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Why do frequently criticized input controls survive in the management of public spending while apparently more enlightened output/outcome controls come and go? The question matters, because output/outcome controls are often assumed in public financial management and related literature to lead to superior policy performance as compared with input‐focused approaches. We tackle the question by applying qualitative push–pull analysis to compare one key type of input controls (administration cost [AC] controls) with one much‐discussed form of output/outcome controls (performance targets linked to spending allocations) in one major country case, the United Kingdom, over two decades. Drawing on documents and in‐depth interviews with 120 key political and bureaucratic players, we conclude that bureaucratic inertia at most only partially explains the survival of input AC controls in this case. The push/pull factors associated with the politics of blame and credit made the political players fair‐weather output controllers but all‐weather input controllers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pleurodesis is done as an in-patient procedure to control symptomatic recurrent malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and has a success rate of 75–80%. Thoracic ultrasonography has been shown in a small study to predict pleurodesis success early by demonstrating cessation of lung sliding (a normal sign seen in healthy patients, lung sliding indicates normal movement of the lung inside the thorax). We aimed to investigate whether the use of thoracic ultrasonography in pleurodesis pathways could shorten hospital stay in patients with MPE undergoing pleurodesis. The Efficacy of Sonographic and Biological Pleurodesis Indicators of Malignant Pleural Effusion (SIMPLE) trial was an open-label, randomised controlled trial done in ten respiratory centres in the UK and one respiratory centre in the Netherlands. Adult patients (aged ≥18 years) with confirmed MPE who required talc pleurodesis via either a chest tube or as poudrage during medical thorascopy were eligible. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to thoracic ultrasonography-guided care or standard care via an online platform using a minimisation algorithm. In the intervention group, daily thoracic ultrasonography examination for lung sliding in nine regions was done to derive an adherence score: present (1 point), questionable (2 points), or absent (3 points), with a lowest possible score of 9 (preserved sliding) and a highest possible score of 27 (complete absence of sliding); the chest tube was removed if the score was more than 20. In the standard care group, tube removal was based on daily output volume (per British Thoracic Society Guidelines). The primary outcome was length of hospital stay, and secondary outcomes were pleurodesis failure at 3 months, time to tube removal, all-cause mortality, symptoms and quality-of-life scores, and cost-effectiveness of thoracic ultrasonography-guided care. All outcomes were assessed in the modified intention-to-treat population (patients with missing data excluded), and a non-inferiority analysis of pleurodesis failure was done in the per-protocol population. This trial was registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN16441661. Between Dec 31, 2015, and Dec 17, 2019, 778 patients were assessed for eligibility and 313 participants (165 [53%] male) were recruited and randomly assigned to thoracic ultrasonography-guided care (n=159) or standard care (n=154). In the modified intention-to-treat population, the median length of hospital stay was significantly shorter in the intervention group (2 days [IQR 2–4]) than in the standard care group (3 days [2–5]; difference 1 day [95% CI 1–1]; p<0·0001). In the per-protocol analysis, thoracic ultrasonography-guided care was non-inferior to standard care in terms of pleurodesis failure at 3 months, which occurred in 27 (29·7%) of 91 patients in the intervention group versus 34 (31·2%) of 109 patients in the standard care group (risk difference −1·5% [95% CI −10·2% to 7·2%]; non-inferiority margin 15%). Mean time to chest tube removal in the intervention group was 2·4 days (SD 2·5) versus 3·1 days (2·0) in the standard care group (mean difference −0·72 days [95% CI −1·22 to −0·21]; p=0·0057). There were no significant between-group differences in all-cause mortality, symptom scores, or quality-of-life scores, except on the EQ-5D visual analogue scale, which was significantly lower in the standard care group at 3 months. Although costs were similar between the groups, thoracic ultrasonography-guided care was cost-effective compared with standard care. Thoracic ultrasonography-guided care for pleurodesis in patients with MPE results in shorter hospital stay (compared with the British Thoracic Society recommendation for pleurodesis) without reducing the success rate of the procedure at 3 months. The data support consideration of standard use of thoracic ultrasonography in patients undergoing MPE-related pleurodesis. Marie Curie Cancer Care Committee [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goodhart's Law, originally inspired by money-supply indicators, predicts high-consequence administrative numbers tend to be gamed out of meaningfulness. This paper argues that, in addition to the well-documented manipulation of aggregate input numbers at the top-levels of decision making and performance indicators used for output control at the lower level, meso-level gaming happens also on the input side of public expenditure planning and control. A key mechanism through which it operates is creative categorization in the classification of units of spending. Based on a UK study, we explore three questions: can we find evidence for the existence of gaming in public expenditure control, how does the creative categorization work and how material or consequential is it? Using case studies of "protected" spending, public-private partnerships and accounting changes, we show that gaming understood as creative categorization is readily observable in UK public expenditure control and Goodhart's Law effects can indeed be material or consequential, both in scale and in their implications for government accountability. We conclude that creating new spending categories to control public expenditure and limit gaming is a two-edged sword since it itself creates new opportunities for gaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although primarily conceptualized as a disorder of phonological awareness, developmental dyslexia is often associated with broader problems perceiving and attending to transient or rapidly-moving visual stimuli. However, the extent to which such visual deficits represent the cause or the consequence of dyslexia remains contentious, and very little research has examined the relative contributions of phonological, visual, and other variables to reading performance more broadly. We measured visual sensitivity to global motion (GM) and global form (GF), performance on various language and other cognitive tasks believed to be compromised in dyslexia (phonological awareness, processing speed, and working memory), together with a range of social and demographic variables often omitted in previous research, such as age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and socio-economic status in an unselected sample (n = 132) of children aged 6-11.5 yrs from two different primary schools in Edinburgh, UK. We found that: (i) Mean GM sensitivity (but not GF) was significantly lower in poor readers (medium effect size); (ii) GM sensitivity accounted for only 3% of the variance in reading scores; (iii) GM sensitivity deficits were observed in only 16% of poor readers; (iv) the best predictors of reading performance were phonological awareness, non-verbal intelligence, and socio-economic status, suggesting the importance of controlling for these in future studies of vision and reading. These findings suggest that developmental dyslexia is unlikely to represent a single category of neurodevelopmental disorder underpinned by lower-level deficits in visual motion processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dothistroma septosporum, a causal agent of Dothistroma needle blight ( DNB), is a damaging fungal pathogen of pines that has recently started to affect native Scots pine woodlands in the UK. In addition to silvicultural methods, fungicide spraying of forest nursery stock can help prevent the spread of DNB. However, the effectiveness of modern single-site fungicides against D. septosporum and the risk of fungicide resistance evolution remain largely unknown. In this project, we aimed to establish sensitivity profiles of D. septosporum to some widely used single-site fungicide classes in vitro, and to determine whether fungicide resistance is already present, as this could increase the spread of D. septosporum genotypes on planting stock in native woodlands. For this purpose, we compared isolates of D. septosporum, originating from pine stands unexposed to fungicides, with isolates from nursery outbreaks, for sensitivity to a range of commonly applied fungicides. Most of the fungicides we tested were effective in vitro and we observed no significant shifts in sensitivity in forest nurseries. Although further tests in planta are required to confirm effectiveness of single-site fungicides against D. septosporum, our results suggest that they can be successfully used in DNB control, although appropriate measures to prevent the evolution of fungicide resistance are strongly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Low income is a widely studied risk factor for child and adolescent behavioural difficulties. Previous research on this relationship has produced mixed findings.Aims: To investigate the level, shape and homogeneity of income gradients in different types of antisocial behaviour.Method: A representative sample of 7977 British children and adolescents, aged 5-16 years, was analysed. Hypotheses concerning the shapes and homogeneity of the relationships between family socioeconomic status and multiple antisocial behaviour outcomes, including clinical diagnoses of oppositional-defiant disorder, conduct disorder and symptom subscales, such as irritability and hurtfulness, were tested by structural equation models.Results: Consistent income gradients were demonstrated across all antisocial behaviours studied. Disorder prevalence and mean symptom counts decreased across income quintiles in a non-linear fashion.Conclusions: Our findings emphasise that income gradients are similar across different forms of antisocial behaviour and indicate that income may lead to greater behavioural differences in the mid-income range and less variation at low- and high-income extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental dyslexia is as a common disorder characterised by difficulties with reading despite adequate intelligence and education. The aim of the study was to test and develop a new diagnostic tool called 'dot-to-dot' task (DtD). This simple, computer-based task relied on a combination of visual-spatial and motor skills; the skills that are often compromised in people with dyslexia. Thus far, a total of 127 children (69 males) aged between 4 and 10 took part in the study. The results suggested that children who were found to be at very high risk of dyslexia were significantly worse in connecting the first two dots of the DtD task than children with low risk. The preliminary findings from this study suggest that a novel visual-spatial-motor task may be able to predict reading success. A large-scale, cross-sectional sampling approach is being adopted in order to capture a representative sample of children. Preliminary findings suggested that the DtD may identify individuals with dyslexia earlier and faster than existing tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of creating radiocarbon database came up in late 80's. In this time the staff of the Gliwice Radiocarbon Laboratory started developing the local database GdRDB that should contain all dates of samples measured in this laboratory. This first database had a simple structure - only one file. Later modification of GdRDB database in 1994 introduced changes in its structure, and the modified database had seven files. The modification was made in order to adapt GdRDB to databases already existing (in Japan, Great Britain and Yugoslavia) and to make it match the standard established by the International Radiocarbon Database (IRDB). The new database system was developed in the Gliwice Radiocarbon Laboratory in 2002. This system consists of five relational databases containing all information about submitters and institutions, samples, sites and the dating process. The access to these databases and management of data is provided through an application called Register of Samples Editor (RoSE). The RoS system is supplied with the Data Analyse application enabling analyses of database content and Web Assistant programme, which generates web pages containing information about dated archival samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]