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Modern societies employ the powerful instrument of technology as a sort of colonialization of mind and, thus, implement control in a new manner in society. Replacing the dream of utopia in modern societies with a nightmare of anti-utopia, consumer technology creates a new space leading to the creation of a thoroughly totalitarian regime. Hence, such theorists as Adorno and Marcuse believe that what scientific advances bring is not order but imitation and homogeneity of individuals with society as a result of which not only one's awareness but also all man's cultural inheritance and his manner of articulation become homogenized. In such societies, the propaganda of commodities upholds consumerism as an alternative to protest or rebellion. Thus, mass consumption and mass culture set up the condition for totalitarianism through different systems of control, technology being one of which. Individuals in such societies will be seduced by the force of technology which brings about mass consumption and constructs passive submissive masses who lack a voice of their own. Don DeLillo warns against how modern masses' passive consumption of commodities will lead to inertia and how a consumer culture diminishes people's social relationships and their sense of autonomy. Therefore, the present study aims at analyzing the way DeLillo's novel urges readers to reconsider the way that consumer technology and mass cultural forces might affect individuals' lives. The main finding of the research is that DeLillo displays how totalitarian systems utilize modern consumer technologies as agents of manipulation and indoctrination to discipline their subjects.

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This article explores the effect of iconicity and textual cohesion on processing causal relations in Persian discourse using an experimental method. A reading-time task with a within-subject design was set up. Twelve 3-sentence experimental scenarios and 12 filler scenarios were constructed. Iconicity and cohesion were the independent variables and participants’ reaction time (RT) was the dependent variable. The cohesion variable manipulated the degree of cohesion between the first and second sentences of scenarios. The iconicity variable manipulated the order of the second and third (cause and effect) sentences of scenarios. Forty-eight participants read the scenarios and verified if the target sentence, which asserted the implicit causal relation between the second and third sentences of scenarios, was correct. The RTs of the participants were collected using DMDX program. The data were then submitted to a mixed-model analysis in R. The main effect of iconicity and cohesion on participants’ RTs was found. There was no interaction effect between iconicity and cohesion. The target sentence had the shortest RT in the condition with iconic and high-cohesion scenarios. Also, the target sentence in the condition with iconic but low-cohesion scenarios was processed as fast as the target sentence in the condition with non-iconic but high-cohesion scenarios. The findings confirm the facilitatory effect of iconicity on understanding causal sequences. The results also show that if, for discourse reasons, information is provided non-iconically, the existence of highly cohesive relations between the causal sequences and the previous context can compensate the non-facilitatory effect of non-iconic sequences.

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This research is aimed to capture EFL teachers’ use of technology in Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) by focusing on the variety and intensity of tasks in teaching reading. Driven by the survey research, the data were collected from 71 teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Indonesia and analyzed descriptively. The findings show that the EFL teachers perceived that the use of technology in TBLT in teaching reading is important and it can enhance students' language learning experiences. Technology offers engaging materials and activities that aid reading comprehension. Furthermore, EFL teachers' use of various  tasks and resources may indicate a need for continuing professional development to improve digital literacy skills and pedagogical strategies of English teachers in EFL context. Although the findings of this survey give an insight into the data of English teachers’ use of technology in TBLT in terms of variety and intensity in teaching reading, this survey has its limitations with regard to the numbers of participants. This research highlights the dynamic relationship among technology, TBLT, and reading instruction in the EFL context, and suggests the need for continued research and exploration of best practices in this area. The current study succeeded in adding new empirical studies related to the variety and intensity in pre-reading, whilst-reading and post-reading activities of EFL teachers enacting teaching reading with the use of TBLT. 

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Land use severely affects the carbon and nitrogen stock and the soil's physical, mechanical, hydraulic and chemical characteristics of the soil. This study aims to investigate the effect of land use type on some soil characteristics, including carbon stock (C_S), nitrogen stock (N_S), S-index, structural stability index (SSI), soil pore size distribution, soil shear strength (τ), internal friction angle (φ˚), shear cohesion (C), soil water characteristic curve (SWCC), relative field capacity (RFC), available water (AW), aeration porosity (AP) and effective porosity (P_e) in Shandiz city, Khorasan Razavi province (northeast Iran) was studied. For this purpose, 60 soil samples were taken from the surface layer (0-20 cm) in pasture and agricultural land uses. The results showed that S-Index, SSI, RFC, AW, P_e, C_s, and N_s in pasture land use were significantly higher than agricultural land use. The values of τ, C, and φ˚ in the pasture land use were significantly (p<0.01) less than the pasture land use. The relationship between soil organic carbon stock index and bulk density (r=-0.69), coarse fragments (r=-0.73), cohesion (r=-0.70), and internal friction angle (r=-0.52) were significant and negative. The amounts of carbon and nitrogen stock indices in pasture land use were 61.6 and 33.1 % greater than agricultural land use, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that as a result of land use change, the carbon and nitrogen stock, S-index, relative field capacity, structural stability index, available water, aeration porosity, effective porosity, and consequently, the soil quality decrease, and soil degradation increase in agricultural land use.
 

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The larvae of a moth feeding on the citrus flowers specifically on, Citrus limon, were found in greenhouses in Mazandaran province (north of Iran) in April 2024. Based on the habitat preference, and the morphological features, larvae and pupae were identified as Prays citri (Millière, 1873) (Lepidoptera: Praydidae). This species was listed among the foreign quarantine pests of the country, according to the guide list for monitoring and tracking quarantine agents of Iran on 21 June 2024. It is one of the most harmful pests of citrus plants especially lemon, which is spreading rapidly and creepily in all areas in the world. Our recent evidence revealed the existence of this pest in a moderately wide area of the Iranian northern lemon greenhouses. Background information for a reliable identification of both adults and larvae, the taxonomic history, origin, distribution, host plants, damage, and management practices of the pest are also discussed. The occurrence of this pest is a warning for Iranian citrus orchards indicating a potential risk of its spread, particularly to the southern regions of the country.

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Farmers in the Indus basin, Pakistan have generally switched to groundwater for additional water supplies due to the irregular supply of irrigation water; currently over 50% of the agricultural land in the basin is at least partially irrigated by tube-wells. These wells pump fresh groundwater, which essentially is the result of massive leakage from irrigation canals into the originally saltwater aquifer since the inception of modern irrigation around 1870. Resalinization of the aquifer now threatens long-term prospects of this new groundwater resource. Since building new dams has become ever more complicated, water resources planning now focuses on sustainable conjunctive use of surface and ground waters. The paper evaluates the raising of the Mangla dam, its effects on long-term groundwater balance and water-logging using an irrigation-economic model. It suggests guidelines to optimize the surface and sub-surface reservoirs by considering the farmers' action in response to government policies. Recently the Government of Pakistan decided to raise the height of the Mangla dam to substantially increase the storage capacity of the basin. This decision was based on basin-wide modelling of conjunctive use by using the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS)-based Indus Basin Model Revised (IBMR), which was updated for this purpose in 2000 and supplied with new data in 2002. The results of the analysis reinforced the decision to raise the dam height by 9 m instead of 12 m, which would increase water availability by 68% in the basin. One of the objectives of raising the dam height was to increase the sustainability of beneficial groundwater use in the basin by saving about 2 km3/a of groundwater abstractions.

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Aims: Adolescence is one the most precarious periods of life, concerning the drug abuse. The social cost of the drug abuse and injury among adolescents is extraordinary and requires intervention. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is perhaps the most influential theory for prediction of social and health behaviors including drug abuse. This study aimed at designing and implementing a curriculum based on the TPB for preventing adolescents from drug abuse. Methods and Materials: This quasi-experimental study was conducted in Hamadan, west Iran. We recruited 140 male high school students from randomly selected schools: they were divided into experimental group, n = 70 and control group, n = 70. The experimental group received 20 hours educational program based on the TPB. The control group receives no intervention. Findings: Compared to the control group, experimental group have significantly elevated post test scores for attitude (19.07 vs. 15.28, p < .001), subjective norm (18.08 vs. 16.45, p < .001), perceived behavioral control (51.67 vs. 54.82, p < .001); and their intention to use drug significantly decreased(p = 0.082) Conclusions: The TPB-based educational program may be effective in prevention of substance abuse among adolescents.

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According to discourse theory, facts and events are represented through discourse and a set of meanings, ideas, metaphors, so on. In this sense, language creates and changes truth; this means that with language one can have different perceptions of an event, followed by a different set of discourses. Thus, the social world is the product of discourses. According to the theory of social constructivism, which in contrast to essentialism does not separate the structure of reality from the human mind, some social phenomena, such as some offences are made by the human mind and under the influence of different circumstances. They are produced in a specific time, social, political and cultural way and cannot be considered as a sacred and unchangeable reality except in special cases. Accordingly, this research, which qualitative in nature and descriptive-analytical in manner, using the method of discourse analysis and in order to explain and review the obvious understandings of the Law on the Protection of Children and Adolescents (Act 2002) seeks to explore the possibility of deconstructing the current definition of child abuse (revision) and adding to its scope. The most important result of the research is that most of the offences, including child abuse and even the prescribing of child marriage (subject to sec. 1041 of the Civil Code), are powerful and skillful social constructs of social realities that it is possible to deconstruction of them in order to give political, cultural and social opportunities to other possible constructions of the phenomenon that are more closely related to the public interest.
 

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Outsourcing means strategic use of other company's resources to accomplish business processes, which can be in the form of outsourcing or offshore outsourcing. One of the important risks of outsourcing projects is selecting an inappropriate contractor. Contractor selection process is very complex because of many and sometimes contradictive criteria. So it needs accurate investigations. The purpose of this research is to design a framework for selecting an appropriate contractor in outsourcing and offshore outsourcing and to specify the weight of each criterion. Method of data gathering is questionnaire which is distributed among internal and external managers and experts. This framework could be helpful for the managers of organizations in contractor selection decision making processes and causes risk reduction in these projects. The results showed that there are twenty important criteria in outsourcing and twenty four criteria in offshore outsourcing; some of them are contractor's innovation, financial stability and cultural adaptation. Keywords: Outsourcing, Offshore outsourcing, Contractor, Criteria, Capability.

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Abstract
In recent decades, much research has been conducted in the context of domestic violence, especially violence against women and children; But in related to another form of domestic violence, or sibling abuse, not only has little attention been paid by researchers, but most parents also ignore their children's violent behavior toward each other as a common childish behavior. However, most of these cases have profound and destructive effects on children's social development and cognition, and consequently increase the likelihood of committing criminal behaviors. Among these, social and cultural factors are a hidden phenomenon that determines the shape of individual relationships in families. The present study describes the prevalence of sibling abuse with the aim of examining the economic, cultural and social contexts of student families.
     The survey study was conducted among 600 high school students in districts one and six of Mashhad using a researcher-made questionnaire in two sections: self-reported victimization and delinquency with Cronbach's alpha 0.918, and was conducted in the academic year 2020-2021. Data analysis shows that the cultural and social characteristics of families such as inadequate parental education, poverty and unemployment, affect the prevalence of sibling violence, and violence among students with lower levels of family background was more prevalent in compare to others.
    This study shows that social factors and cultural level within families affect the level of violence between children; therefore, if a society can strengthen the normative and cultural components of families through education and the media, it can improve the health of families. The Iranian legislature has taken an important step to combat this type of behavioral violence by passing the Child and Adolescent Protection Act 2020.
 
Keywords: Domestic Violence, Brother-Sister Abuse, Victim Self-Report, Crime Self-Report, Mashhad High School Students

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Aims: Drug abuse among college students continues as a major public-health concern. Theory-driven research is necessary to address and find causes. The current research investigates the utility of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in designing and implementing a drug abuse educational prevention program among medical college students. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted among 120 college students in two groups: experimental and control, who were randomly enrolled at the baseline survey. We used a questionnaire, which included three sections of background data (11 questions), knowledge about the side effects of drug abuse questionnaire (16 questions), and TPB-based questionnaire (20 questions). Educational planning was based on active learning with using group discussion, printed leaflet, and audio-visual CD. The participants were followed up after 2-month intervention. Data were analyzed by the SPSS software version 16 using appropriate statistical tests such as stepwise multiple logistic regressions and t-test. Findings: Almost 6.7% of the participants had a history of drug abuse. The three predictors of 1) attitude, 2) subjective norms, and 3) perceived behavioral control accounted for 48 % of the variation in the outcome measure of the intention to drug abuse. There was a significant improvement in average response for knowledge about the side effects of drug abuse and TPB variables among the students who were under intervention (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Designing intervention to reduce positive attitude and subjective norms toward drug abuse among college students could be useful to substance abuse prevention.

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The rule "There is No Effect on the Existence Except Allah" is emphasized by the Ash'arites and Mulla Sadra. But each has offered a different interpretation of this rule; According to this rule, the Ash'arites have denied any causation, influence, or effect among the possibilities, and attribute all actions exclusively and directly to God Almighty. But Mulla Sadra, based on his philosophical principles in transcendent wisdom, while proving the near activity of God for all actions, also accepts a role for other possibilities in actions and proves a kind of influence and effect among the obligatory sub-transcendence. In this article, with a descriptive-analytical-critical method, both views in this regard were examined. Accordingly, neither view is flawed. Of course, Mulla Sadra's view, with the explanation given by Mullah Ali Modarres, is largely free from problems.
 

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Aristotle's discussions about Tuche (Τύχη) or fortune have obvious contradictions in two domains of ontology and axiology. In the domain of ontology, he has testified to the existence of fortune as a cause by accident- a cause by accident for an event which has occurred out of a choice based on thought and for a given intention. Aristotle believes that fortune-based affairs are subjects of intention and intellection which emerge from those agents who can take volitional actions. At the same time, he introduced fortune as an anti-rule and instable affair with indeterminate and purposeless causes. He accepted the existence of fortune even in the domain of the actions related to Techne and human happiness. However, he does not attach any value to it in axiology and declares it to be a cause by accident that comes after nature and intellect, even believing that there is no knowledge for it. Moreover, it is valueless in the domain of the action related to human happiness.

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The exact date of coffee into Iranian territory is not known, but what has come to us from literature, show the reign of Shah Abbas Safavid and especially, in coffee houses in big cities in Iran like Isfahan flourished. The coffee houses of Safavid has cultural practice that most public places and especially the artists and poets. Because the Safavid poets of the era, such as the Board did not know about the art of poetry, the place was not in court and the other party's growing middle class in this day and age class gathered in coffee houses, poetry and literature to suit Since literature and society are constantly being traded bilaterally with elements in coffee houses in poetry and art of the period of manifestation of this age is certain. Coffee, opium and opiates are the most important elements that have been visualized in the poetry of this age. The method is a cross-sectional study and tool researched biography of the Safavid court and some of the poets of this era.

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Modarreszadeh.A.,Ph.D
 
 
Abstract:
 
This article has dealt with the phrase “ reclused lamp wick” (Cheragh-e Khalvatian) in one of the Hafiz’s odes beginning:
 
O cup – bearer come ,  for the friend removed the vail from her face, and the  wick of the lamp of the reclused got lit .
 
The phrase, as used in most descriptions concerned the subject of Hafez’s verse, connotes the thriving of business and gave the other words in the verse, it also denotes lighting up of the privacy of lovers through the sweet – heart’s bright face.
Supplying evidence from Persian literary texts, the author has striven to demonstrate, in the present article, that main meaning of the word (KAR) is garments and textiles, referring to the wick of the lamp As such, there arises a similarity between the lifting of the veil off the face of the sweet – heart and the ascending of the wick of the lamp of the reclused. The author has also illustrated that throughout Hafez’s collected verses, the term KAR is appropriately associated with other words connected with cloth, such as balance, stitch, curtain, print, work place.
 
 

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Black stem is one of the most important fungal diseases of sunflower which is caused by Phoma macdonaldii. This research was conducted to clarify the interactions between a few breeder lines and wild-type accessions of sunflower with seven isolates of Phoma macdonaldii, the causal agent, under controlled conditions. The experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Each replication consisted of 30 seedlings. Twenty micro liters of spore suspension was deposited at the intersection of the cotyledon petiole and hypocotyl of four-leaf-stage sunflower seedlings as well. Three, five and seven days after inoculation, seedlings were scored on a 1-9 scale for percentage of necrotic area. Highly significant differences were observed among genotypes, isolates and their interactions for disease severity 7 days after inoculation based on AUDPC (Area Under Disease Progress Curve) values. Two models of GGE biplot including Isolate-based and genotype-based models were used to study the pathogenicity of the isolates and susceptibility of sunflower, respectively. Isolate-focused biplot revealed that there was a considerable difference between virulence of isolates. Based on genotype-focused biplot model, accessions including 665 Iowa, 1012 Nebraska, 211 Illinois and 1016 Nebraska were more resistant to studied isolates of P. macdnaldii. Results revealed that GGE biplot approach could lead to good understanding about interactions between sunflower genotypes and Phoma macdonaldii isolates.