Purpose: The purpose of this applied research is to study the effectiveness of gamification on corporate training.  Methodology: A gamified course was designed and implemented to train the location of Fire Hosing Cabinet for 24 employees of a firefighting maintenance company in Iran Mall shopping Center in Tehran. Using a quantitative quasi-experimental research plan (post-test only control group design) the participants of the study were randomly assigned to treatment (12) and control (12) groups and trained for a week.  Conclusion: The descriptive and interpretive result of the posttest analyses indicated the effectiveness of gamification of the training performed for the employees of the firefighting maintenance company in Iran Mall shopping Center in Tehran. Moreover, the descriptive result of Gamification Acceptance Questionnaire answered by the members of the experimental group after gamified training indicated that all the participants in the experimental group were satisfied with the gamified training course.

This study investigated the use and functions of metadiscourse markers in English as a foreign language (EFL) virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined which metadiscourse markers—INTERACTIVE or interactional—were used more frequently and how they were employed in an EFL context. It explored two INTERACTIVE metadiscourse RESOURCES (code glosses and evidentials) and two interactional metadiscourse RESOURCES (attitude and engagement markers). The study utilized a mixed-method approach, using Hyland’s (2004) two-componential taxonomy, to analyze a corpus of 303,148 words from 35 online lectures (90 minutes each) delivered by three university instructors in the UAE. The Mann-Whitney U test was employed to determine any significant differences in the use of these RESOURCES and their subcategories. The results revealed that the three instructors used more interactional than INTERACTIVE RESOURCES. The qualitative analysis showed that code glosses and evidentials were primarily used to manage the flow of information, provide elaboration on propositional content, and provide evidence to support arguments. They were also employed to achieve cohesion and logical coherence in online classrooms. In contrast, attitude and engagement markers were used to engage students and signal the instructors’ attitudes toward their material and audience. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for EFL instructors, students, and syllabus designers to foster social justice and fairness in the online learning environment, ensuring all students feel valued and empowered in their educational journey.

The original impetus for this cross-linguistic study came from a need to explore the effect of cultural factors and generic conventions on the use and distribution of metadiscourse within a single genre. To this end, the study as a contrastive rhetoric research, examined a corpus of 60 newspaper editorials (written in English and Persian) culled from 10 elite newspapers in America and Iran. Based on Hyland’s (2005) model of metadiscourse, both INTERACTIVE and interactional metadiscourse RESOURCES were analyzed. The results disclosed that genre conventions had a determining role in the writers’ choice of some metadiscourse RESOURCES that contributed to some similarities in the use and distribution of metadiscourse RESOURCES across English and Persian data. In addition, some differences were found between two sets of editorials which were attributed to cultural/linguistic backgrounds of both groups of editorialists. The interactional category and attitude markers proved to be the predominant metadiscourse category and subcategory in newspaper editorials genre. Overall, the findings suggested that metadiscourse has a decisive role in the construction of persuasion in newspaper editorials genre.

Science and technology parks play an important role in knowledge-based economic network through human RESOURCES management (HRM) and in cooperation with various regional institutions. Therefore, developing and analyzing a model for human resource management at science and technology parks is essential due to the importance and the INTERACTIVE nature of the matter. More importantly, a study of the current HRM models at science and technology parks showed that they operate mostly on the one of the levels and elements within the value network of science and technology parks. Accordingly, this study attempts to elaborate on the INTERACTIVE model based on the holistic nature of the system dynamics approach and its focus on the interaction among the various components of a system. The proposed model was developed and tested following 15 sessions of group model building with the stakeholders, and different scenarios were identified and simulated. The simulation results showed that focusing simultaneously on motivation and human resource quality of staff, gradual withdrawal of support and also developing communications within park's tenants, especially those used for technology transfer, market development and intellectual and human resource exchange are highly effective on productivity of the model.

Letter To Editor

The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity through ontological and philosophical point of view. It seems in the first look that they are contradictory but it is really not so, because both use the discourse method to prove their viewpoint. Modernity has negated the traditionalists and it’s related customs to proof itself and Islamic Fundamentalism has negated tyranny and colonialism. Both apply science and knowledge to expand their influence in all over the world. Both are accepting the Shariah and disregard Tarighat and essence of the religion.

The present study has aimed at finding out whether or not students’ language background and gender bring about a distinction between the frequency and types of metadiscourse elements occurring in their papers. To this end, a dataset of 40 student papers in four series written by a native male, nonnative male, native female, and nonnative female writers was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively in terms of the use of metadiscourse RESOURCES following the metadiscourse model proposed by Hyland and Tse (2004). The results of the frequency count and chisquare tests (p-value<0. 05) revealed more or less notable differences in the overall employment of metadiscourse markers in the two major types of metadiscourse RESOURCES (i. e., INTERACTIVE and interactional) and the categories related to each type (i. e., transitions, frame markers, etc. versus hedges, boosters, attitude markers, etc., respectively) by the four groups of university students.

The contemporary philosopher Jean Baudrillard, one of the postmodernism theorists, considers representation in the contemporary world as a factor in the disappearance of reality. In his view, the main feature of new arts is not the expression of artistic beauty, but communication with the audience and expression of the artist’s ideas. In INTERACTIVE art, the presence and role of the audience in the completion of artwork, creates a common sense between the audience and the artwork. In this research, we have tried to answer questions such as how audience underestand an INTERACTIVE work and how reproducing and interpreting signs in INTERACTIVE art form the Baudrillard’s concept of Hyper reality. Also we try to answer the question of which factors convert the INTERACTIVE art audience experience to hyper reality one? To achieve this goal, the present study uses descriptive-analytical methods and data collection using written and digital sources. We have examined some INTERACTIVE art implemented in the prestigious Artech house and Flutter galleries in recent years to achieve concept of hyper reality in INTERACTIVE arts. The results show that INTERACTIVE art can create an example of hyper reality experience for the audience and factors such as interaction, imagination, sense, subject and object, provide a common border between INTERACTIVE art and Baudrillard’s theory of hyper reality. The lack of reference to the real world in these works demonstrates Baudrillard’s creation of the hyper reality in INTERACTIVE art. The INTERACTIVE art traps the subject and directs his thought to the subject, to create an imaginary world. The audience considers the hyper reality world as their main goal. The audience is exposed to responding and expressing the work rather than trying to underestand and judge, and the audience becomes a part of artwork and becomes an art object. It immerses the audience in hyper reality world.

Dodders are parasitic flowering plants and accurate identification is very important. Using a software programming with VB.net named as "Dodders of Iran" was designed and developed. This application provides information in text, numerical and descriptive 34 ID contains 18 species, two subspecies and 14 varieties along with their distribution points were set based on INTERACTIVE identification keys. The common operating systems such as Windows for this software is applicable and learn more and download a provisional version especially since the results of this paper are introduced. Thus, given the importance of the diversity and distribution of dodders, such as the ability to update information facilities, the possibility of use in field conditions, applicable even for non-experts, the possibility of combining morphological and molecular characteristics, technical reports, extension and localization of technical knowledge for weed identification and can be extended to identify even for quarantine species, is noteworthy in this application.