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Context-dependent modeling is a well-known approach to increase modeling accuracy in continuous speech recognition. The most common way to implement this approach is via triphone modeling. Nevertheless, the large number of such models results in several problems in model training, whilst the robust training of such models is often hardly obtained. One approach to solve this problem is via parameter tying. In this paper, clustering has been carried out on HMM state parameters and the states allocated to any cluster are tied to decrease the overall number of system parameters and achieve robust training. Two types of groupings, one based on the final trained model set parameters and their inter-model distances and the other based on the training data and a decision tree, have been carried out. In the implementation of the later, a decision tree based on the acoustic properties of the Persian (Farsi) language and the phonetic similarities and differences has been designed. The results obtained have shown the usefulness of both the approaches. However, the second approach has the advantage of making the estimation of unseen model parameters possible.

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Aim: Considering the fundamental role of parents' function and family dynamics including the importance role of family communication pattern on preventing early-onset substance use in children, the present study aimed to determine the correlation between family communication pattern and mothers' preventive behavioral intention regarding preventing early-onset substance use in children. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out among 234 Iranian mothers in Tehran who were randomly selected to participate voluntarily in the study. The participants filled out a self-administered questionnaire including I- demographic information; II- family-based behavioral intention regarding preventing early- onset substance use in children; and III- family communication pattern. Data were analyzed by the SPSS software (ver. 21.0) using Pearson's correlations, independent t-test, and ANOVA at 95% significant level. Findings: The results reported a correlation between conversation (r=0.509**& P≥0.001), conformity orientation (r= -0.150*& P=0.022) and behavioral intention; as well as between conversation conformity orientation (r= -0.382*& P≥0.001), and conversation (r=0.218**& P=0.001), conformity orientation (r= -0.105& P=0.108) and age. Conclusion: The findings suggest that to develop a preventive program, it will be useful to increase family communication pattern, specially conversation orientation to prevent the onset of substance use in children.

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Background: Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli are identified as the major causes of acute gastroenteritis in humans. Because of the fastidious nature of Campylobacters, many clinical laboratories fail to routinely culture them. The detection of Campylobacter spp. using molecular-based techniques can be useful for diagnostic and epidemiological applications. This study aimed to developa multiplex PCR assay for the simultaneous detection of C. jejuni and C. coli strains from clinical specimens
Materials and Methods: During a 19-month period, stool samples were collected from 980 children admitted to a hospital in Tehran, Iran and then examined. The samples were cultured on both Brucella agar and Modified Charcoal-Cefoperazone-Deoxycholate agar (mCCDA) media at 42°C for 48 h. To confirm suspected bacteria, Gram staining and other biochemical tests were carried out. Finally, after extracting DNA from pure cultures using the boiling method, the multiplex PCR assay was performed.
Results: The multiplex PCR assay showed that Campylobacter spp. can be detected using 400 bp target product of cadF. It can also accurately distinguish between C. jejuni and C. coli species with different bands of 735 bp and 500 bp using hipO and asp genes, respectively
Conclusions: Results showed that the multiplex PCR assay can replace the biochemical assays for differentiating between C. jejuni and C. coli strains in a single-step PCR test.

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Aim: Identification of contributory factors in smoking and gaining insight into the roles played by each of these factors including health literacy (HL) may account for quitting or decreasing the prevalence of smoking. The aim of the current study was to identify the effects caused by different HL levels on smoking.
Methods: 347 students inhabiting the dormitories of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were included in a cross-sectional correlational study. Random cluster sampling was used for the selection of participants. HELIA questionnaire (used for HL measurement in Iranian urban population between 18-65 years of age) and a researcher-made questionnaire (for determining the status of smoking in individuals) were used to collect information from the participants. All data were statistically analyzed by SPSS software.
Findings: The mean and standard deviation of HL score was 70.52±14.12 out of 100. The results indicated that among the university students, 59.7% (201 people) were non-smokers, 23.1% (78 people) were smokers, and 17.2% (58 people) had experienced smoking. These findings reveal that HL is significantly correlated with smoking in university students. Also different levels (insufficient, relatively sufficient, and sufficient) of HL show its significant correlation with smoking, meaning that less HL levels are accompanied by a higher chance of smoking.
Conclusion: The relatively high prevalence of smoking in university students and the impact of HL on smoking highlight the need to increase the level of HL in university students and develop an efficient tool for measuring smoking literacy in all age groups.

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Aim: The aim of this study was to design a tool and to assess its validity and reliability based on native culture characterization to evaluate the health belief model (HBF) constructs about prenatal care.
Methods: 215 pregnant women covered by the health centers of Iranshahr in the age group of 18-35 years and the least ability of reading and writing participated in this cross-sectional study. After reviewing the literature, the tool was designed, and its validity and reliability were approved based on psychometric data of the target group and the view of a panel of experts through calculating the content validity ratio, content validity index, exploratory factor analysis, and internal consistency.
Findings: The validity of 42 items was assessed through calculating the index score of the item effect above 1.5, content validity ratio more than 0.80, and content validity index higher than 0.79. By using exploratory factor analysis with a special value greater than 1, six factors and 35 items remained that were classified into six categories based on the literature review and content items, which were able to predict 77.095 % of the total variance of the tool. The reliability of the research tool was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha equal to 0.816.
Conclusion: The results of this study provide proper evidence about the strength of structural factors and the reliability of the assessment tool for the structures of HBM about prenatal care. It can be considered by the researchers in developing a tool for research, education and action.

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Macrophomina phaseolina is one of the major yield limiting factors of melons in tropical and subtropical regions. For eco-friendly and effective management of the disease, 24 gamma induced mutants from Trichoderma harzianum were evaluated against three isolates of the pathogen representing three geographically different regions viz. Khorasan (isolate 1), Garmsar (isolate 2) and Khuzestan (isolate 3). The isolates of Trichoderma (mutants and wild type) were evaluated against the pathogen in dual culture and through production of volatile and non-volatile inhibitors. Maximum growth inhibition was observed in Th1, Th4, Th15, Th9 and Th22 mutants after three days. In greenhouse evaluation against M. phaseolina (isolate 1) among the inoculated treatments minimum plant infection was observed in Th9 treatment (28% disease reduction) as compared to infected control and among the uninoculated treatments Th1and Th9 mutants resulted in maximum growth of roots and shoots of melon plants as compared to uninfected control. These mutants are introduced as potential candidates against M. Phaseolina. The results proved that gamma-mutagenesis by enhancing the antagonistic properties of T. harzianum 65 can be useful for the biocontrol of soil borne plant pathogens such as Macrophomina phaseolina.

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Persian language is not used in the same way in different geographical areas, historical periods & social contexts as other languages are. So always Persian language has had some varieties with some difference in words, sounds and grammars. Stable and unstable sub-cultures that are formed in the scope of Persian language are the most important factors to the occurrennce of  the social varieties. War front in Iran, as an example of small community, is a particular sub-culture with behavioral, written and oral dimensions,  and most significant part of it is collected in the book named "An Encyclopedia of the war front''. This descriptive  analytical article tries to present a slight part of oral culture of the war front with emphasise on  the linguistic aspect of contemporary Persian language. The most important section of oral cultures are the idioms, explanations and proper names  that many of them have been collected in the first volume of the mentioned book. As we know, the features of this language are mainly related to the vocabulary level; so in this paper, our consideration is  to  the first volume of  this book, and after a brief speech about the varieties of Persian language and common language in the culture of war front in Iran,  some examples are taken briefly

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This study aimed to design a whistle-blowing model for the excellence of sports organizations. This research is developmental in terms of purpose and exploratory in terms of strategy, which was carried out qualitatively. The study's statistical population was the professors of the scientific board of the universities and experts working in sports organizations, who were selected by purposeful and snowball sampling. A semi-structured interview was used to collect and analyze the data using the Glaseri method. Sets of primary concepts were collected during the coding process, and categories were extracted from them. Then, in the stage of core coding and the link between these categories, the titles of prerequisites or substrates, drivers, processes, core phenomena, and consequences were determined. The results showed that preventing the wastage of resources, increasing job satisfaction, loyalty, commitment, trust, motivation, creativity, and organizational productivity, increasing employee participation, collaborative decision, reducing inappropriate behaviors, reducing strikes, and increasing security and health in the organization, eradicating corruption, reforming the organization's structure, and realizing organizational goals play a role as consequences. Based on the research model, it is recommended to consider the role of different categories of whistle-blowing in the health of sports organizations to prevent violations. Also, special attention should be paid to the platforms and factors for promoting whistle-blowing in sports organizations. In order to promote organizational health in sports of the country.

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Aim: Smoking is one of the most important causes of respiratory, cardiovascular and cancers diseases. This study examined the smoking-related knowledge, attitudes and practices of dormitory students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran. The specific aim is to determine the correlation between the main variables' affect on smoking habits, knowledge and attitudes.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study conducted with descriptive and analytical approach, 340 students were selected through random cluster sampling. The participating students completed an interview measuring demographic characteristics and smoking-related knowledge, attitude and practice. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and Pearson's tests in SPSS (ver. 21).
Findings: The mean and SD of the participants was 22.93±4.05 years. Accordingly, 23% (n=78) of the subjects were current smokers and 17.1% (n=58) had experienced smoking. The knowledge of 1.8% (n=6) of the subjects was weak about smoking's health effects, 9.97% (n=332) had average and 0.3% (n=1) had good knowledge. Attitude of 8.6% (n=29) of the participants about smoking was poor, 29.5% (n=100) average and 61.9% (n=210) good. Relationship between knowledge and attitude about the harms of smoking (r=0.35, p<0.001), between knowledge and smoking (r=0.2, p<0.001), and between attitude and smoking (r=0.45, p<0.001) was significant.
Conclusion: There was a moderate level of knowledge and attitude about smoking hazards among the participants. Also the prevalence of smoking was relatively high. With regard to the statistically significant relationship between knowledge and attitude with smoking, declared health educational programs may enrich current knowledge, and promote the attitudes related to smoking risk and effects on the students' health.

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Aims: Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is part of human oral cavity microbiome and is known to be responsible of dental caries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the inhibitory effects of Punica granatum, Ricinus communis, and Allium sativum extracts on biofilm formation caused by S. mutans.
Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, the biofilm formation was carried out by broth dilution method with glucose -supplemented Tryptic Soy Agar (TSB) in 96-well microtiter plates. Seven serial dilutions from the aqueous extracts of the Punica granatum, Ricinus communis, and Allium sativum were prepared. Then, a suspension of S. mutans was added to the wells. The anti-biofilm effects of the extracts and turbidity were measured by an ELISA reader apparatus at OD₄₉₂nm. Experiments were completed in triplicate.
Findings: Ricinus communis was more active on S. mutans than other extracts. In comparison with others, the mean OD obtained in the presence of a concentration of 50mg of the plant extract (OD=0.083) was close to the negative control (OD=0.068). This plant was effective in higher concentrations (50, 25, 12.5 and 6.25mg/ml). Allium sativum extract has a moderate effect on S. mutans. The lowest activity belonged to Punica granatum extract.
Conclusion: The extract of Ricinus communis has strong anti-biofilm activity against Streptococcus mutans, when compared to other extracts, Allium sativum extract show moderate activity on the biofilm formation. Aqueous extract of Punica granatum peel isn’t very effective on S. mutans.

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Stem rust caused by Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) is one of the destructive diseases of wheat in the world. The fungal pathogen can infect 365 different grass and more than 70 Berberis species. DNA sequences for the ribosomal RNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) have proven suitable to explore relationships at the species and subspecies levels. An isolate of Pgt which was collected from Iran and designated as TTSSK was used in this study. Three samples of the isolate were used. ITS region of the samples was amplified and sequenced. Consensus tree based on Maximum Parsimony clustering method was produced by Mega 6.0. Iranian isolate of TTSSK was placed in a clade with P. graminis which was isolated from Berberis sp. and Pgt isolate from Tajikistan. The results showed that more than one conserved genomic regions would be informative to identify phylogenetic relationship of Iranian Pgt isolates and samples from different parts of the world. Complementary studies with more sequence data from other genome loci are in progress.

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Ali Hossein Najafi Abran Abadi Associate Professor, Department of Law, Shahid Beheshti University Mohammad Jafar Habibzadeh Associate Professor, Department of Law, Tarbiat Modares University Mohammad Ebrahim Shams Nateri Ph.D. Student in Criminal Law, Tarbiat Modares University One of the most important threats to the world community in modern age is the "Organized Crime". In criminology this includes the sever eunlawful activities committed by the highly structured groups with special characteristics to obtain power and benitits, although in criminal Law these attributes are not necessary for the groups. This crime however is as old as the nation, but the globalization of the economy and depending, of the countries upon each other on economic matters and the development of the international comunication and transportation have cused it to become transnational and to expand its domain to international level. Organized crime has been studied in criminology at first. Some states have criminilized it, but not widely, in their internal law after appearance of its threats to' the community by the crriminologists. Furthermore, several regional and international treaties have been signed to combat Organized Crime. Because of its threats, the U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime has been signed in November 2000 in General Assembly session of U.N. to promote international cooperation and harmonize internal laws against transnational organized crime. Because Iran has engaged in combatting organized crime, especially during trafficking, it is necessary for Iranian legislature to legislate proper Acts to prevent, control and supress manifestations of Organizaed Crime.

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Culture filtrates (CF) of two species of the nematophagous fungi, Arthrobotrys oligospora and Arthrobotrys conoidesat three concentrations (25%, 50% and 100%) of stock, were tested on the mortality of second stage juveniles (J2) and egg hatching rate of Meloidogyne incognita and Meloidogyne javanica. Results showed that the percent juvenile mortality was directly proportional to concentration of the filtrates. Egg hatching rate of these nematodes was inversely affected by increasing concentrations. Also CFs had various impacts on the mortality of J2 and egg hatching rate. In case of M. incognita maximum J2 mortality (28.98%) occurred after 24 hours of exposure to A. conoides filtrate at concentration of 100%. The minimum toxicity (12.5% J2 mortality) was recorded for A. oligospora at 25% filtrate concentration. At the same time, the highest rate of J2 mortality of M. javanica (19.18%) belonged to the 100% concentration of A. conoides, while minimum toxicity belonged to 25% concentration of A. oligospora causing 9.09% mortality. Maximum egg hatching rate for M. incognita (30.75%) belonged to control and minimum hatching rate (1.25%) belonged to 100% concentration of A. conoides. The highest hatching rate of M. javanica (36.25%)belonged to control and minimum hatching rate (1.25%) occurred at 100% concentration of A. conoides.

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Serological methods are commonly used methods for detection of viruses. Preparation of pure viral antigens is a crucial step in production of antibodies required for serological studies. In this research the gene encoding coat protein of a Beet western yellows virus (BWYV) isolate from Iran was amplified by PCR and was ligated into a bacterial expression vector (pET26b) to obtain pET-BWYV-CP clone. Escherichia coli BL21 was transformed with pET-BWYV-CP and expression of the recombinant coat protein was induced by IPTG. The expressed recombinant coat proteins were purified and used as an antigen for rabbit immunization. The antiserum was able to detect recombinant coat protein in total protein extracts of induced E. coli BL21 cells in western blot analysis.  

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Tabaghat-o-Alsufiya is one of the ancient Persian texts written in the Harat area (Fifth century AD). Khwaja Abdullah Ansari was a Sufi who was preaching many people in several meetings in Harat. His sermons were written by one of his students later, which called ''Tabaghat-o-Alsufiya''. This text's analysis can show some unspoken language tips about the current dialects at that geographic area. This article has focused on Arabic language effects on language of Tabaghat. After a while of  the  presense of Arabs, arabic language for various social, scientific, religious, political and cultural reasons, influenced Persian language and the works of great Iranian writers and poets. Ansari´s book's language shows it has been influenced from Arabic language in some structure (grammar), vocabulary, phonetic and lexical features. This paper attempts to explain this subject with evidences and examples from the text. The study was done after careful reading of  Tabaghat-e-Ansari by using content analysis method.  

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A subfield of political geography is election geography, which investigates issues of election geography, including the spatial layout of elections, the diversity of spatial voting patterns, and the impact of spatial and geographical factors on electors' decisions. The neighborhood voting pattern is one of the diverse voting patterns that voters typically use to express their preferences for various candidates in accordance with their needs, convictions, and way of life. In accordance with this model, voters from a community who inhabit in a particular geographic location, such as a neighborhood, village, city, or province, identify with candidates who were born or now reside there and believe that the candidate from that particular area of their hometown, more aware of their challenges and issues then they support him more. This study aims to examine how neighborhood and tribe tendencies varied in the 11^th Islamic Consultative Assembly term in the Boyer Ahmad Dana and Margun constituencies. GIS and EXCEL software were employed in the descriptive and analytical study method to better represent the problem. The research's conclusions lead to the neighborhood variable, hometown tendencies, and tribal tendencies are the most significant influencing factors on the voting pattern of the electoral candidates of the aforementioned constituency. On the other hand, it was discovered that the impact of the neighborhood is greater in some cities and districts (Boyrahmad and Dana) and less in some locations and spaces by examining the quantity and intensity of neighborhoods among clans and ethnic groups residing in the cities of the said constituency (Margun). These differences are brought about by how many people live in the cities indicated.

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One of the most important proteins in gene silencing and creation of small RNA, are argonaute proteins. Most of these proteins have an endonucleolytic activity so argonaute proteins play a key role in creation of defense mechanism against certain pathogenic viruses. In current study we studied the putative argonaute genes in six medicinal plants using bioinformatic tools. Sequences of argonaute genes of six medicinal plants were retrieved from target database using Arabidopsis Argonaut blast. Sequence alignment, 3D structure, phylogenetic tree and conserved domain were generated for six medicinal plants argonautes. Results showed that studied medicinal plants have 6 to 18 argonaute proteins in the genome. There were three classes of Argonaute proteins similar to that of Arabidopsis, and each varies in length from 846 to 1187 AA, with a average of 970 AA and 108 kDa. six medicinal plants argonaute proteins had PAZ, PIWI and MID conserved domains.Our results showed that six medicinal plants have three classes of argonautes, This indicates is that the conservation of argonaute proteins in different plants.

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Aim: Certain Mycoplasma species, the smallest and simplest free-living bacteria which lack a rigid cell wall, are considered as important pathogenic organisms in human and recognized to have a role in rheumatoid arthritis. The aim of this study was to use molecular methods to detect Mycoplasma spp. in synovial fluid of patients with reactive arthritis in comparison with patients suffering from non-inflammatory arthritis as a control group.
Materials & Methods: Synovial fluid samples were collected from 99 patients with arthritis, all of which fulfilled the standard criteria of American College of Rheumatology for the diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis (59 patients) or non-inflammatory arthritis (40 patients). The DNA of all synovial fluid samples was extracted, and PCR was performed with a specific set of general primers for 16S rRNA of Mycoplasma genus. The PCR products were confirmed via restriction enzyme digestion using BamH1 and sequencing.
Finding: A total of 11 out of 99 (11.1%) samples of patients with reactive arthritis revealed a 270bp amplification band. Digesting the PCR product of 16S rRNA by BamH1 confirmed the PCR assay. The sequencing also confirmed the amplified products.
Conclusion: The pathophysiology of inflammatory arthritis could be attributed, at least in part, to the persistence of bacterial DNA in the joint of patients with reactive arthritis.