Pseudo-saturating power converter

Relative performance of three basic configurations of electronic conversion units (saturating, pseudo-saturating, nonsaturating) requiring low power levels is compared. Pseudo-saturating mode exhibits best overall performance, nonsaturating a close second, saturating a poor third

BIORATIONAL INSECTICIDE ADOPTION AND CONVENTIONAL INSECTICIDE USE: A SIMULTANEOUS, LIMITED DEPENDENT VARIABLE MODEL

Using data reporting section-level pesticide use for all of Arizona, this study estimates how early-season adoption of new biorational insecticides reduced subsequent broad-spectrum insecticide applications in cotton. The two-stage econometric model accounts for the endogeneity and censoring of the adoption intensity variable. One biorational application substituted for 3.66 broad-spectrum applications.Crop Production/Industries,

TMB-Hunt: An amino acid composition based method to screen proteomes for beta-barrel transmembrane proteins

BACKGROUND: Beta-barrel transmembrane (bbtm) proteins are a functionally important and diverse group of proteins expressed in the outer membranes of bacteria (both gram negative and acid fast gram positive), mitochondria and chloroplasts. Despite recent publications describing reasonable levels of accuracy for discriminating between bbtm proteins and other proteins, screening of entire genomes remains troublesome as these molecules only constitute a small fraction of the sequences screened. Therefore, novel methods are still required capable of detecting new families of bbtm protein in diverse genomes. RESULTS: We present TMB-Hunt, a program that uses a k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN) algorithm to discriminate between bbtm and non-bbtm proteins on the basis of their amino acid composition. By including differentially weighted amino acids, evolutionary information and by calibrating the scoring, an accuracy of 92.5% was achieved, with 91% sensitivity and 93.8% positive predictive value (PPV), using a rigorous cross-validation procedure. A major advantage of this approach is that because it does not rely on beta-strand detection, it does not require resolved structures and thus larger, more representative, training sets could be used. It is therefore believed that this approach will be invaluable in complementing other, physicochemical and homology based methods. This was demonstrated by the correct reassignment of a number of proteins which other predictors failed to classify. We have used the algorithm to screen several genomes and have discussed our findings. CONCLUSION: TMB-Hunt achieves a prediction accuracy level better than other approaches published to date. Results were significantly enhanced by use of evolutionary information and a system for calibrating k-NN scoring. Because the program uses a distinct approach to that of other discriminators and thus suffers different liabilities, we believe it will make a significant contribution to the development of a consensus approach for bbtm protein detection

TMB-Hunt: a web server to screen sequence sets for transmembrane β-barrel proteins

TMB-Hunt is a program that uses a modified k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) algorithm to classify protein sequences as transmembrane β-barrel (TMB) or non-TMB on the basis of whole sequence amino acid composition. By including differentially weighted amino acids, evolutionary information and by calibrating the scoring, a discrimination accuracy of 92.5% was achieved, as tested using a rigorous cross-validation procedure. The TMB-Hunt web server, available at , allows screening of up to 10 000 sequences in a single query and provides results and key statistics in a simple colour coded format

The moderating effects of religiosity on the relationship between stressful life events and delinquent behavior

Previous research has shown that many forms of strain are positively related to delinquency. Evidence also suggests that religiosity buffers the effects of strain on offending, but this issue requires further research. Using data from a national sample of adolescents, this study examined whether or not religiosity conditioned the relationship between strain and delinquency. This study also looked at the ability of social support, self-esteem, and depression to moderate the influence of strain on delinquent behavior. The findings here lend support to general strain theory in that strain had a direct positive effect on delinquency, yet there was little evidence that the relationship was moderated by religiosity or other conditioning variables. The roles of moderating variables on strain across genders were also considered. Originally published in Journal of Criminal Justice Vol. 36, No. 6 2008

Recent Developments in Methods to Characterise the Chemical and Biological Parameters of Grass Silage

Key points Chemical analysis of forages is expensive, time consuming, environmentally unfriendly and relates poorly to the feed value for production purposes. In vivo characterisation of animal feed is not a feasible option in terms of cost and analysis time. NIRS is a rapid, non destructive, environmentally friendly, multi-analytical technique which can estimate the nutritive value of the feed. NIRS predictive equations developed on a master instrument can be transferred to local and international sites. Future assessment of forages necessitates rapid, stable, instrumentation for ‘in field’ studies

Direct measurement of diurnal polar motion by ring laser gyroscopes

We report the first direct measurements of the very small effect of forced diurnal polar motion, successfully observed on three of our large ring lasers, which now measure the instantaneous direction of Earth's rotation axis to a precision of 1 part in 10^8 when averaged over a time interval of several hours. Ring laser gyroscopes provide a new viable technique for directly and continuously measuring the position of the instantaneous rotation axis of the Earth and the amplitudes of the Oppolzer modes. In contrast, the space geodetic techniques (VLBI, SLR, GPS, etc.) contain no information about the position of the instantaneous axis of rotation of the Earth, but are sensitive to the complete transformation matrix between the Earth-fixed and inertial reference frame. Further improvements of gyroscopes will provide a powerful new tool for studying the Earth's interior.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, agu2001.cl

Domestic violence and mental health: a cross-sectional survey of women seeking help from domestic violence support services

Background : Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are associated with an increased risk of mental illness, but we know little about the mental health of female DVA survivors seeking support from domestic violence services. Objective : To characterize the demography and mental health of women who access specialist DVA services in the United Kingdom and to investigate associations between severity of abuse and measures of mental health and health state utility, accounting for important confounders and moderators. Design : Baseline data on 260 women enrolled in a randomized controlled trial of a psychological intervention for DVA survivors was analyzed. We report prevalence of and associations between mental health status and severity of abuse at the time of recruitment. We used logistic and normal regression models for binary and continuous outcomes, respectively. Mental health measures used were: Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation–Outcome Measure (CORE-OM), Patient Health Questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment, and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) to measure posttraumatic stress disorder. The Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) measured abuse. Results : Exposure to DVA was high, with a mean CAS score of 56 (SD 34). The mean CORE-OM score was 18 (SD 8) with 76% above the clinical threshold (95% confidence interval: 70–81%). Depression and anxiety levels were high, with means close to clinical thresholds, and all respondents recorded PTSD scores above the clinical threshold. Symptoms of mental illness increased stepwise with increasing severity of DVA. Conclusions : Women DVA survivors who seek support from DVA services have recently experienced high levels of abuse, depression, anxiety, and especially PTSD. Clinicians need to be aware that patients presenting with mental health conditions or symptoms of depression or anxiety may be experiencing or may have experienced DVA. The high psychological morbidity in this population means that trauma-informed psychological support is needed for survivors who seek support from DVA services. Keywords : domestic violence and abuse; intimate partner violence; mental health; posttraumatic stress disorder; anxiety; CORE-OM; depression; women; advocacy (Published: 15 October 2014) Citation : Glob Health Action 2014,  7 : 25519 -  http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.25519 SPECIAL ISSUE : This paper is part of the Special Issue:  Intimate Partner Violence and Mental Health . More papers from this issue can be found at  http://www.globalhealthaction.net SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL : To access the supplementary material for this article, please see  Supplementary files  under Article Tool