Is using the strengths and difficulties questionnaire in a community sample the optimal way to assess mental health functioning?

An important characteristic of a screening tool is its discriminant ability or the measure’s accuracy to distinguish between those with and without mental health problems. The current study examined the inter-rater agreement and screening concordance of the parent and teacher versions of SDQ at scale, subscale and item-levels, with the view of identifying the items that have the most informant discrepancies; and determining whether the concordance between parent and teacher reports on some items has the potential to influence decision making. Cross-sectional data from parent and teacher reports of the mental health functioning of a community sample of 299 students with and without disabilities from 75 different primary schools in Perth, Western Australia were analysed. The study found that: a) Intraclass correlations between parent and teacher ratings of children’s mental health using the SDQ at person level was fair on individual child level; b) The SDQ only demonstrated clinical utility when there was agreement between teacher and parent reports using the possible or 90% dichotomisation system; and c) Three individual items had positive likelihood ratio scores indicating clinical utility. Of note was the finding that the negative likelihood ratio or likelihood of disregarding the absence of a condition when both parents and teachers rate the item as absent was not significant. Taken together, these findings suggest that the SDQ is not optimised for use in community samples and that further psychometric evaluation of the SDQ in this context is clearly warranted

L 2 -topological invariants of 3-manifolds

We give results on the L 2 -Betti numbers and Novikov-Shubin invariants of compact manifolds, especially 3-manifolds. We first study the Betti numbers and Novikov-Shubin invariants of a chain complex of Hilbert modules over a finite von Neumann algebra. We establish inequalities among the Novikov-Shubin invariants of the terms in a short exact sequence of chain complexes. Our algebraic results, along with some analytic results on geometric 3-manifolds, are used to compute the L 2 -Betti numbers of compact 3-manifolds which satisfy a weak form of the geometrization conjecture, and to compute or estimate their Novikov-Shubin invariants.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46581/1/222_2005_Article_BF01241121.pd

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Not AvailableA regular (cv. Thothapuri) and an irregular (cv. Langra) bearing cultivar of mango were selected to study the gas exchange parameters such as photosynthesis, stomatal conductance and internal carbon dioxide concentrations in flowering and non-flowering branches. Photosynthetic rates at different carbon dioxide concentrations were also recorded in both the branches to calculate the carboxylation efficiency by generating CO2 response curves. Photosynthetic rate and stomatal conductance were higher in non-flowering branches as compared to the flowering ones, in both cultivars. The reduction in photosynthetic rate was not due to variation in the water status of the leaves, since relative water content (RWC) of the leaves in both types of branches was not significantly different. Hence, the reduction in photosynthetic rate could be mainly due to the reduction in carboxylation efficiencyNot Availabl

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Not AvailableThe relationship of leaf and fruit transpiration rates with the incidence of spongy tissue in mango cultivars Dashahari (free from spongy tissue) and Alphonso (susceptible to spongy tissue) was investigated. Leaf transpiration rates were similar in both the cultivars, however the fruit transpiration rates were significantly higher in cv. Dashahari. Artificially induced variations in fruit transpiration rates using perforated polythene covers and vaseline coating of fruits also resulted in significant changes in the incidence of spongy tissue in cv. Alphonso. The significant and negative relationship observed between the fruit transpiration rate and the spongy tissue suggests that the lower fruit transpiration rates in cv. Alphonso are a varietal specific trait, which results in slower movement of water and minerals to the fruits from soil leading to the development of spongy tissueNot Availabl