Quantitative research in research on the education and learning of adults

This chapter starts from the observation that there is a limited presence of quantitative research published in leading adult education journals such as Adult Education Quarterly, Studies in Continuing Education and International Journal of Lifelong Learning. This observation was also discussed by Fejes and Nylander (2015, see also Chap. 7). As an adult education scholar mainly working with large quantitative datasets, I aim to provide more insight on what quantitative methods have to offer to the field. I will do this through a brief discussion of the role of methodologies and methods in empirical research, but also by engaging with examples of quantitative research available in the scholarly literature, including a range of existing quantitative scales, and how these can be taken forward in new research as tools to generate the construction of new knowledge. I will first explore potential reasons why the presence of quantitative research in the leading generic adult education journals is so limited

Chromosome instability and nibrin protein variants in NBS heterozygotes

The frequency of spontaneous chromosome abnormalities in peripheral blood lymphocytes and the X-ray G2 sensitivity in lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL) have been evaluated in heterozygous subjects from three unrelated Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS) families, characterised by different mutations in the NBS1 gene. In all the 13 NBS heterozygotes analysed, we found spontaneous chromosome instability consisting in chromosome and chromatid breakages and rearrangements, while radiosensitivity was similar to that of control LCLs in seven out of eight tested NBS heterozygotes. The densitometric analysis of nibrin by immunoblotting indicated only a slight reduction in some of the LCLs from NBS carriers, whereas the immunoprecipitation assay appears a more reliable tool to detect NBS carriers. By means of immunoprecipitation, we investigated two homozygous and four heterozygous subjects. In the cells of the NBS patient 668, with the mutation 900del25, an alternative form of nibrin with a molecular weight of approximately 55 kDa has been detected. This variant protein, together with the normal p95, was also found in the LCL 34 established from a carrier of the same family. Signals of nibrin with a molecular weight lower than 95 kDa, but higher than that observed in LCLs 668 and 34, were detected also in three carriers from the family with mutation 835del4

A review and meta-analysis of the impact of intestinal worms on child growth and nutrition

More than a half of the world's population are infected with one or more species of intestinal worms of which the nematodes Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and the hookworms are the most common and important in terms of child health. This paper: (1) introduces the main species of intestinal worms with particular attention to intestinal nematodes; (2) examines how such worms may affect child growth and nutrition; (3) reviews the biological and epidemiological factors that influence the effects that worms can have on the growth and nutrition of children; (4) considers the many factors that can affect the impact of treatment with anthelmintic drugs; (5) presents the results of a meta-analysis of studies of the effect of treating worm infections on child growth and nutrition; (6) discusses the results in terms of what is reasonable to expect that deworming alone can achieve; (7) describes some important characteristics of an ideal study of the effects of deworming; and (8) comments on the implications for programmes of recommendations concerning mass deworming