A widespread view has it that qualitative research in the social sciences is of poor quality because it lacks effective debiasing methods. In this paper, I zoom in on researcher bias in qualitative data collection. First, I provide a brief outline of qualitative data collection and develop a suitable account of bias. On that basis, I argue that qualitative researchers may mitigate researcher bias through the combined use of two strategies that capitalize on main characteristics of qualitative data collection. Lastly, I defend the two debiasing strategies against possible objections to their effectiveness.

The “Danish cartoons controversy” has often been cast as a paradigm case of the blindness of liberal language ideologies to anything beyond the communication of referential meaning. This article returns to the case from a different angle and draws a different conclusion. Following recent anthropological interest in the way legal speech grounds the force of law, the article takes as its ethnographic object a 2007 ruling by the French Chamber of the Press and of Public Liberties. This much-trumpeted document ruled that the Charlie Hebdo magazine’s republication of the cartoons did not constitute a hate speech offense. The article examines the form as well as the content of the ruling itself and situates it within the entangled histories of French press law, revolutionary antinomianism, and the surprisingly persistent legal concern with matters of honor. The outcome of the case (the acquittal of Charlie Hebdo) may seem to substantiate a view of liberal language ideology as incapable of attending to the performative effects of signs. Yet, a closer look challenges this now familiar image of Euro-American “representationalism,” and suggests some broader avenues of investigation for a comparative anthropology of liberalism and free speech.

More than 1,100 studies have been published that examine the effects of democracy using cross-national data since 2000. This article examines whether these analyses have sufficient statistical power to detect an effect of democracy. Using Monte Carlo simulation and examining consensus effects previously reported in the literature, the article finds that studies are only powered to detect very strong effects of democracy when examining countries over time. This raises questions about what sort of relationships can be analyzed using cross-national data.

While the Big Bang was cooling and the laws of physics were congealing, authorities remained undecided whether God would provide comfort against the expanding darkness. To answer the question, one planet was seeded with humans equipped with conviction receptors tweaked either to an absolute faith in or complete denial of God. If, after a suitable period of mingling between the two groups, believers prevailed over doubters, God would be established in the firmament. If not, God would be scrapped.

Delisted in the building directory, my name stripped from my cramped quarters just off the corpus callosum, I am impossible to find. In petitioning for official reinstatement, I have agreed to the humiliating lab investigations required for documentation. I have waved, howled, screamed, pleaded, and moaned into the latest scanners, and generally made a fool of myself. But researchers, after extensive soul-searching, and being unable to capture me as pixels and waveforms, have moved on to greener pastures. So be it. I accept official non-existence.

Affordable, good quality childcare creates opportunities for many parents to better reconcile work and care or reduces family care to enable other valuable contributions to society. However, childcare studies often overlook parents of children with additional or complex care needs. These parents spend a greater amount of time on caregiving, providing care that goes beyond that of parents of typically developing children. As such, their opportunities beyond caregiving can be limited. Resources, like childcare services, can be crucial in supporting the reconciliation of care with other valued activities in life. This article contributes to the cross-national childcare policy literature by conceptualizing comparative indicators to assess the availability, accessibility, and affordability of childcare policy design for children with additional or complex care needs. It then applies these indicators to a comparison of childcare policy design in England and the Netherlands, providing an operationalization for further empirical analysis.

Saccocoelioides is a genus within the family Haploporidae and is distributed throughout the Americas. The recent application of molecular techniques has facilitated the reorganization of this genus and the description of new species, resulting in a current total of 28 species. In Argentina, 11 species have been identified; however, the validity of Saccocoelioides bacilliformis and Saccocoelioides octavus remains controversial. Recently, specimens of digeneans were collected from two distinct geographical locations: the Paraná River basin (Misiones province) and the Río de la Plata basin (Buenos Aires province). These specimens were found parasitizing two different fish species: Bryconamericus sylvicola and Bryconamericus iheringi. Sequences of the 28S and COI genes were obtained for both digeneans from the two collection sites and hosts. The morphological study, combined with genetic sequences, confirmed their assignment to the genus Saccocoelioides. The COI and 28S gene sequences obtained from specimens at both collection sites exhibited genetic distances of 0.13% and 3.41%, respectively, indicating that these Saccocoelioides specimens represent a single species. The comprehensive taxonomic study of the newly collected specimens, along with an examination of the type material of S. bacilliformis and S. octavus, allows us to confirm the validity of both species. Argentina is home to more than 550 species of freshwater fauna, and it is likely that new species of Saccocoelioides remain to be discovered in underexplored regions of the basin, such as the Uruguay, Pilcomayo and Bermejo rivers.

Understanding how institutions shape outcomes is an important skill for students of American political science. Simulations in which students participate in mock elections structured by real-world institutions can serve as an effective tool to aid students’ learning. This article describes a model for a simulated 2020 Democratic Iowa caucus. Following official procedures, students engage in debates about which candidate to support and ultimately come to a final decision for their simulated precinct. The simulation helps students to understand the institutions that structure Iowa’s caucuses and assists them in forming conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of those institutions. This simulation was implemented in a course on political parties and elections in the Spring 2023 semester, where it proved to be an enjoyable exercise for students. It was reimplemented in the Spring 2024 semester as one of several simulated presidential nominations, and it proved to be a helpful teaching tool.

Music teachers in secondary education tend to undervalue the professional competence of creating music, in response to educational models that prioritise the development of musical interpretation skills. The aim of this research is to identify the factors that contribute to this belief among teachers in Spain, by analysing the results of the Professional Competences of the Music Teacher questionnaire (n = 112). Significant differences were found between age categories, as well as significant linear correlations between teachers’ perceptions of their preparation during initial training, their practical skills and habits, and the professional importance they attached to their competence in musical creation.

A new Iranian population of Lindseyus costatus is characterized, including morphometrics, microphotographs, and molecular (18S, 28S rDNA) studies. It is compared with previously known populations. The results derived from molecular analyses failed to find close evolutionary relationships with other traditional genera of Belondiridae and Swangeriinae, adding more uncertainties about the internal phylogeny of the family. The taxonomy of Lindseyus is revised, with a new diagnosis, list of species, key to their identification, and a compilation of their main morphometrics.

Based on the rigorous systematicity assumed in systematic review methodology, it is no surprise that a prominent review such as Macaro et al.'s (2018) on English medium instruction (EMI) has been used as a basis for subsequent EMI research. However, in this article, we explore the ways in which the focus of systematic reviews can be necessarily narrowed and how this poses a risk to research when readers perceive them as offering definitive conclusions on all aspects of a subject. This article addresses two significant trends in applied linguistics. First, systematic review – that is, the use of formalised systems when reviewing literature – has become far more prominent and therefore more impactful than traditional reviews as a methodology (Chong & Plonsky, 2023). Second, there has been an explosive growth in interest in EMI research (Curle et al., 2024). There are further parallels between the two trends, given that both systematic review and EMI are umbrella terms that cover a wide range of research types. As we will see, there is perhaps more disagreement over how to conduct a systematic review than lay readers would suspect. Similarly, EMI is a broader field of research than appears in its most prominent systematic review article. Studies into EMI have explored policy, language learning, the effect on subject knowledge, attitudes towards EMI, ownership of English, and so on. Thus, while EMI is a growingly recognised field of study, it is not always clear what it means to ‘study EMI’.

The path planning and obstacle-crossing motion planning of cable trench inspection robots are essential for achieving automated inspection. To improve path planning efficiency and obstacle navigation in complex environments, an enhanced global path planning algorithm based on the A* algorithm has been developed, combined with an improved Dynamic Window Approach (DWA) for local path planning. For unavoidable obstacles, a specific obstacle-crossing motion planning strategy has been formulated. The enhanced A* algorithm improves efficiency and safety through adaptive neighborhood expansion and the elimination of redundant path points. The improved DWA algorithm enables real-time dynamic obstacle avoidance in local path planning. The simulation results on a $20 \times 20$ grid map indicate that the improved A* algorithm reduces the number of nodes by 58.4% and shortens the path length by 6.1% compared to the traditional A* algorithm, demonstrating significant advantages over other conventional path planning algorithms. In the simulation experiments integrating global and local path planning, the enhanced A* algorithm combined with the improved DWA algorithm reduces the path length by 3.2% on the $20 \times 20$ grid map compared to the integration with the traditional DWA algorithm. On the $30 \times 30$ grid maps with different obstacle configurations, the path lengths are reduced by 3.5% and 3.6%, respectively. In the obstacle-crossing experiments, the robot successfully overcame obstacles of 10 cm and 20 cm in height. The proposed path planning algorithm and obstacle-crossing motion planning strategy hold substantial application potential in complex environments, offering reliable technical support for cable trench inspection robots.

We provide an alternative view of some results in [1, 3, 11]. In particular, we prove that (1) if a continuous self-map of a compact metric space has the shadowing, then the union of the basins of terminal chain components is a dense $G_\delta $-subset of the space; and (2) if a continuous self-map of a locally connected compact metric space has the shadowing, and if the chain recurrent set is totally disconnected, then the map is almost chain continuous.

Giving money to candidates is an important but unequal form of political voice. Among those Americans worst represented as campaign contributors are Black women and Latinas. Although inequalities in income and wealth fuel inequalities in campaign contributions, resources are an incomplete explanation. This study investigates, for Black women and Latinas, whether their views on donations to candidates differ from their views on other forms of civic and political engagement. The results, including the absence of a shared norm about giving to candidates, illuminate the challenges and opportunities of mobilizing a more representative group of campaign contributors.