Oil and aid revenue produce equal demands for accountability as taxes in Ghana and Uganda.

Received wisdom argues that citizens more readily demand accountability from government for taxes than for nontax revenue from oil or foreign aid, giving rise to an important mechanism underlying the "resource curse," which posits that nontax revenue causes citizen quiescence and hampers government accountability. However, in developing countries, obfuscation through value-added taxes and strong popular feelings of ownership over all revenues may minimize differences across revenue sources. Identical experiments on representative samples of Ghanaians and Ugandans, and similar experiments on members of parliament, probe the effects of different sources and delivery channels of government revenues on citizens' actions to monitor governments and members of parliament (MPs') beliefs about accountability pressures. Roughly half of all citizens take action to monitor all 3 sources. However, neither Ghanaians nor Ugandans demand more accountability for taxes than oil or aid when the revenues go to the government. MPs likewise saw no difference. Citizens do differentiate between aid money given to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) compared with revenues delivered to the government. Findings are robust to numerous alternatives and subgroups. Against strong expectations from prior research, little evidence exists showing that taxes strengthen citizens' demands for accountability or that MPs perceive differences across revenue sources in these 2 representative African countries. However, aid channeled through NGOs motivates more accountability pressures.

Lateral entorhinal cortex is necessary for associative but not nonassociative recognition memory.

The lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) provides one of the two major input pathways to the hippocampus and has been suggested to process the nonspatial contextual details of episodic memory. Combined with spatial information from the medial entorhinal cortex it is hypothesised that this contextual information is used to form an integrated spatially selective, context-specific response in the hippocampus that underlies episodic memory. Recently, we reported that the LEC is required for recognition of objects that have been experienced in a specific context (Wilson et al. (2013) Hippocampus 23:352-366). Here, we sought to extend this work to assess the role of the LEC in recognition of all associative combinations of objects, places and contexts within an episode. Unlike controls, rats with excitotoxic lesions of the LEC showed no evidence of recognizing familiar combinations of object in place, place in context, or object in place and context. However, LEC lesioned rats showed normal recognition of objects and places independently from each other (nonassociative recognition). Together with our previous findings, these data suggest that the LEC is critical for associative recognition memory and may bind together information relating to objects, places, and contexts needed for episodic memory formation.

The accessibility of general NHS services for children with disabilities.

Through conversations with members of a parent-run support organization, mixed concerns were identified about the accessibility of general National Health Service (NHS) services for children with disabilities. A questionnaire, aimed at uncovering the main issues related to general health services for children with disabilities was designed with representatives from the parent-run support organization. The questionnaire was administered as part of a semi-structured interview with 25 parents of children with disabilities (mainly learning disabilities). Eight themes were reported 'preparation', 'flexibility', 'parking', 'physical space', 'waiting areas and consultation rooms', 'health professionals' understanding and knowledge of disabilities, particularly around communication', 'on the wards' and 'overseeing care'. Themes are presented with parents' useful comments and suggestions. As the themes are wide ranging it is suggested that the research be repeated, focusing in on particular areas of general NHS services.