What Do We Really Mean By A “Qualitative” Study? An Analysis Of Qualitative Research In Adult And Continuing Education

Current approaches to qualitative research in adult and continuing education reflect widely differing assumptions about what is meant by qualitative. To foster conversation in our field around this question, we conducted an exploratory study of qualitative studies published over a ten-year period in Adult Education Quarterly. Our findings suggest differing understandings of what it means to design, conduct, and report “qualitative research.” These understandings reflect the influence of differing paradigms on what qualitative research means and suggest implications for the field and for the training of future researchers. From the early, pathbreaking studies in sociology and anthropology, qualitative research has spread to other social science disciplines, such as social work, communication, and education (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998a). Characterized by several historical moments, the evolution of qualitative research in the social sciences reflects differing epistemological perspectives that stress fundamentally different views of what counts as knowledge and how we come to know. Today, in adult and continuing education qualitative research represents a widely popular approach to scholarly inquiry, particularly among doctoral students. A typical perusal through adult education conference proceedings or mainstream journals in the field will clearly demonstrate its pervasiveness within the scholarship of our field. Within this body of research we encounter many forms of questions, methods of data collection, analytic strategies, and interpretive lenses. With such variation, it is increasingly difficult to fully understand what constitutes the “qualitative” aspect of the research being reported. To help foster reflection on and conversation around this question, we undertook this exploratory study to examine the paradigmatic assumptions reflected in published empirical studies that claim to be qualitative in nature

Historische ecologie van De Brand en De Mortelen (Noord-Brabant)

De natuurgebieden De Brand en De Mortelen blijken hoge historisch-landschappelijke waarden te bezitten. Natuurontwikkeling gericht op begeleid natuurlijke natuur bedreigt die waarden. Uit het historisch-ecologisch referentiebeeld blijkt echter dat de landschappelijke waarden wel goed te combineren zijn met halfnatuurlijke natuur

Spacecraft VLBI tracking to enhance stellar occultations astrometry of planetary satellites

Stellar occultations currently provide the most accurate ground-based measurements of the positions of natural satellites (down to a few kilometres for the Galilean moons). However, when using these observations in the calculation of satellite ephemerides, the uncertainty in the planetary ephemerides dominates the error budget of the occultation. We quantify the local refinement in the central planet's position achievable by performing Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) tracking of an in-system spacecraft temporally close to an occultation. We demonstrate the potential of using VLBI to enhance the science return of stellar occultations for satellite ephemerides. We identified the most promising observation and tracking opportunities offered by the Juno spacecraft around Jupiter as perfect test cases, for which we ran simulations of our VLBI experiment. VLBI tracking at Juno's perijove close to a stellar occultation locally (in time) reduces the uncertainty in Jupiter's angular position in the sky to 250-400 m. This represents up to an order of magnitude improvement with respect to current solutions and is lower than the stellar occultation error, thus allowing the moon ephemeris solution to fully benefit from the observation. Our simulations showed that the proposed tracking and observation experiment can efficiently use synergies between ground- and space-based observations to enhance the science return on both ends. The reduced error budget for stellar occultations indeed helps to improve the moons' ephemerides, which in turn benefit planetary missions and their science products, such as the recently launched JUICE and upcoming Europa Clipper missions

Testing After Worked Example Study Does Not Enhance Delayed Problem-Solving Performance Compared to Restudy

Four experiments investigated whether the testing effect also applies to the acquisition of problem-solving skills from worked examples. Experiment 1 (n = 120) showed no beneficial effects of testing consisting of isomorphic problem solving or example recall on final test performance, which consisted of isomorphic problem solving, compared to continued study of isomorphic examples. Experiment 2 (n = 124) showed no beneficial effects of testing consisting of identical problem solving compared to restudying an identical example. Interestingly, participants who took both an immediate and a delayed final test outperformed those taking only a delayed test. This finding suggested that testing might become beneficial for retention but only after a certain level of schema acquisition has taken place through restudying several examples. However, experiment 2 had no control condition restudying examples instead of taking the immediate test. Experiment 3 (n = 129) included such a restudy condition, and there was no evidence that testing after studying four examples was more effective for final delayed test performance than restudying, regardless of whether restudied/tested problems were isomorphic or identical. Experiment 4 (n = 75) used a similar design as experiment 3 (i.e., testing/restudy after four examples), but with examples on a different topic and with a different participant population. Again, no evidence of a testing effect was found. Thus, across four experiments, with different types of initial tests, different problem-solving domains, and different participant populations, we found no evidence that testing enhanced delayed test performance compared to restudy. These findings suggest that the testing effect might not apply to acquiring problem-solving skills from worked examples

Testing After Worked Example Study Does Not Enhance Delayed Problem-Solving Performance Compared to Restudy

Four experiments investigated whether the testing effect also applies to the acquisition of problem-solving skills from worked examples. Experiment 1 (n = 120) showed no beneficial effects of testing consisting of isomorphic problem solving or example recall on final test performance, which consisted of isomorphic problem solving, compared to continued study of isomorphic examples. Experiment 2 (n = 124) showed no beneficial effects of testing consisting of identical problem solving compared to restudying an identical example. Interestingly, participants who took both an immediate and a delayed final test outperformed those taking only a delayed test. This finding suggested that testing might become beneficial for retention but only after a certain level of schema acquisition has taken place through restudying several examples. However, experiment 2 had no control condition restudying examples instead of taking the immediate test. Experiment 3 (n = 129) included such a restudy condition, and there was no evidence that testing after studying four examples was more effective for

Complementing Prostate SBRT VMAT With a Two-Beam Non-Coplanar IMRT Class Solution to Enhance Rectum and Bladder Sparing With Minimum Increase in Treatment Time

Purpose Enhance rectum and bladder sparing in prostate SBRT with minimum increase in treatment time by complementing dual-arc coplanar VMAT with a two-beam non-coplanar IMRT class solution (CS). Methods For twenty patients, an optimizer for automated multi-criterial planning with integrated beam angle optimization (BAO) was used to generate dual-arc VMAT plans, supplemented with five non-coplanar IMRT beams with individually optimized orientations (VMAT+5). In all plan generations, reduction of high rectum dose had the highest priority after obtaining adequate PTV coverage. A CS with two most preferred directions in VMAT+5 and largest rectum dose reductions compared to dual-arc VMAT was then selected to define VMAT+CS. VMAT+CS was compared with automatically generated i) dual-arc coplanar VMAT plans (VMAT), ii) VMAT+5 plans, and iii) IMRT plans with 30 patient-specific non-coplanar beam orientations (30-NCP). Plans were generated for a 4 x 9.5 Gy fractionation scheme. Differences in PTV doses, healthy tissue sparing, and computation and treatment delivery times were quantified. Results For equal PTV coverage, VMAT+CS, consisting of dual-arc VMAT supplemented with two fixed, non-coplanar IMRT beams with fixed Gantry/Couch angles of 65 degrees/30 degrees and 295 degrees/-30 degrees, significantly reduced OAR doses and the dose bath, compared to dual-arc VMAT. Mean relative differences in rectum D-mean, D-1cc, V-40GyEq and V-60GyEq were 19.4 +/- 10.6%, 4.2 +/- 2.7%, 34.9 +/- 20.3%, and 39.7 +/- 23.2%, respectively (all p Conclusions The proposed two-beam non-coplanar class solution to complement coplanar dual-arc VMAT resulted in substantial plan quality improvements for OARs (especially rectum) and reduced irradiated patient volumes with minor increases in treatment delivery times

Venus Express radio occultation observed by PRIDE

Context. Radio occultation is a technique used to study planetary atmospheres by means of the refraction and absorption of a spacecraft carrier signal through the atmosphere of the celestial body of interest, as detected from a ground station on Earth. This technique is usually employed by the deep space tracking and communication facilities (e.g., NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), ESA's Estrack). Aims. We want to characterize the capabilities of the Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) technique for radio occultation experiments, using radio telescopes equipped with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) instrumentation. Methods. We conducted a test with ESA's Venus Express (VEX), to evaluate the performance of the PRIDE technique for this particular application. We explain in detail the data processing pipeline of radio occultation experiments with PRIDE, based on the collection of so-called open-loop Doppler data with VLBI stations, and perform an error propagation analysis of the technique. Results. With the VEX test case and the corresponding error analysis, we have demonstrated that the PRIDE setup and processing pipeline is suited for radio occultation experiments of planetary bodies. The noise budget of the open-loop Doppler data collected with PRIDE indicated that the uncertainties in the derived density and temperature profiles remain within the range of uncertainties reported in previous Venus' studies. Open-loop Doppler data can probe deeper layers of thick atmospheres, such as that of Venus, when compared to closed-loop Doppler data. Furthermore, PRIDE through the VLBI networks around the world, provides a wide coverage and range of large antenna dishes, that can be used for this type of experiments

Cardiovascular extracellular microRNAs: emerging diagnostic markers and mechanisms of cell-to-cell RNA communication

Cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Western societies. It is now well established that microRNAs (miRNAs) are determinant regulators in various medical conditions including cardiovascular diseases. The recent discovery that miRNAs, while associated with different carriers, can be exported out of the cell, has triggered a renewed interest to analyze the potential to use extracellular miRNAs as tools for diagnostic and therapeutic studies. Circulating miRNAs in biological fluids present a technological advantage compared to current diagnostic tools by virtue of their remarkable stability and relative ease of detection rendering them ideal tools for non-invasive and rapid diagnosis. Extracellular miRNAs also represent a novel form of inter-cellular communication by transferring genetic information from a donor cell to a recipient cell. This review briefly summarizes recent insights in the origin, function and diagnostic potential of extracellular miRNAs by focusing on a select number of cardiovascular diseases

Kavelruilproject Bergeijk-Keersop; een verkennende bodemkundige en hydrologische studie

Het onderzoeksgebied Bergeijk-Keersop is een beekdal ingesneden in grove, goed doorlatende, zanden behorende tot de Formatie van Sterksel. De holocene dalopvulling bestaat uit veen en gelaagde, zandige beekafzettingen. Vanaf de middeleeuwen zijn de beekdalgronden opgehoogd met een 50-130 cm dik plaggendek. Sinds de ontginning van de heide wordt in het zuidelijk deel van het onderzoeksgebied veel kwelwater afgevangen in een stelsel van sloten. Als gevolg van de stuw bij Westerhoven treed benedenstroomseen potentiaalverschil op in het grondwater. Het grondwater is sterk antroprogeen beinvloed blijkens verhoogde kalium- en nitraatgehaltes. De fosfaatgehalten van de eerdlagen zijn op de meeste plaatsen te hoog voor de ontwikkeling van natuurlijke schraalgraslanden, zodat afgraven of uitmijnen noodzakelijk is. De cultuurhistorische referentie 1870 en de ecologische streefbeelden vallen niet samen, zodat een keuze moet worden gemaakt in het realiseren van de gewenste (natuur)doelen