We propose an SEIR model for the populations and an SEI model for the vector to describe the transmission dynamics of a four-strain model with both primary and secondary dengue infections. In order to accomplish this, we propose and obtain an analytic solution of a system of 47 coupled differential equations. This would be the most complete epidemic model proposed to describe the dengue epidemic.

An SEI model with distributed delay is proposed where the transmission and the death rates depend on the age of infection. The basic reproduction number R0 is identified as a threshold quantity for the stability of equilibria. If R0 < 1, then the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable and the disease dies out. On the contrary, ifR0 > 1, then a locally asymptotically stable e...

Special education services in the country of Costa Rica have been affected by factors that most developing countries confront: shortages of trained personnel, geographic isolation of a large sector of the population, and severe economic limitations. Despite these challenges, services for students with learning disabilities in Costa Rica have rapidly expanded in the last 15 years through the dev...

One hanging question in child welfare policy and research is whether there is an artificial overrepresentation of the poor in child welfare caseloads or whether this reflects the co-occurrence of poverty and need. In order to address this question, this study uses data from child welfare (report, assessment, service and re-report), income maintenance, special education, hospitals, juvenile cour...

BACKGROUND Most information on the causes of blindness has come from examining children in special education. To obtain a more representative population-based sample of children, a novel method was developed for ascertaining severe visually impaired (SVI) or blind (BL) children by training local volunteers to act as key informants (KIs). OBJECTIVE To compare the demography and cause of blindn...

Research indicates that various program models, implemented both in special education and general education, can have moderately positive academic and social impacts for students with disabilities. However, no intervention has been designed that eliminates the impact of having a disability. With few exceptions, students with disabilities have not achieved commensurately with their nondisabled p...

Much of the literature on ceteris paribus laws is based on a misguided egalitarianism about the sciences. For example, it is commonly held that the special sciences are riddled with ceteris paribus laws; from this many commentators conclude that if the special sciences are not to be accorded a second class status, it must be ceteris paribus all the way down to fundamental physics. We argue that...

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 allows schools to use a child's response to research-based intervention (RTI) as a part of procedures to identify students with learning disabilities. This paper considers whether RTI-based assessment models meet ethical and legal standards for acceptable assessment practices. Based on a review of available research, it was con...

A grounded theory study that examined how practitioners in a county alternative and correctional education setting identify youth with emotional and behavioral difficulties for special education services provides an exemplar for a constructivist approach to grounded theory methodology. Discussion focuses on how a constructivist orientation to grounded theory methodology informed research decisi...

This study investigates the provision of integrated therapy in a special education preschool environment. Integrated therapy involves the provision of therapeutic intervention in the context of a naturalistic classroom environment and is in contrast to the more traditional model of therapeutic intervention commonly called pull-out therapy. While research shows that integrated therapy leads to e...