The phrase "a useful approximation in" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a method, model, or calculation that provides a close estimate within a specific context or field.
Example: "In physics, using a linear model can be a useful approximation in predicting the motion of objects under certain conditions."
Alternatives: "a helpful estimate in" or "a practical approximation in".
It may be viewed as a refinement of the arithmetic mean: the latter has been a useful approximation in economic analysis [5,6], whilst the new mean should find use both in flowsheeting programs and in rapid rating calculations a in the example above.
b The Cloud Harmony website has a discussion of the ECU, and benchmarking that suggests it to be a useful approximation in some ways: http://blog.cloudharmony.com/2010/05/what-is-ecu-cpu-benchmarking-in-cloud.html [accessed 5 February 2013].
The ideal line cannot be realised in practice, but it is a useful approximation in many circumstances.
Therefore, while the minimal rotation hypothesis may be a useful approximation in docking simulations if validated in a larger dataset, it still remains to be seen if it is applicable to explain side-chain flexibility upon binding.
For simplicity, we employ a useful approximation presented in [16], namely.
These models rendered a useful approximation for binding requirements in the BBB-choline transporter and, until such time as the cloned transporter becomes available, may have significant utility in developing a predictive model for the rational design of drugs targeted to the brain.
In addition we derive a useful approximation to our method which results in a simple equation capturing the relation between monitoring and epidemic dynamics.
Therefore, the application of the reference ratio method results in a useful approximation, at best.
Note that we do not expect (16) to hold exactly in any parameter regime because the time to fixation is actually a random variable (and furthermore, both τ f and λ are altered when interference is frequent), but we find that pinter is a useful approximation for describing the interference in simulations during the rescaling process.
It can exactly transform a SH-wave propagation problem posed for a medium with spherical symmetry into a problem posed for a plane-stratified medium and give a useful approximation to a P-SV problem in a spherically symmetric medium.
In order to overcome the non-differentiability of the l 1-norm around the origin in (20), a useful approximation [27, 58] is employed by {leftVert {a}_{nm}rightVert}_1approx {left({left|{a}_{nm}right|}^2+tau right)}^{1/2} (28).
