Archives-August 2014

The present study aimed at providing a comparison of General English Course Books used at universities in Iran which are designed by different authors (Iranian and foreigner) from critical thinking perspective. To this end, a retrospective evaluation was designed to examine the reading comprehension questions of 2 selected General English Course Books in terms of the degree to which they foster critical thinking. To accomplish the objectives of the study, firstly one of the top universities of Iran (Isfahan University) was selected; next 2 of the most frequent General English Course Books which were taught in the university were chosen, one of the books with foreign author and designer and another one with Iranian author and designer. Then, reading comprehension questions of all units of the CBs were analyzed based on Facione‘s (2011) critical thinking model (consisting of 6 features); then, the data were analyzed and occurrence percentage of each feature was calculated in each CB. The results revealed the representation of critical thinking features of Facion‘s (2011) model and the extent to which the Course Books matched the criteria in fostering critical thinking. The findings of the study seem to suggest that Iranian university students could not be expected to become critical thinkers through the study of such course books. And also the results show the difference between CBs with foreign and Iranian designers in the representation of critical thinking.

The present study aimed at investigating different reading comprehension strategies applied by Iranian B.A students of translation while translating a text from English to Persian. In doing so, thirty-two students (sixteen sophomores and sixteen seniors) were given a text with a nearly high level of difficulty to be translated. This level of difficulty was double-checked by two professors in advance. Each and every step taken during the process of translation was then tape-recorded and further placed in the classes of ‘general’ vs. ‘local’ reading comprehension strategies pointed out by Block (1992), which is based on think-aloud protocols. The results of the Chi-Square tests indicated that there were statistically significant differences in terms of the frequencies of local strategies among the ‘higher’ vs. the ‘lower’ level of students. The findings also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in using the general strategies among such students.

Titanium workpiece has been machined by Electrochemical Machining in 5.0 M NaCl electrolyte. Dependence of material removal rate on current densities has been determined and compared with theoretical values. It is interesting to note that the dissolution valence decreases with increase in current density. The electrochemical reactions occurring at cathode & anode have also studied .The Electrochemical machining parameters are optimized for maximum material removal rate and better surface finish.

In this paper, the new extended -expansion method is used for constructing the new exact traveling wave solutions of nonlinear evolution equations arising in mathematical physics namely, the (2+1)-dimensional modified Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation. As a result, the traveling wave solutions are expressed in terms of hyperbolic, trigonometric and rational functions. Moreover, these methods could be more effectively used to deal with higher dimensional and higher order nonlinear evolution equations which frequently arise in many scientific real time application fields. It is shown that the method provides a powerful mathematical tool for solving nonlinear wave equations in applied mathematics, mathematical physics and engineering problems.

Porous Silicon (PS) layers were prepared by electrochemical etching in a single-tank cell on the surface of single-crystalline p-type (100) silicon wafers, using hydrofluoric acid (HF) and ethanol (C2H5OH) in the volume ratio of 1:2. The surface and cross-section morphologies of the PS were observed from images obtained using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Likewise, the porosity of the PS sample was determined using the parameters obtained from SEM images by geometrical method. SEM images indicated that, the pores were surrounded by a thick columnar network of silicon walls. This porous silicon layer can be considered as a sponge like structure. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern showed the growth of PS layer on silicon wafer and the grain size of the PS layer was found to be around 60.2 nm. The effective refractive index of porous silicon was calculated using Effective Medium Approximation (EMA) analysis. The optical properties of PS were investigated using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Photoluminescence (PL). The surface chemical bonds of the PS were observed by FTIR and the band gap of the PS sample was obtained from PL spectra. The efficiency of ethanol gas sensing properties of PS was investigated at room temperature. The sensor was found to operate with maximum efficiency at a concentration of 100 ppm hence, this PS material can be used as an effective sensor element to detect ethanol vapour.

The goal of this research is evaluation of some of the effective environmental attractions on Khorasan Razavi sport tourism development. The research statistical population include of all in charge expert and professors in field of sport and tourism as 120 persons. This research is past-event descriptive that had been performed based on field method. Sampling had been performed as Categorized to determine effective environmental attraction effects on Khorasan Razavi tourism development, the questions had been analyzed by researcher that its validity had been confirmed by experts and Cronbach's alpha had been calculated as 0.82. Data had been analyzed using spss software and Kolmogorov–Smirnov test had been performed to confirm normal data. Also one sample t test and Friedman test had been used to analyze hypothesis. Findings show that from experts and managers view points, effective factors on sport tourism development with emphasis on sport natural attractions include of tourism and pilgrim attractions, natural treatment and warm water attractions and summer and water sports that are the most important items in Khorasan Razavi. Also there are three important factors in relation to problem and obstacles as Management problems, cultural problems and infrastructure problems. Research results show that pilgrim locations are effective to attract tourism and knowing the effect of tourism industry development effects and present obstacles and limitation in the province, attention to sport tourism development importance and applying various benefits of sport tourist attraction are necessary and programming and sport tourism developments by province planner and policy makers would be required.

Genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis were done for yield and its component characters in twenty two diverse genotypes of rape seed. The highest genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) was recorded for seed yield per plant (31.33%) followed by siliqua per plant (20.07%). Heritability estimates in broad sense were higher for the characters days to maturity (83.92%), days to flowering (72.49%) and thousand seed weight (68.13%). Days to maturity, days to flowering, thousand seed weight and length of siliqua had high heritability along with low genetic advance suggests non-additive gene action was observed controlling these characters. Correlation coefficient of days to flowering (0.406*), primary branches per plant (0.514**), length of siliqua (0.548**), siliqua per plant (0.864**), seeds per siliqua (0.335*) was positive and significantly associated with seed yield per plant at genotypic level. Primary branches per plant (1.588), days to maturity (0.185), length of siliqua (0.740), siliqua per plant (0.569) and thousand seed weight (0.590) showed positive direct effect on seed yield. Selection based on these traits would give better response for the improvement of seed yield in rapes. The results of this study are expected as the basic information on genetic variation and relationship of component traits which can be used in rape seed breeding.

A numerical model has been formulated to simulate the capillary tube in split air conditioners of 1 and 2 TR capacities under high outdoor air temperatures. The outdoor air temperature was varied from 35 to 55°C with 5 °C increments. Three environment friendly refrigerants were used as alternatives to R22. They are R290, R407C and R410A. Finite difference method has been adopted in conjunction with EES software. This model is capable of predicting pressure, temperature, quality, velocity and viscosity distributions through the capillary tube for all refrigerants. The geometrical parameters and input conditions to the capillary tube model are extracted from experimental data. These include inner diameter, mass flow rate, surface roughness, temperature and pressure of the subcooled liquid refrigerant.The results show that the capillary choking length increases with increasing outdoor air temperature. Results of the simulation show that R290 needs more capillary length than the other refrigerants investigated, whereas R410A needs less capillary tube length.

Instant yam (pre-gelatinized) flour was made from different yam species by varying steaming methods and time. Diced cubes were steamed in autoclave for 5 min and Barlet steamer at for 10, 20 and 30 min. Raw and pre-gelatinized cubes were dried and milled. Pasting properties of flour and sensory analysis of reconstituted dough were determined. Pasting properties of samples steamed for 5 min in autoclave were close to those steamed for 20 min in Barlet steamer, which were not significantly (p<0.05) different from those steamed for 30 min. Pre-gelatinized D. dumetorum flour could serve as thickening agent in instant food products. Its cultivation should be encouraged for industrial application.

Groundwater resources are essential to maintain a stable water supply to growing cities for the efficient farming region and for domestic purpose. Due to simplicity of the techniques, the Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) has proved very popular with groundwater prospecting and engineering investigations. The main objective of the investigation is to delineate the subsurface lithology and to assess the groundwater resources of the study area. It also aims to focus on the identification of fracture zone and its thickness by using VES method. The life of a button bit in bore well drilling depends mainly on hardness of rock. As the hardness varies at different locations, the reliability of the button bit also varies accordingly. In order to arrive at the reliability, the life of the button bit in terms of depth of drilling has to be obtained. This can be converted in terms of time from the known velocity of drilling. It is proposed to arrive at the drill bit reliability from the obtained failure rate.