Rapid Budget Analysis of the Agricultural Sector for the General Budget Support Annual Review 2010/11.

The main objective of the budget analysis chapter is to provide an overall assessment of how well the approved budget allocations in 2010-11 align with the strategic objectives and with sector strategic priorities of the Second National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (known by its Kiswahili acronym, MKUKUTA II). It also assesses the consistency of the actual spending and approved budget in 2009-10. In evaluating the alignment of the budget and MKUKUTA's strategic objectives and sector strategic priorities, the analysis gauges the accuracy and reliability of the macro and budget framework, share of the budget allocated to MKUKUTA cluster strategies, share of the budget allocated to capital investment, and strategic prioritization within key sectors. This budget analysis chapter summarizes nine background notes that covered six key sectors and three thematic areas. The six key sectors are education, health, water, roads, energy, and agriculture; the three thematic areas are the wage bill, local government, and aggregate analysis. The six sectors were selected because they consume approximately 60 percent of the overall budget and are keys to achieving the MKUKUTA strategic objectives of growth and reduction of poverty. The three thematic areas were selected because of their crosscutting nature, as they touch each key sector but also are critical for achieving the MKUKUTA strategic objectives.

Survival following surgical treatment for anorectal melanoma seems similar for local excision and extensive resection regardless of nodal involvement

Background: Anorectal melanoma is a rare malignancy with a dismal prognosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the survival per stage is influenced by the surgical approaches (local excision or extensive resection), to assess prognostic factors of survival, and to answer the question whether the practiced surgical approaches changed over time. Methods: Dutch cancer registry organizations (IKNL and PALGA) were queried for all patients with a diagnosis of anorectal melanoma (1989-2019). Patients with disseminated disease at diagnosis were excluded. Survival outcomes were compared for the two surgical approaches stratified by stage (clinical node negative (cN0) and clinical node positive (cN+)) and date of diagnosis. Results: A total of 103 patients were included in this study. In both cN0 and cN+ patients the surgical strategy did not significantly influence survival (cN0: 21.7% 5-year survival, median 25 months for local excision versus 13.7% 5-year survival, median 17 months for extensive resection (p = 0.228), cN+: 11.1% 5-year survival for local excision, median 17 months versus 8.7% 5-year survival, median 14 months for extensive resection (p = 0.741)). Stage and date of diagnosis showed to be prognostic factors of survival. The ratio between the two surgical approaches was unchanged over three decades. Conclusions: Extensive resection does not seem to improve survival in both cN0 and cN+ anorectal melanoma patients compared to local excision. However in the past three decades no shift towards local excision has been found. cN+ stage and an older date of diagnosis are predictors for worse survival

Manipulating word awareness dissociates feed-forward from feedback models of language-perception interactions

Previous studies suggest that linguistic material can modulate visual perception, but it is unclear at which level of processing these interactions occur. Here we aim to dissociate between two competing models of language–perception interactions: a feed-forward and a feedback model. We capitalized on the fact that the models make different predictions on the role of feedback. We presented unmasked (aware) or masked (unaware) words implying motion (e.g. “rise,” “fall”), directly preceding an upward or downward visual motion stimulus. Crucially, masking leaves intact feed-forward information processing from low- to high-level regions, whereas it abolishes subsequent feedback. Under this condition, participants remained faster and more accurate when the direction implied by the motion word was congruent with the direction of the visual motion stimulus. This suggests that language–perception interactions are driven by the feed-forward convergence of linguistic and perceptual information at higher-level conceptual and decision stages