Accounting has a critical role in the "modernisation" of public management practices, a phenomenon marked by decentralisation of public management affairs and increased use of indirect control mechanisms, most of which adopted from private sector practices. While such reform is believed to improve the efficiency of public management programmes, studies suggest that the reform has unintended consequences such as demoralisation and decrease in democratic legitimacy. However, studies regarding the processes by which such reform is implemented and the consequences that entail are mostly drawn from industrialised countries context, mainly Anglo-Saxon world. Meanwhile, other contexts are needed to be studied as there may be less strong influence of the market forces within the public sector, stronger influence of bureaucratic institution, and especially in the developing world, strong influence of discourses about "development". This research proposes to study one of such variants by analysing the process by which such reform develops and is carried out in developing world context, particularly the context of Indonesia's village governance reforms that have been in effect since 2014 Village Law was passed. This context is unique as the implementation of participatory village government is accompanied by continuation of pre-existing bureaucratic hierarchy, performance rankings, and performance-based allocation of transfers.

Schizophrenia and psychotic illness affects approximately 1% of individuals; those diagnosed are often unable to function normally within society, as current treatment options are limited in their effectiveness. Schizophrenia causes hallucinations and delusions which profoundly impact the individual's wellbeing, causing huge suffering for patients and families. Although some progress has been made in terms of understanding risk factors and how the brain is affected in schizophrenia, we are still far from certain about what causes it. Modern brain scanning techniques such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have been used to study how the structure of the brain differs in schizophrenia, and much research time and money has been invested in this. However, most of this research has been conducted by individual research groups on relatively small numbers of patients. Schizophrenia symptoms vary a lot between individuals, so we need to run investigations across large numbers of brain scans in order to draw reliable conclusions. Also, we need to consider all stages of the disease, and also consider brain structural differences in individuals at high risk, such as those with a family history of schizophrenia. This will allow us to understand what changes occur in the brain, to cause the highly debilitating symptoms of psychosis. To achieve this, we need to combine data from a large number of previous brain scanning studies, so all researchers can access and conduct analyses on a large collection of brain scans drawn from a wide range of different people. To address these challenges we propose to combine existing MRI scans collected by researchers worldwide into one freely available database resource (Psy-ShareD). The scans will be anonymised meaning that patients won't be able to be identified. The brain scans will have other information linked to them such as symptom information and also results of memory/attention tests, which will help researchers understand more about how the brain is affected in psychosis. The database will provide an essential resource for many researchers who study schizophrenia and will allow others to undertake new research. It is sorely needed, as currently, no database of this type exists in the UK or internationally. Psy-ShareD will be accessible to all researchers around the world, guidance and instructional materials will also be made available, to help novice users in particular. We will involve people who have experienced psychosis when planning this research. We will seek their advice in the best way to ensure the privacy of patients whose data is included in the database, the best way to use the database and also how to promote the database to other researchers and patients. Psy-ShareD has large potential to impact research, by allowing researchers at all institutions, and at all career stages, to analyse high-quality data across disease stages. This will lead to important insights and progress in understanding what occurs in the brain in patients with psychosis. In addition to the initial 2,500 MRI scans used to establish Psy-ShareD, we will actively seek out other researchers willing to donate their MRI data in the UK and overseas. We will specifically seek MRI data from international contacts and collaborators that can provide relevant MRI datasets in non-European populations, to ensure Psy-ShareD is more representative. Also, we will undertake a range of promotional activities, and make use of social media channels, to maximise visibility and uptake. We want to make sure that all interested researchers know about Psy-ShareD, ensuring this new and valuable resource gets fully utilised.

Two years ago the Medical Research Council funded a large study of the effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT is already extensively prescribed to British women around the time of the menopause, to counter the unpleasant symptoms, such as flushing. In many cases HRT is only being prescribed more long term, because of evidence that it may reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, and also prevent fractures. However, long term use of HRT may be associated with small increases in the risk for breast cancer, and the overall risks and benefits of therapy are unclear. The WISDOM trial, administered through the MRC General Practice Research Framework, seeks to answer these questions. WISDOM will involve 18,000 British women in 450 practices being randomly allocated to treatment with one of two types of active hormone replacement therapy, or a placebo (a mocked up tablet with no active ingredient). The testament will continue for 10 years and the women will be followed for up to 20 years to determine how they fare. The first results from the trial are expected in 2009. Now, an extension of the WISDOM trial, WISDOM-COG, will test whether hormone replacement therapy may delay or prevent the onset of dementia and Alzheimer‘s disease, or slow down age-related changes in memory and concentration. Dementia is a degenerative brain disease, involving a progressive loss of memory and other intellectual functions to the point of loss of independence. These conditions, highlighted recently by the plight of famous sufferers such as ex-president Ronald Reegan, are very common, affecting as many as one in three of those who live into their eighties. Despite recent advances in our understanding of the basic disease process, there is no cure, and recently development drug treatments offer only very limited improvements for some of the patients. The suggestion then, from two studies in the USA, that HRT may halve the risk of developing dementia offers considerable hope for the future. However, the American studies simply found that women who happened to be taking HRT were less likely to go on to develop dementia than those not taking HRT. However there were other important differences between these two groups which could have confused the comparison. Only a properly conducted trial, such as the MRC‘s WISDOM study, which allocates women randomly to active treatment or a placebo tablet can hope to settle the important question of whether HRT really can help to prevent dementia.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.