مطالب

Technological progress has transformed the payment industry. Although alternative payment instruments such as bank cards share some characteristics with banknotes, they are not direct competitors to cash. First, cash possesses unique attributes—its functionality without electrical power and its inherent anonymity. Second, statistical data indicate that the ratio of cash to M1 has stabilized at approximately 10% in recent years, primarily due to its substitution with demand deposits. In this paper, we model the demand for banknotes by incorporating technology-related characteristics alongside conventional theories of money demand. Our approach has important implications for central bank, particularly in liquidity management, currency issuance, effective management of physical currency, and continued investment in digital payment infrastructures. We adopt a macroeconomic perspective that considers banknote demand from both transactional and asset viewpoints. To this end, we estimate an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, which allows us to analyze both short-term and long-term coefficients within a framework of model uncertainty. A key focus of our study is the estimation of a payment system development index using logistic growth and Gompertz models, through which we assess its impact on cash demand. Our empirical evidence supports the notion of S-shaped growth in the adoption of payment technologies. The findings demonstrate that advancements in the payment sector have led to a significant decline in cash demand. Moreover, while increased real economic activity exerts a positive and significant influence on cash demand, a higher opportunity cost of holding cash has a pronounced negative impact.

Although Sociocultural Theory (SCT) was introduced to English Language Teaching (ELT) almost three decades ago, it has not yet started to find its way into the epistemological and practical aspects of English Language Teacher Education (LTE) programs in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) language institutions context. Not having met the needs of English teachers, teacher educators, and academic and non-academic teaching programs and feeling a pressing need for innovative approaches in language teacher education, the time is ripe for LTE programs to present a curriculum that is globally driven and locally appropriate. To this end, this paper aimed to develop a sociocultural language teacher education (SLTE) curriculum model as an alternative to the LTE programs in the Iranian EFL context. The researchers applied Vygotskian principles and extensions of SCT pedagogy to construct a curriculum model that draws on Graves’ framework of LTE curriculum design and Richards’ model of teacher education that collectively incorporate different aspects, namely context analysis, needs analysis, approach, content, process, teacher educator’s roles, student teachers’ roles, and program evaluation. To present an  innovative LTE program, the researchers extracted and put together the tenets, extensions, and categories of SCT comprehensively and presented them through a complementary curriculum model that is a combination of Graves’ framework and Richards’ model of teacher education. This tentative but dynamic curriculum model might help teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders to reconceptualize and restructure their mentalities and use the findings when designing small-scale and large-scale LTE programs.

The present study sought to examine the effects of hope therapy and compassion therapy on rumination, depression, and erroneous beliefs within employees of organizations in Shiraz city. The statistical population included workers from Shiraz city during 2023 and 2025. The research methodology was experimental, including a design that contained both pre-test and post-test components, as well as experimental and control groups. In this pilot study, among the employees who scored one standard deviation below the mean on rumination, depression, and false beliefs questionnaires, 45 individuals were randomly selected and divided into two experimental groups and one control group. The overall count of people in each of the three groups was 15 people. The members of the initial experimental group participated in hope therapy training together over the course of 8 sessions. The second experimental group participated in compassion therapy for a total of eight sessions. In contrast, the control group did not receive any training. Ultimately, a post-test was given to all three groups. A follow-up examination was carried out after two months too. Covariance analysis was employed for data evaluation. The results showed that both hope therapy and compassion therapy helped with rumination, depression, and inaccurate beliefs among employees, with no significant difference in their effectiveness on rumination. However, compassion therapy was found to be more effective than hope therapy in addressing beliefs. Additionally, hope therapy had a greater effect on employees' depression compared to compassion therapy. It can be inferred that training in hope therapy and compassion therapy has led to decreased rumination, depression, and misguided beliefs among staff, with this enhancement remaining consistent throughout the three-month follow-up duration.

The aim of this study was to examine job stress and job burnout in native and non-native teachers. This study employed a causal-comparative design. The research focused on all native and non-native teachers of Chabahar city in the academic year 2024-2025. Out of the group, 104 individuals were chosen (52 native teachers and 52 non-native teachers) through convenience sampling. Data were gathered using the Osipow's (1987) Job Stress Questionnaire and Maslach’s (1981) Job Burnout scale. Data were examined through both descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance. Based on the results, native and non-native teachers showed varying levels of job stress (p < .05). In simpler terms, non-native teachers scored higher on scales of overload, role ambiguity, role-related tasks, responsibility, and stress related to the physical environment compared to native teachers. Also, non-native teachers scored higher on burnout subscales including emotional exhaustion and depersonalization compared to native teachers (p < .01). From the findings, it can be concluded that teachers' native and non-native backgrounds can lead to a significant difference in their job stress and burnout.

The purpose of this study was to assess how socio-demographic factors affect quality of life, emotional intelligence, and organizational commitment among employees of transmittal companies in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran. The sample included 268 employees from the Sistan and Baluchestan Transmittal Company who were selected through a convenience sampling method. The Quality of Life Scale created by Dueby et al. (1988), Singh's Emotional Intelligence Scale (2004), and the Organizational Commitment Scale by Khan and Mishra (2002) were employed for gathering data. The results from one way ANOVA indicated that individuals aged 31-40 years and those aged 41 years and older exhibited notably higher average mean scores for quality of life in comparison to the 22-30 years age group. However, people between 22 and 30 demonstrated notably higher average scores in emotional intelligence compared to those in the 31-40 age group and individuals aged 41 and older. The results of the independent t-test revealed that male employees achieved significantly greater average scores on quality of life compared to their female counterparts. The results from the one-way ANOVA indicated a notable difference in quality of life scores; employees with 11-20 years and those with 21 or more years of experience showed significantly higher average mean scores in quality of life compared to employees with less than 10 years of experience.