Targeting the protecting programs such as subsidies requires identifying the poor in the society. In order to recognize beneficiary households for cash payment after subsidy reform in Iran, Proxy MEANS TEST was applied in this study to households' survey data of 2009. Based on the findings, it is possible to identify the poor not based on their claimed incomes but according to their total scores calculated by their traits, asset ownership and places of living. Those who own car, motorcycle, PC, have their own orchard and invested on fixed assets and/or live in houses larger than 100 m2, for instance, are found not to be beneficiaries. Moreover, the government can protect reasonable people by choosing targeting line of 40% in the society.

The log-normal distribution is used to describe the positive data that has skewed distribution with small mean and large variance. This distribution has application in many sciences for example medicine, economics, biology and alimentary science, etc. Comparison of MEANS of several log-normal populations always has been in focus of researchers, but their TEST statistics are not easy to derive or extremely complicated for this comparisons. In this paper, the size and power of different TESTing methods including F-TEST, likelihood ratio TEST, generalized p-value approach and computational approach TEST are compared in a simulation study.

This prospective clinical study was performed to investigate the colonization of H pylori in adenoid and tonsil tissues by using the Campylobacter-like organism (CLO) TEST. Included in the study were 56 patients aged 3 to 43 yrs who had undergone adenoidectomy, tonsillectomy or adenotonsillectomy procedures under general anesthesia. Two-mm diameter tissue pieces of adenoid and tonsil specimens were placed in urease solution. Color changes were noted after 30 min and 24 hrs. 27 (48.2%) of the patients were shown to be H pylori positive and 29 (51.8%) were negative, regardless of the type of specimen. There was a high rate of H pylori colonization in tonsil and adenoid tissues. The cause of recurrent H pylori infections of the gastric mucosa may be the result of colonization in the adenotonsillar tissues. Prevention of H pylori colonization may reduce the recurrences of the disease.

This article points to the identification, an important stage in subsidy targeting. Identification of vulnerable groups or households is important from efficiency aspects of governmental provisions and transfer payments. We define targeting and clarify various procedures of targeting systems with emphasis on identification position in them. Then main methods of individual identification especially "MEANS TEST" and "proxy MEANS TEST" reviewed and we will declare some imperfections of these two methods. To get rid of the weaknesses, we will introduce Two-Stage Identification (TSI) TEST with Endogenous Household Clustering (EHC) method and will try an experiment with Iranian raw household data in urban areas. The results of using TSI method show five different household groups with derivation of varied characteristics of household such as Head (Gender, Marriage, Employment), Members (Age Composition, Number of Employee, Size, Education), Home (Occupation, Number of Room, Width, Framework) and Expenditures (Total, Food and Durables). Also with this verification, policy makers acquire a rich database for employing one or various targeting systems.

Producion of efficient antimicrobial drugs against to common human pathogens is one of the most important challenges in the field of medical microbiology. Continuous screening of clinical isolates and survey of antimicrobial resistance pattern is critical.Today, disk diffusion and dilution methods are known as the common antimicrobial susceptibility TESTing methods. Disk diffusion method does not render dependable results in determination of antimicrobial susceptibility pattern because this method is semi quantitative. MIC determination by microdilution and macrodilution techniques and recent method “E-TEST”, have given interpretable results to researchers. Microdilution and macrodilution methods are also time consuming, expensive and error- prone methods. Whereas E-TEST method is one of the MEANS by which we will be able to determine susceptibility pattern of known species in low cost and short time. In this survey, constructing and printing of E-TEST, coating of antibiotic on O.H.P film and quality control of constructed E-TESTs were performed according to M7 A7 CLSI Standard. In this study quality of required materials for E-TEST Production were suitable. Evaluation of constructed strips was performed using standard strain of staphylococcus aureus and reproducibly of results was appreciated.

Contact dermatitis is an inflammatory skin disease due to contact with different substances and caused by two mechanisms: allergy and irritation. Contact dermatitis is a common skin disease and the most common occupational dermatosis. Differentiating between allergic and irritant contact dermatitis is essential in the identification of etiologic factor(s) and hence, its control and prognosis. This differentiation can be done only by patch TEST. Unfortunately, this simple, safe and useful TEST is always neglected. We review the basics of patch TEST, the method of performance, reading and interpretation of its results, possible side effects and results of studies done with patch TEST in different countries.

Given the importance of the rock mass rating classification system in rock engineering, the aim of this paper is to improve final classes of this classification system using k-MEANS and fuzzy c-MEANS clustering algorithms. The data classification in the rock mass rating classification system were allocated to certain classes via a set of initial information based on the opinions and judgments of experience, which the use of clustering algorithms in this system of classification, dataset were divided into specific classes after going through the stages of clustering analysis, therefore resulting in clarification of the final rock mass rating classification systems and removal of uncertainties from the linguistic criteria. Silhouette coefficient (SC) method was used for validation k-MEANS clustering algorithm. Furthermore, for validation of FCM clustering algorithm, four validation methods including partition distribution coefficient (PC), clustering entropy (CE), Fukuyama and Sugeno (FS) and Xie and Beni index (XB) were used. It becomes clear that due to uncertainty condition on determination of rock mass rating clustering system classes, FCM clustering algorithms yields better results than k-MEANS clustering algorithm. Results of data extracted from Anomaly B of Sangan iron mines indicated that the technique used in this paper is of high importance in rock mass quality.

Subsidies have remarkably grown from 4888 billion Rials in 1374 to 23035 billion Rials in 1384. Yet, the poor have not gained much. For example, in energy subsidies, 20 percent of the richest people have gained about 15 times more than the 20 percent of the poorest people. This is because the payments of subsidies are unified and not targeted. Increasing subsidy, budget deficit and low incidence of the poor are the main reason why Iranian government made a decision for targeting subsidies. In fact, targeting subsidies is necessary to distinguish poor families from non-poor families. The survey of targeting methods in 30 Latin American countries indicates Proxy MEANS TEST in developing countries are the best method for targeting subsidies. Therefore, this study employs this method to identify the poor and the non poor. The results show this method could distinguish 79 percent of the poor families, and 21 percent of poor families are identified as non poor families. Moreover, this method identifies 83 percent of non poor families and 17 percent of non poor families are identified as poor families.