Social Sciences

This study aimed at discovering if young and adult learners of English language who had been taught Interchange Series would be similarly affected in terms of cultural orientations. To unravel whether learning a foreign language presupposes cultural adaptability, the study also sought if the two groups would perform differently on their achievement tests. To conduct the study, a questionnaire was constructed based on the cultural components discovered in the Interchange Series by Zarei and Khalessi (2010). The two groups of L2 learners who had already completed the three volume Interchange Series in a language institute in Isfahan, Iran, were asked to list the cultural issues from the most preferred to the least. At the end of their program they had sat for their final exams, which were analyzed later. The results indicated that while the adult learners’ preferences were domestically oriented, the young learners of English gave precedence to the cultural issues with western flavor. As regards their course scores, the two groups were not meaningfully different. It can be gathered that textbooks can make young learners conceptualize the world as portrayed therein. The results rejected the idea of acculturation adaptability as a pre-requisite to learning a foreign language.

This paper focuses the research deliberations of the Vikram Seth’s novels, A Suitable Boy, An Equal Music and The Golden Gate operating within the frame work of an imaginary, traditional society. Vikram Seth’s protagonists who are mostly men and women from urban middle class reflect that they are conscious of their predicament as individuals in the society. In view of all this, Vikram Seth the writer, if certainly not 'one thing', still more 'some things' than others? A tentative answer is that Seth's perspective is increasingly that of a globalized Indian, viewing the modern world through a prism that may be multicolored but is, ultimately, made in Asia. His first book, the tale of an Indian in China, today seems uncannily predictive of current geopolitical and economic trends, with the twin ascent of India and China now a key theme of the emerging century. By now, he clearly feels entitled to interpret the West, to both Western and Eastern readers, with a confidence and authority that betoken an Asia and an India that no longer consider themselves subordinate.

The present land use land cover investigation made by using Recent and High resolution data IRS-Resource sat 2, L4FX. In this study proposes a 2014 land use land cover assessment of the study area. Based on land use land cover classification, the study area contains a seven type of classes. The Seven classes are Deciduous Forests, Build up/Mine area, Agriculture/ crop land areas, Evergreen and Semi evergreen forests, Cultivation and Plantation, Barren Land and Water bodies are occupying areas of 27%,18%,18%, 16%,15%, 6%, 0.4% respectively. Classified image was carried into accuracy assessment. The accuracy assessment gives a result of overall accuracy - 90%, Kappa Accuracy - 88%, Producer Accuracy - 90% and User Accuracy - 91%.

The transactions within the retail sector often require face-to-face interactions between buyers and sellers. In most cases, consumption and production of retail services take place in very close proximity. This paper aimed at determining the location preference of shop/ retail uses in urban areas in Lagos State, Nigeria. In other to achieve this, the following research questions are raised (1) what are the location preferences for a prospective shop owner? (2)What are the factors affecting the decision of a retailer to locate his/her shop (3) what are the available facilities within the shops. The findings revealed that apart from accessibility which serves as the base/preference for location of any land uses, the type of goods sold is the most important factor when it comes to location preferences for shops / retail outlets. Proximity to manufacturer was ranked last on the list. It is concluded that proximity to manufacturers factory is not a serious determinant in sitting shops which show that where the goods is produced is not the concern of the shopper.

The objective of this article is to discuss the reliability analysis of the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS) instrument in the Malaysian context. This instrument was developed by Collins (1996) and has been used in western countries to measure the adult attachment style dimension. Items for RAAS were translated to the Malay language to suit the Malaysian adults’ sample. The sample of this study comprised of Malay married couples. A preliminary test and real test were conducted to determine whether its coefficient reliability value achieved the standard. The results of preliminary test and real test showed that the value of coefficient reliability for each dimension in RAAS have fulfilled the standard (p>.70). Based on these findings, the RAAS is a reliable instrument to be used among Malaysian adults. Furthermore, this instrument can be used by marriage counselors to understand how does attachment between husbands and wives may be related to thecouples’ problem or it may serve as a resource for couples to build a greatrelationship.

Isfahan is one of the oldest cities of Iran with a highly important place in economic transactions of Iran and its foreign and domestic trading. Throughout the history, Bazaar has been as the artery of economic life, the center of formation and association of businesses, occupations and industries. On the other side, the influence of Bazaar in social and political movements in the past centuries has been revealed to everybody. Nonetheless, the structure and content of traditional network of Bazaar changed by nature since the last chapter of Qajar and early of Pahlavi period. Various reasons can be detected; the change in social life in the cities, the entrance of western lifestyle and culture, increase of population, and the need to reform and renovate urban pathways are among the most important reasons of the change. The present study aims to present a comprehensive account of the situation of traditional Bazaar in Isfahan city in the first decades of fourteenth century (Hijri), and investigates the process of its change and its underlying factors. Documents, journals, reports of internal and foreign spectators and economic and social researches constitute the main sources used in this study. The descriptive historical method is used as the method of research.

The concept of quality of life is very broad and dynamic. We can find several definitions for this term in literature, but all of them take physical, cultural, social and environmental conditions into consideration (C.S. Peranambuco et al. 2012). World Health Organization (WHO) defines quality of life as an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad concept incorporating an individual’s physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, personal beliefs and relationship with the environmental conditions (WHO 1998).

This study examines the relationship between job stress and mental health in governmental agencies of Sarpol-e-Zahab city. This research method is descriptive-correlation. Statically population is all staffs of governmental agencies. Statically sample is 160 people from governmental staffs. Samples were tested by Job stress questionnaire (IVJSI) and public health (28- GHQ). Results indicate that the positive relationship between job stress and mental health is significant. There was a significant and positive correlation between job stress and physical symptoms of anxiety and depression, but between job stress and social function symptoms is significant negative correlation; thus attention to work environment and agencies work condition cause to enhance the quality of work, employee mental health and efficiency.

Today, Concepts such as a sense of place and place attachment is highly demonstrated in the literature of architecture and urbanism in the field of environmental studies, however, the relationship between the two has not been explained. This study, after definition of sense of place and place attachment and the factors influencing them, derived a five-dimensional model from the factors affecting these two concepts as a theoretical framework. After it, this five- dimensional model has been tested in two case studies, Eram dormitory and Ghods dormitory in Shiraz university. In the process of testing, semi-structured interview and questionnaire was used to collect data and SPSS software has been used to analyze the results of survey. Results show that there is a strong relationship between sense of place and place attachment. Results show too that formal factors of environment have a high importance in both sense of place and place attachment. However, the time factor has a lowest importance in creating sense of place but in creating place attachment, it has a high importance after formal factors.

The advent of multipartism in 1992 was celebrated by academics, politicians, and civil societies. However, while the ruling party progressively performs handsomely, opposition parties have remained weak. In the 1995 general elections, the ruling party won about 60 percent of popular votes. This figure increased to 71 percent and 80 percent in 2000 and 2005 general elections respectively. It dropped to about 61 percent in the 2010 elections. I argue in this article that, such performance by the ruling party is largely attributed to its unfair mechanisms of mobilising support through state-party ideologies, human rights abuse, religion and corruption.