Economic reconstruction typically takes place after the end of war. Yet recently, economic reconstruction has been viewed as a means to ‘win hearts and minds’ during ongoing conflict. Drawing on a variety of reconstruction experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq, we identify four ‘reconstruction traps’ that result from the incentives and constraints faced by actors involved in economic reconstruc...

SOBA is an approach to election verification that provides observers with justifiably high confidence that the reported results of an election are consistent with an audit trail (“ballots”), which can be paper or electronic. SOBA combines three ideas: (1) publishing cast vote records (CVRs) separately for each contest, so that anyone can verify that each reported contest outcome is correct, if ...

BACKGROUND Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most influential Muslim countries being as the host of the two most holy places for Muslims, namely Makkah and Madina. This was reflected in the emphasis on teaching medical ethics in a lecture-based format as a part of the subject of Islamic culture taught to medical students. Over the last few years, both teaching and evaluation of medical ethi...

The term “innovation” is associated mainly with change in practice using educational technology. This paper explores the question of why innovations in online teaching and learning in higher education break down or deliver less than they promise: why they are so resource intensive, so prone to breakdown, and why they often fail to live up to their promises? Two cases of innovation were selected...

Postdoctoral training is an optimal time to expand research skills, develop independence, and shape career trajectories, making this training period important to study in the context of career development. Seeding Postdoctoral Innovators in Research and Education (SPIRE) is a training program that balances research, teaching, and professional development. This study examines the factors that pr...

BACKGROUND Experiences and attitudes of clinical trainers of undergraduate medical students and postgraduate medical trainees in secondary care have received limited attention. Anecdotally, clinical teaching is becoming increasingly restricted by clinical service pressures, thereby presenting a risk to the quality of training provision. METHODS To explore the commitment, experience and attitu...

OBJECTIVE To assess current practices and attitudes toward teaching humanistic and psychosocial aspects of care in internal medicine residency programs. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS Survey questionnaires were sent to residency directors at all 434 internal medicine residency programs accredited in 1985-1986. Response rate for two mailings was 71%. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS 78% OF RESIDENCY D...