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A study examined the effectiveness of semantic mapping instruction as a technique for increasing vocabulary. Subjects, 38 fourth grade students in two classrooms, were divided into experimental and control groups. Both groups were pretested for their knowledge of selected words taken from the Scott, Foresman Reading Program, Grade Four. The control sample was then taught vocabulary using the traditional dictionary technique suggested in the basal manual, and the experimental group was taught semantic mapping, involving the development of a network of semantic categories by the students using their existing knowledge of vocabulary. Posttest results at the end of the six-week period indicated no statistically significant difference between the two groups. However, the experimental group exhibited a great enough gain over the control sample to warrant replication of the study over a greater period of time. (Tables of results and references are included, and appendixes contain the vocabulary test, the list of target words, and the raw scores for the pretest and posttest.) (HTH)

In this thesis, we prove two main results on nonlinear Klein-Gordon equations. First, we establish global existence of solutions to general second order semilinear Klein-Gordon equations for small initial data and n=3 spatial dimensions. Then, we prove low regularity well-posedness in spatial dimensions n=2 and higher for a quadratic power-type Klein-Gordon system with different masses satisfying a suitable nonresonance condition. For the first result, our main tool is the Normal Forms Method of Shatah. The key idea behind this approach is to decompose u into a sum of two functions, U and W, where W solves a third order system and U is written explicitly as a function of u and its first order derivatives. The explicit form of U and good behavior of solutions to higher order systems allows us to gain control of both U and W, and thus u.For the multiple mass system, we apply a standard duality argument to reduce our proof of well-posedness to the establishment of a set of trilinear estimates. The proof of these estimates relies heavily on the special properties of our iteration spaces. In particular, using these spaces allows us to readily exploit the absence of resonant terms and extend important bilinear estimates proved for free solutions to more general functions.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare-associated infections, particularly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), have been an on-going public health problem for several years. Cases of MRSA are often missed due to non-compliance with MRSA screening procedures, which has been attributed to many factors. However, one of the most influential factors is a lack of knowledge regarding screening. Therefore, it is important to consider the benefits of providing education to physicians regarding MRSA screening. METHODS: A total of 34 primary care physicians (PCPs) at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, PA were identified as the PCPs mainly responsible for swabbing incoming patients for MRSA. An intervention was developed that highlighted the appropriate swabbing procedure and MRSA surveillance measures, as well as a form of acknowledgement that the PCPs were required to sign and return to confirm that they participated. Baseline data of patients’ swab status was collected for one month before the intervention. Following the intervention, swab status data was collected for one and a half months. RESULTS: Of the 34 PCPs that were contacted for the study, 18 returned the form of acknowledgement. In order to determine if the intervention was effective, compliance rates were calculated for each month. The baseline compliance rate was 66.67%. After the intervention, the first month’s data yielded a compliance rate of 74.07%, and the remaining half month of data yielded a compliance rate of 80%. CONCLUSION: An educational intervention regarding MRSA screening had a significant impact on screening compliance. This suggests that with regular interventions, compliance could continue to improve and in the future, regular educational interventions should be considered in healthcare settings in order to promote screening compliance.

Let (X,Γ) be a topological dynamical system, meaning that X is a compact Hausdorff space, and Γ is a group of continuous maps from X to itself. The enveloping semigroup E(X,Γ) of the system (X,Γ) is defined to be the closure of Γ in XX equipped with the product topology. We consider distal actions of groups generated by uinpotent affine transformations on a finite dimensional torus and we investigate the structure of the arising enveloping semigroup. It is known that in this case the enveloping semigroup is a group. We show that this group is necessarily nilpotent and find bounds on its nilpotency class. Moreover, if Γ is generated by a single transformation T of the aforementioned form we are able to determine precisely how the nilpotency class depends on T.We also compute the enveloping semigroups of Sturmian and Sturmian-like systems enlarging the collection of existing explicit computations of these objects.