Multi Stakeholders’ Attitudes toward Bt rice in Southwest,Iran: Application of TPB and Multi Attribute Models

Organisms that have been genetically engineered and modified (GM) are referred to as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Bt crops are plants that have been genetically modified to produce certain proteins from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which makes these plants resistant to certain lepidopteran and coleopteran species. Genetically Modified (GM) rice was produced in 2006 by Iranian researchers from Tarom Mowla’ii and has since been called ‘Bt rice’. As rice is an important source of food for over 3 billion inhabitants on Earth, this study aims to use a correlational survey in order to shed light on the predicting factors relating to the extent of stakeholders’ behavioral intentions towards Bt rice. It is assumed and the results confirm that “attitudes toward GM crops” can be used as a bridge in the Attitude Model and the Behavioral Intention Model in order to establish an integrated model. To this end, a case study was made of the Southwest part of Iran in order to verify this research model. This study also revealed that as a part of the integrated research framework in the Behavior Intention Model both constructs of attitude and the subjective norm of the respondents serve as the predicting factors of stakeholders’ intentions of working with Bt rice. In addition, the Attitude Model, as the other part of the integrated research framework, showed that the stakeholders’ attitudes toward Bt rice can only be determined by the perceived benefits (e.g. positive outcomes) of Bt rice.     

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4–6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4–5 year old children, \(\hbox {mean}\pm \hbox {SD}\) of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were \(7.72\pm 1.02, 6.58\pm 1.68\), and \(6.65\pm 1.13\) seconds respectively, and in 5–6 year old children were \(7.57\pm 0.95, 6.35\pm 1.38\), and \(6.30\pm 1.01\) seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant (\({p}\,{<}\,0.001\)). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.     

Dual Contradictory Effects of Self-Objectification on Sexual Satisfaction

Objectification theory provides an explanatory conceptual framework for describing women’s lived experiences. The goal of this study was to examine the relations between media consumption, self-sexualizing behavior, and sexual satisfaction within the objectification framework. Responses from a sample of 298 married Iranian women, chosen using multistage and cluster sampling methods, were collected to explore this relationship. The results revealed that while most of the variables had a negative effect on sexual satisfaction, self-sexualizing behavior had a positive effect. The link between media consumption and sexual satisfaction was mediated by body shame and self-sexualizing behavior. Media consumption, body surveillance, and body shame were positively associated with self-sexualizing behavior and accounted for approximately 24% of its variance. Discussion focuses on the contradictory effect of self-objectification and self-sexualizing behavior on sexual satisfaction.     

The time course of task switching: A speed—accuracy trade-off analysis

On each trial of this study, participants either switched between or repeated two simple, two-choice tasks involving either letter or digit classifications. Speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) curves were obtained using the responsesignal method of eliciting speeded responses at various response time lags after the presentation of the stimulus for the second task. The key finding from separate analyses of the three SAT-curve parameters (intercept, rate, and asymp tote) was that the location of the intercept of the SAT function (i.e., the point at which responding rises above chance) was shifted upward for both short and long response-stimulus intervals under task-switch conditions but only when the responses associated with each of the letter-digit stimulus components were incompatible.     

The Religious and Social Principles of Patients’ Rights in Holy Books (Avesta, Torah, Bible, and Quran) and in Traditional Medicine

Health protection and promotion in healthy people and restoring patients’ health have been the most important themes in medicine and health throughout our history. Therefore, discussion of different aspects of patients’ rights includes implementation of these objectives by the medical community, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc., and the people in charge of health affairs. The principal objective of our research is the study of medical ideology and the approaches of our ancestors in relation to different aspects of patients’ rights. To study the different ideologies of traditional medicine in relation to patients’ rights, appropriate data were extracted from the original resources of traditional medicine and from religious books. By means of library research we studied these resources in addition to electronic versions of the Alhavi book (by Rhazes), the Kamel-al-Sanaah (by Ahvazi), the Canon of Medicine (by Avicenna), the Zakhireye Khawrazmshahi (by Jorjani), the Avesta, the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, and many other resources, and, finally, after searching, gathering, and encoding the findings, analyzed them qualitatively for thematic content. The holy Avesta book clearly insists on the competence of physicians and setting the appointment fee in accordance with peoples’ income. The Old Testament (holy Torah) warned government officials who did not observe patients’ rights. In the four gospels (holy Bible) the importance of treatment and taking care of the patient is stressed. After the emergence of Islam, medical students, before beginning the principal courses, had to study Islamic jurisprudence, ethics, logic sciences, natural sciences, geometry, astrology, calculus, and similar courses so that after purifying their soul they could enter the saintly profession of physicians. The holy Quran refers to saving the life of a human irrespective of social class, race, and religion, and insists on exemption of patients from physical activity, including the physical aspects of prayer. In these resources, some warnings are offered in relation to fake drugs, the lack of awareness of some physicians, the need for complete preparedness of medical society, and the need to manufacture appropriate drugs and offer a suitable medical service. This information is to familiarize medical and health authorities and persons receiving health services. According to the evidence available about traditional medicine, there was no specific difference between public and professional ethics, public and professional rights, or rights and ethics—ethics were no different from rights nor rights from ethics. So ethics are similar to the soul in the body of rights, and rights are similar to the litter of ethics, and they have developed in parallel with each other. Traditional medicine is community-based and preservation of the health of healthy people is given priority over the treatment of patients; there is insistence that “health rights” has wider scope than “patients’ rights”. It can be stated that health rights in Iran both before and after the emergence of Islam have been based on guidance from divine religions, observation of humanist ethics, passing suitable courses in the basic sciences, and an introduction to the practical piety of our ancestors, in addition to the syllabus of medical and health education.     

Language Learners’ Writing Task Representation and Its Effect on Written Performance in an EFL Context

The present study attempts to give an account of how students represent writing task in an EAP course. Further, the study is intended to discover if learners’ mental representation of writing would contribute to their written performance. During a 16-week term, students were instructed to practice writing as a problem solving activity. At almost the end of the term, they were prompted to write on what they thought writing task was like and also an essay on an argumentative topic. The results revealed that students could conceptualize the instructed recursive model of writing as a process-based, multi-dimensional and integrated activity inducing self-direction and organization while holding in low regard the product view of writing. The findings also demonstrated that task representation was related to the students’ writing performance, with process oriented students significantly outperforming the product-oriented ones. Also, it was found that task representation components (ideational, linguistic, textual, interpersonal) had a significant relationship with the written performance (\(\upbeta =0.59\); Sig.: 0.006). The study can have both theoretical and practical implications with regard to the factors involving the students’ writing internal processes and their effects on written performance.     

Developmental differences in episodic memory across school ages: evidence from enacted events performed by self and others

The aim of this study was to examine action memory as a form of episodic memory among school-aged subjects. Most research on action memory has focused on memory changes in adult populations. This study explored the action memory of children over time. A total of 410 school-aged child participants, comprising 201 girls and 208 boys in four age groups (8, 10, 12, and 14), were included in this study. We studied two forms of action encoding, subject-performed tasks (SPTs) and experimenter-performed tasks (EPTs), which were compared with one verbal encoding task as a control condition. At retrieval, we used three memory tests (free recall, cued recall, and recognition). We observed significant differences in memory performance in children aged 8–14 years with respect to free recall and cued recall but not recognition. The largest memory enhancement was observed for the SPTs in the 8–14-year-old participants under all test conditions. Participants performed equally well on the free recall of SPTs and EPTs, whereas they displayed better performances on the cued recall and recognition of SPTs compared to EPTs. The strategic nature of SPTs and the distinction between item-specific information and relational information are discussed.     

Can music lessons increase the performance of preschool children in IQ tests?

The impact of music on human cognition has a distinguished history as a research topic in psychology. The focus of the present study was on investigating the effects of music instruction on the cognitive development of preschool children. From a sample of 154 preschool children of Tehran kindergartens, 60 children aged between 5 and 6 were randomly assigned to two groups, one receiving music lessons and the other (matched for sex, age and mother’s educational level) not taking part in any music classes. Children were tested before the start of the course of music lessons and at its end with 4 subtests of the Tehran-Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (TSB). The experimental group participated in twelve 75-min weekly music lessons. Statistical analysis showed significant IQ increase in participants receiving music lessons, specifically on the TSB verbal reasoning and short-term memory subtests. The numerical and visual/abstract reasoning abilities did not differ for the two groups after lessons. These data support studies that found similar skills enhancements in preschool children, despite vast differences in the setting in which the instruction occurred. These findings appear to be consistent with some neuroimaging and neurological observations which are discussed in the paper.     

The Factor Structure of the Twelve Items General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12): a Population Based Study

Mental health is a key component of general health based on world health organization (WHO) definition of health. A short form of the general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) has been widely used as an assessment tool of general and mental health. This study was designed to evaluate the properties of the Persian version of this questionnaire. Of 6140 subjects aged 10–90 years of a cohort study of Northern Iran, the relevant data of 5074 individuals aged ≥18 years were considered for analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the six models including one-dimensional model, one-dimensional model with correlated errors on negative items, two-dimensional model based on negative and positive statement items, two-dimensional model based on social dysfunction and psychological distress, three-dimensional model based on anxiety/depression, social dysfunction and loss of confidence and finally one-dimensional model with an additional factor for the negatively phrased items. The best fit indices belonged to one-dimensional model with correlated errors on negative items with χ2 = 686.8, df = 39, CFI = 0.953, RMSEA = 0.057 (95%CI: 0.054–0.061), SRMR = 0.0317, AGFI = 0.952, TLI = 0.920 and AIC = 764.8 and also three-dimensional model with χ2 = 860.7, df = 51, CFI = 0.941, RMSEA = 0.056 (95%CI: 0.053–0.059), SRMR = 0.0343, AGFI = 0.955, TLI = 0.923 and AIC = 915.0. In the comparison between these two best models we had ?χ2 = 174.2, ?df = 12, p-value < 0.001 in favor of the one-dimensional model. One-dimensional model with correlated errors on negative items showed the best fitting indices with our population.