No abstract

Evaluations of quality improvement efforts targeted at mental health services in primary care pediatrics are rare. We evaluated a short-targeted educational session, a Web-based system, the Child Health and Development Interactive System, and a local area mental health services resource guide. Most physicians believed the information in the educational session was at least somewhat likely to change their practice. However, only 9.2% of the families invited to complete the Web-based system did so. Physicians found access to the Web-based system time consuming and, because the billing code for the screening activity was carved out of most of Ohio's privately-insured contract, physicians received no reimbursement for the screenings. Physicians were unenthusiastic about the local resource guide because the resources were not rated for quality. This quality improvement effort demonstrates that there are not easy solutions to practice change and highlights the need for implementation support when introducing new technology.

No abstract

A regulating DC-to-DC converter is described which utilizes a new circuit configuration to achieve several desirable features including higher effi ciency, a single circuit for regulation and conver sion, minimized output filter requirements, and simplified control system applications. The DC operating characteristics are derived and the effi ciency of the new converter is shown to compare favorably with the conventional boost regulator. An AC model is derived and a comparison is made be tween analytical and experimental results.

Boeing Electron Dynamic Devices, Inc. (EDD) has designed and fabricated a breadboard version of a 6-kW power processing unit (PPU) for gridded ion thrusters. This breadboard PPU will be integrated with an engineering model 40-cm ion engine designed and tested at GRC. The results of our tests using resistive loads are reported in this paper. The PPU demonstrated efficiencies to date are higher than 95% for the beam supply and higher than 92% for the discharge supply at full power. Overall PPU efficiency is greater than 94% at full throttle settings.