Browse FSI scholarship on geopolitics, global health, energy, cybersecurity and more.
Featured Publications
Sacred Foundations
This major study by Anna Grzymała-Busse shows that the Catholic Church both competed with medieval monarchs and provided critical templates for governing institutions, the rule of law, and parliaments.
Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security
Larry Diamond and colleagues examine the “silicon triangle" that binds the United States, Taiwan, and China and will impact each country's economy, security, trade, and long-term competitiveness.
Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea's Nuclear Program
Siegfried Hecker recounts the seven trips he made to North Korea between 2044 and 2021 to explore ways to reduce the danger posed by Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear weapons program.
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness,
December 7, 2023
The objective of the current study is to examine the impact of an in-school computer-assisted learning (CAL) intervention on the math achievement of rural students in Taiwan, including a marginalized subgroup of rural students called Xinzhumin, and the factors associated with this impact. In order to achieve this, we conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 1,840 fourth- and fifth-grade students at 95 schools in four relatively poor counties and municipalities of Taiwan during the spring semester of 2019. While the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) analysis found that the CAL intervention had no significant impacts on student math achievement, the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) analysis revealed significant associations with the math performance of the most active 20% of students in the treatment group. LATE estimates suggest that using CAL for more than 20 minutes per week for ten weeks corresponds to higher math test scores, both in general (0.16 SD–0.22 SD), and for Xinzhumin students specifically (0.3 SD–0.34 SD). Teacher-level characteristics were associated with compliance rates.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools have made it easy to create realistic disinformation that is hard to detect by humans and may undermine public trust. Some approaches used for assessing the reliability of online information may no longer work in the AI age. We offer suggestions for how research can help to tackle the threats of AI-generated disinformation.
In low- and middle-income countries, urbanization has spurred the expansion of peri-urban communities, or urban communities of formerly rural residents with low socioeconomic status. The growth of these communities offers researchers an opportunity to measure the associations between the level of urbanization and the home language environment (HLE) among otherwise similar populations. Data were collected in 2019 using Language Environment Analysis observational assessment technology from 158 peri-urban and rural households with Han Chinese children (92 males, 66 females) aged 18–24 months in China. Peri-urban children scored lower than rural children in measures of the HLE and language development. In both samples, child age, gender, maternal employment, and sibling number were positively correlated with the HLE, which was in turn correlated with language development.
As the U.S., EU and China are taking divergent leads in new AI regulations, a new framework for AI diplomacy is emerging, all under the shadow of strategic technological competition.
Renée DiResta is the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory. Dave Willner is a Non-Resident Fellow in the Program on Governance of Emerging Technologies at Stanford Cyber Policy Center.
Many U.S. states have legislated to allow nurse practitioners (NPs) to independently prescribe drugs. Critics contend that these moves will adversely affect quality of care.
The home language environment is a significant correlate of early childhood development outcomes; however, less is known about this mechanism in rural and peri-urban China where rates of developmental delay are as high as 52%. This study examines associations between the home language environment and child development in a sample of 158 children (58% boys) aged 18–24 months (Mage = 21.5) from rural and peri-urban households in Western China. Results show a significant association between adult-child conversation count and language development, suggesting the home language environment may be a mechanism for child development in rural and peri-urban China. 22.5% of the sample were at risk of language delay. Mother’s employment and child’s age were significant factors in the home language environment.
Compartmental infectious disease (ID) models are often used to evaluate non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and vaccines. Such models rarely separate within-household and community transmission, potentially introducing biases in situations where multiple transmission routes exist. We formulated an approach that incorporates household structure into ID models, extending the work of House and Keeling.
