Encyclopedia of new RELIGIOUS movements edited by Peter B. Clarke provides a truly engaging and authentic view of the emerging RELIGIOUS movements on a background of the universe. This encyclopedia, containing 428 articles from leading academics, studies the remarkable examples of RELIGIOUS movements emerging in each continent. Clarke as an editor has written a higher income as "New Religions as a global phenomenon", a "Resource guide of NRM" and a useful article entitled "Typology of new religions" in this encyclopedia. This encyclopedia is a leading, research, updating, important, and valuable reference for academic libraries. However, the encyclopedia suffers from some disadvantages, among which we can refer to apparent contradictions in Index, the incidence of historical errors, print, etc., in its context and putting NRM identified with the Cults, sects, and counter-culture groups

Comparing to other Buddhist sects, Mahayana Buddhism is of more RELIGIOUS COHESION, and its integration has an important role in its inner COHESION and development to other cultures. Having such qualities as RELIGIOUS tolerance, flexibility and explicable teachings have had outstanding role on its propagation. Some of scholars believe that systematic formulation of Mahayana’s theology is due to philosophical and mystical dissemination of traditional Buddhism (Theravada), having impressed by non-Buddhist religions and cultures, and harmony with aboriginal cultures and RELIGIOUS traditions. Hinduism’s effects on Buddhism is observable not only in cosmology and Mahayana gods, but also in its rituals and literature. Iranian culture has affected Buddhism mainly on Buddha-ology, soteriology and creation of personal gods of Mahayana (bodhisattva) and it seems that Greek culture has inspired sacred art and iconography. The main purpose of this survey, which has been done through descriptive-analytical method, is identification and explanation of the effects of non-Buddhist cultures on Mahayana Buddhism’s RELIGIOUS COHESION; and it, based on the presupposition of outstanding RELIGIOUS scholars, refers to some evidence of the influences of Hindu, Iranian, Greek, Christianity and Islamic RELIGIOUS cultures on Mahayana construction as a RELIGIOUS system.

The family, as the first social organization, plays a fundamental role in the formation of people's personality and characteristics; meanwhile family COHESION is a very important variable. The principle aim of the present study was to examine the prediction of family COHESION based on RELIGIOUS internalization style. The present research method was descriptive and carried out on quantitative paradigm. The sample of the study consisted of 232 married students- male (137) and female (95) - of Shiraz University during the academic year of 2011-2012. RELIGIOUS Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-R) (Ryan et al.) and Samani Family Processes Scale were administered at the subjects. The Cronbach alpha coefficient and factor analysis were used in order to determine reliability and validity of the measures. By using multiple regression analysis, the family COHESION prediction by RELIGIOUS internalization styles including identification and introjection were studied. Research finding showed that identification style was a positive predictor and introjection style was a negative predictor of family COHESION. We conclude that the RELIGIOUS identification style would increase family COHESION.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between marital intimacy, spiritual beliefs, RELIGIOUS practices and family COHESION and adaptability. In this descriptive correlation, of the employees and students of Shahrood and Miami cities (two cities located in Semnan province, Iran) 234 married men and women were selected through cluster sampling method. To collect the data, marital intimacy, spiritual experience and family COHESION and adaptability scales were used. The collected data were analyzed through Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis using SPSS-16. Results of regression analysis showed that openness (a subscale of marital intimacy), finding a meaning in life and relationship with god (subscales of spirituality) had a significant role in the prediction of family COHESION respectively. Furthermore, intimacy problems (a subscale of marital intimacy), and socioRELIGIOUS activities (subscales of spirituality) had a role in the prediction of family adaptability respectively. It seems that people with high spirituality who experienced intimate relationships in marital lives reported high family COHESION and adaptability.

Continuity and sustainability of the political, social and cultural life of every society depends on social COHESION and the unity of the members of that community. Iran is a country with different tribes. The distinct characteristics of each ethnic groups in Iran is based on the components of linguistic and RELIGIOUS groups Iranian ethnic living in border areas with neighboring countries, and also their own language provides background for the occurrence of ethnic crisis and national security. The aim of this study was to investigate the social COHESION in maintaining border security with emphasis on ethnic RELIGIOUS diversity. This descriptive analytical research used questionnaire for gathering information, and also SPSS software to determine the data and one-sample T-test was used to test the hypothesis. The sample was 2610 family resident in Zabol, and 380 people were chosen according to kokaran formula. The results indicate that respect index to parents and elders, sympathize at the time of the incident, cooperation in working time with significant level of 0 have acquired the highest rank. Among social security indexes, satisfaction index from security officials (6.669) and confidence to border resident (5.104) placed in the highest ranking that derive from government's efforts to establish security in the region. The employed population working in agriculture (399.7) and the percentage of the population employed to work in the service sector (282.4) are the highest-ranking in economic security. This implies that if the border residents of Sistan have adequate water resources and government officials support, the agriculture sector will be improved. Indexes of equal access to jobs and economic opportunity (6.640) and equal access to economic information (8.928) have lowest rank, which requests more favorable investment policies in this area.

Perhaps Durkheim first introduced social COHESION into sociology. He concluded the concept of social COHESION from division of labor in social system. Durkheim has formulated a particular analytical and conceptual system whose four sides are as follows: social division of labor, collective conscience, social COHESION, and law rights.On the other hand, the Holy Quran which takes care of social COHESION chooses another point of departure for advancing its theory in this respect based on natural and genetic foundations instead of being based on shaking conventional ones. The Holy Qur’an believes that the most fundamental factor contributing to [social] COHESION is divine religion which has natural and genetic origin. Furthermore, the Holy Qur’an mentions other social and genetic components such as family and kinship relationships although none of these social factors can be compared with the submission to Islam and belief in the One God. Using an analytical-descriptive approach, the present paper seeks to explore the concept of social COHESION in the Holy Quran.

This study compares and contrasts lexical COHESION in English and Persian abstracts of Iranian medical students’ theses to appreciate textualization processes in the two languages. For this purpose, one hundred English and Persian abstracts were selected randomly and analyzed based on Seddigh and Yarmohamadi’s (1996) lexical COHESION framework, a version of Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) and Halliday’s (1985) taxonomies. For contrastive analysis, the SPSS package was used. The results revealed some similarities and differences in the use of lexical COHESION sub-categories in the parallel English and Persian texts. The occurrence of all sub-types is nearly the same in the two groups of texts and the two- tailed t-test employed showed that the differences are not statistically significant. Both languages exhibit a general tendency in using repetition, but synonymy and meronymy are the least used sub-categories. Regarding the density of the texts, the analysis indicates that Persian abstracts are denser than their corresponding English ones.