analysis. This short pape r reports on several conversation analytic studies with a focus on English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom discourse and discusses the values of conversation analysis as a reflexive methodology for research on second or foreign language classroom discourse. The implications outlined are for language teaching and learning, classroom interaction, professional development of English language teachers, teacher education, and everyday talk.

Some of Donald Barthelme’s works have been undeniably influenced by Michel Foucault’s socio-political philosophy, however, few scholars have explored such concepts in his works, especially the theme of “panopticism.” The purpose of this article, which is library based, is to analyze and scrutinize the panoptic society of Barthelme’s “Subpoena” in the light of Foucauldian “panopticism” which is a segment of his more general concept of power. Keeping the Benthamite “Panopticon” in the back of his mind, Foucault outlines the “new physics of power” represented by “panopticism” as a modern or disciplinary power; he, then, draws our attention to its most important feature, i.e., the penetration into the most trivial and personal affairs of social subjects. It is worth mentioning that the basic characteristics of disciplinary power such as omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence can be discovered in panoptic society of “Subpoena.” In this society, there is always the possibility of resistance and rebellion because wherever power is found, resistance emerges as well, though, eventually, power prevails upon individuals. Barthelme creatively portrays a post-modern society in which disciplinary power, with its meticulous and permanent surveillance, on the one hand, has transformed the subjects into the men of modern humanism, and, on the other hand, has changed the traditional society into a panoptic one. Barthelme successfully finalizes the story with the message that modern society intends to make obedient and useful machines out of the subjects.

In this article, one of the most important works of humor in the history of Persian literature Hedayat’sVaqVaqSahab is reviewed and analyzed based on the General Theory of Verbal Humor. This work has special features in all six Knowledge Resources, but the focus of this study has been on the three variables of Target (T), Script Opposition (SO), and Logical Mechanism (LM). VaqVaqSahab contains the traits of humorous narrative texts; both in the final part of the joke (punch lines) and within the body of the text (jab lines). Moreover, thereaders’ expectation of targeting at out-group and showing solidarity with in- group (a common tool for creating humor)is violated in VaqVaqSahab. Two SOs of tradition/ modernity and the appearance/ realityare added to previously introduced SOs in this theory. Exaggeration, meta-humor (self-reflection), proximity, consequences, false analogy and inversion are some of the widely used LMs in this work.

"Atr-e Sonbol, Atr-e Kaj" is a Persian translation of the memoirs of Firoozeh Jazaieri Duma written based on her unique social experience as an Iranian immigrant living in the United States. The current paper aims to examine the components and mechanisms of the humor of mentioned story based on the "General Theory of Verbal Humor". In this method, the variables used to examine a funny narrative are divided into six categories: language, target, situation, narrative strategy, logical mechanism, and Script Opposition. In the present study, which is based on the target variable; It has been shown how Firoozeh, by targeting people outside the group and within the group, introduces appropriate and inappropriate social behaviors that she has encountered and achieves a new and selective identity; An identity that neither alienates her from her past values nor isolates her in the new culture. Her verbal humor can create a group bond between readers of different races, especially female audiences. In addition, in her funny narrative, "target" is higher than "Script Opposition " (variable of laughter).

Game theory, a method of applied mathematics, has been used to study a wide range of topics. Literature is also a fertile ground for the application of Game theory. If one models literary texts as a series of decisions in which each character's decision or choice is dependent on the previous ones of others, it looks like a game, according to the formal game-theory definition. Thus irrational decisions or actions are rational in the context of a game. The current study aims to revisit Shakespeare's tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra, in light of the game theory and model them in trees and matrices. These tragedies are nonzero-sum Games and there are no winners at the end. Moreover the characters' dominant strategies are associated with Nash Equilibrium.

The theory and practice of language teacher autonomy seems to be contradictory in terms. While, in theory, language teaching is conceptualized as a reflective process wherein teachers exercise their professional expertise, in many contexts including some private language schools of Shahrood and Semnan, teaching performance is tightly monitored through closed-circuit cameras. This study attempts to explore language teachers’ perceptions of teaching under video surveillance through elicitation data gathered and analyzed based on grounded theory. Iterative data collection and analysis and the constant comparative techniques revealed that video surveillance negatively affects language teaching since the participants believed it violates their rights to privacy, induces artificial practice, suppresses teacher initiatives, and deskills teachers by inducing disused atrophy. Through the counter-evidence presented by the language teachers, it was also found that the rationales for using video surveillance are unjustified. The findings of this study have clear implications for managers, supervisors and language teachers teaching in private language schools in the context of this study and other similar contexts.

High-risk behaviors are particularly important when young people are considered to be failures and offenses. That’s why identifying effective factors in preventing or reducing these behaviors is really important. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the role of spiritual and psychological well-being in predicting high-risk behaviors of young prisoners in Zanjan city.

The research method was descriptive-correlation. The population included all the young prisoners in Zanjan aged between 18 and 35 (n=500). The sample size was calculated 220 using Cochran method. The participants were selected using random sampling. The data collection tool were standard questionnaires of high-risk behaviors by Mohammad Khani, psychological well-being by Riff, and spiritual well-being by Paloutzian and Ellison. Pearson correlation test and multiple regression were used for data analysis. All ethical issues were observed in this study and the researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

There is a significant relationship between spiritual well-being and religious well-being with high-risk behaviors (p<0.05). As for the components of personal growth, positive relationship with others and its acceptance component with some high-risk behaviors were confirmed in this study. The results of regression table showed that total spiritual well-being has the potential to predict the high-risk behaviors of aggressive behavior, relationship with the opposite sex, cigarette and hookah smoking, alcoholic drinks, and drugs and narcotics. Also, Positive relationship with others had the potential to predict the high-risk behaviors of thoughts and suicide attempts (p<0.001).

The general spiritual well-being and religious well-being can be effective in reducing the high-risk behaviors of the young prisoners.

The prison environment for young prisoners can be accompanied by different changes. The current study aimed at comparing spiritual health, psychological well-being, and high-risk behaviors among young prisoners sentenced for drug, financial, and theft offences in Zanjan, Iran.
The current descriptive-comparative study was conducted on the statistical population comprised of all prisoners within the age range of 18 to 35 years sentenced for theft, drug, and financial offences in Zanjan. Their number was 340. The sample size was calculated using the Cochran formula as 163 subjects. The subjects were selected by simple random sampling method and classified into three groups. The data collection instruments were high-risk behaviors, psychological well-being, and spiritual well-being questionnaires. The content validity and reliability of the questionnaires were assessed by Cronbach alpha. Data analysis was performed with SPSS version 24.
There was a significant difference in the religious indices among the studied groups, in such an extent that the average religious indices in the drug and theft groups were higher than those of the financial group (P Religious indices and high-risk behaviors were different in different individuals depending on the type of offences. Therefore, it is recommended to pay more attention to this issue in medical treatments and psychological counseling.

For many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, working contingently with language learners' problematic learner contributions in classroom interaction remains a challenge. Drawing on conversation analysis methodology and using sociocultural and situated learning theories, this longitudinal case study traces the progressional changes in one Iranian English language teacher's repairing practices (his orientation to repairable, repair completion type and trajectory) along with the changing impacts of different organizational patterns of repair and interactional awareness on learning opportunities. The data material consists of video recordings of EFL oral classroom interactions (11 lessons) and reflective conversations (seven sessions) between the researcher and the participant teacher at one private language institute in Iran over a period of six months, in two phases. Qualitative results from the first (descriptive) phase indicated that the teacher's provision of repair in meaning-oriented contexts was generally convergent while in form-oriented ones divergent. The qualitative changes revealed the teacher's increasing attention to lexical errors and use of self-repair types, particularly in form-oriented contexts and the teacher's progress in interactional awareness including identification of contexts and repair organization, use of metalanguage and critical self-evaluation This study makes a contribution to conversation analytic research and our understanding of English teacher professional development.

Despite the abundance of research on teachers’ repair practices in language classroom interaction, there are not enough conversation analytic studies on repair organization with the focus on the details of interaction in the context of EFL. Drawing on sociocultural and situated learning theories, this study explores the contingent nature of English language teachers’ organizational patterns of repair practices (repair focus, repair completion, repair trajectory and convergence) by adopting the context-dependency of repair as a point of departure. More specifically, we analyzed two classroom interactional contexts: form-oriented and meaning-oriented contexts as well as their realization in student participation. Data were collected through video- and audio-tape recordings of 14 lessons from eight EFL teachers at four private language institutes in Iran and they were analyzed based on the framework of conversation analysis methodology. The analysis of lesson transcripts indicated that the teachers varied in their repair practices; however, an organizational repair pattern emerged from the data. The analysis of qualitative data revealed that the teachers largely repaired divergently in form-oriented contexts but convergently in meaning-oriented contexts, and deployed other-repair more than self-repair. The pedagogical implications of the study are for language teachers’ awareness of the role of repair organization in facilitating learning opportunities and for teachers’ professional development.

This paper investigates learner-initiated responses to English language teachers’ referential questions and learner initiatives after teachers’ feedback moves in meaning-focused question-answer sequences to analyze how interactional practices of language teachers¡ their initiation and feedback moves¡ facilitate learner initiatives. Classroom discourse research has largely neglected learner initiative in this pedagogically crucial arena. Addressing this pedagogical issue and drawing on sociocultural theory and situated learning theory¡ this qualitative study focuses on meaning-focused question-answer sequences to understand whether unfolding sequences¡ as structured by teachers¡ solicit learner-initiated participation. The data come from 10 videotaped and transcribed lessons from seven English teachers and their intermediate level students¡ at four private language institutes in Iran¡ which were analyzed within conversation analysis framework. Based on detailed analysis of classroom episodes¡ a very small number of learner initiatives was uncovered. The analysis revealed that several interactional practices by teachers (addressing the whole class¡ extending wait-time¡ encouraging student-student interaction¡ acknowledging response¡ giving positive feedback¡ and using continuers) tend to prompt learners’ initiation and learners can also create learning opportunities for themselves (following silence or following their own or other initiation). To characterize the findings¡ a typology of interactional acts that prompt solicited and unsolicited learner initiation is also provided. Some episodes are analyzed and the implications for teachers and teacher educators are also discussed.

Questioning practice constitutes one of the typical and fundamental interactional tools in L2 teaching. Much L2 research on teacher questions has been quantitative studies focusing on identifying question types and their roles in language acquisition and meaning negotiation. However, by drawing on conversation analysis within a sociocultural perspective, this study examines qualitatively how EFL teacher questions can scaffold learning processes. The data were collected through videotaping EFL classroom interaction. Eleven sessions of seven intermediate-level teachers in private language schools were recorded. Through the microanalysis of the transcribed data, the study found that EFL teachers vary in their structuring of unfolding question-answer sequences and that only a small number of teacher questions tended to provide learning opportunities. Four question types providing scaffolded assistance were identified: simplifying questions, marking questions, prompting questions and asking-for-agreement questions. This study contributes to understanding how the interactive nature of the questions teachers pose can shed light on the connection between teachers’ practices and students’ learning across unfolding sequence. It argues that teacher questions are more than elicitation techniques; they are mediational interactional tools to assist participation and comprehensibility. Some examples illustrating these communicative moves of questions and their scaffolding functions are provided. The implications for teacher education are also discussed.