Effective management of uncertainty can lead to better, more informed decisions. However, many decision makers and their advisers do not always face up to uncertainty, in part because there is little constructive guidance or tools available to help. This paper outlines six Uncertainty Principles to manage uncertainty.

• Face up to uncertainty

• Deconstruct the problem

• Don’t be fooled (un/intentional biases)

• Models can be helpful, but also dangerous

• Think about adaptability and resilience

• Bring people with you

‘Munchausen's syndrome by proxy’ characteristically describes women alleged to have fabricated or induced illnesses in children under their care, purportedly to attract attention. Where conclusive evidence exists the condition's aetiology remains speculative, where such evidence is lacking diagnosis hinges upon denial of wrong-doing (conduct also compatible with innocence). How might investigators obtain objective evidence of guilt or innocence? Here, we examine the case of a woman convicted of poisoning a child. She served a prison sentence but continues to profess her innocence. Using a modified fMRI protocol (previously published in 2001) we scanned the subject while she affirmed her account of events and that of her accusers. We hypothesized that she would exhibit longer response times in association with greater activation of ventrolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices when endorsing those statements she believed to be false (i.e., when she ‘lied’). The subject was scanned 4 times at 3 Tesla. Results revealed significantly longer response times and relatively greater activation of ventrolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices when she endorsed her accusers' version of events. Hence, while we have not ‘proven’ that this subject is innocent, we demonstrate that her behavioural and functional anatomical parameters behave as if she were.

To identify predictive factors and mortality of patients with influenza admitted to intensive care units (ICU) we carried out a prospective cohort study of patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza in adult ICUs in a network of Canadian hospitals between 2006 and 2012. There were 626 influenza-positive patients admitted to ICUs over the six influenza seasons, representing 17·9% of hospitalized influenza patients, 3·1/10 000 hospital admissions. Variability occurred in admission rate and proportion of hospital influenza patients who were admitted to ICUs (proportion range by year: 11·7–29·4%; 21·3% in the 2009–2010 pandemic). In logistic regression models ICU patients were younger during the pandemic and post-pandemic period, and more likely to be obese than hospital non-ICU patients. Influenza B accounted for 14·2% of all ICU cases and had a similar ICU admission rate as influenza A. Influenza-related mortality was 17·8% in ICU patients compared to 2·0% in non-ICU patients.

This article represents a systematic effort to answer the question, What are archaeology’s most important scientific challenges? Starting with a crowd-sourced query directed broadly to the professional community of archaeologists, the authors augmented, prioritized, and refined the responses during a two-day workshop focused specifically on this question. The resulting 25 “grand challenges” focus on dynamic cultural processes and the operation of coupled human and natural systems. We organize these challenges into five topics: (1) emergence, communities, and complexity; (2) resilience, persistence, transformation, and collapse; (3) movement, mobility, and migration; (4) cognition, behavior, and identity; and (5) human-environment interactions. A discussion and a brief list of references accompany each question. An important goal in identifying these challenges is to inform decisions on infrastructure investments for archaeology. Our premise is that the highest priority investments should enable us to address the most important questions. Addressing many of these challenges will require both sophisticated modeling and large-scale synthetic research that are only now becoming possible. Although new archaeological fieldwork will be essential, the greatest pay off will derive from investments that provide sophisticated research access to the explosion in systematically collected archaeological data that has occurred over the last several decades.

The Magellanic System represents one of the best places to study the formation and evolution of galaxies. Photometric surveys of various depths, areas and wavelengths have had a significant impact on our understanding of the system; however, a complete picture is still lacking. VMC (the VISTA near-infrared YJKs survey of the Magellanic System) will provide new data to derive the spatially resolved star formation history and to construct a three-dimensional map of the system. These data combined with those from other ongoing and planned surveys will give us an absolutely unique view of the system opening up the doors to truly new science!

Ceutorhynchus litura (F.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is established since 1967 in Ontario, and is increasing slowly on nine release sites in five provinces. The weevil is not a good control agent because its reproductive capacity does not compensate for losses inflicted by cultivation and the stress resulting from larval mining is so light that it produces no noticeable reduction in the vigour of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.). In contrast to earlier findings, it is doubtful that C. litura aids in the spread of the rust Puccinia punctiformis (Str.) Rohl. Further stress factors from other insects or pathogens are needed to control this vigorous weed.

The cinnabar moth, Tyria jacobaeae L., was established in the Atlantic provinces and British Columbia for the control of tansy ragwort. Establishment was difficult to obtain with imported stock: only two of 14 colonies survived, one on each coast. The rate of survival in these colonies increased with succeeding generations, and with stock from the regional colony eight of nine releases became established in Nova Scotia. Most of the established colonies increased until the ragwort was defoliated.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

El “síndrome de Munchausen por poderes” se refiere, en general, a mujeres acusadas de haber inventado o producido enfermedades en niños bajo su cuidado, destinadas a atraer la atención sobre sí misma. Cuando hay pruebas concluyentes, hay dudas sobre la etiología de la enfermedad, pero cuando no hay pruebas, el diagnóstico depende de la negación de la intencionalidad (conducta también compatible con la inocencia). ¿Cómo podrían los investigadores conseguir pruebas objetivas sobre culpabilidad o inocencia? En este artículo analizamos el caso de una mujer condenada por envenenar a su hija. Cumplió la condena en la cárcel, pero sigue reclamando su inocencia. Usando un protocolo modificado de RMf (publicado ya en 2001) realizamos la prueba de neuroimagen mientras ella confirmaba su versión de los acontecimientos y mientras aceptaba la de sus acusadores. Sugerimos la hipótesis de que los tiempos de respuesta serían más largos y se asociaran con mayor activación de la corteza cingular anterior y prefrontal ventrolateral cuando hacía declaraciones falsas (es decir, cuando “mentía”). La mujer fue sometida 4 veces a RM de 3 teslas. Los resultados revelaron tiempos de respuesta considerablemente más largos y un activación relativamente mayor de la corteza cingular anterior y prefrontal ventrolateral cuando aceptaba la versión de los acontecimientos de sus acusadores. Es decir que aunque no hemos “probado” que esta mujer es inocente, demostramos que sus parámetros conductuales y funcionales anatómicos se comportan como si lo fuera.

Background. There were four purposes of the current study, including the investigation of the: (i) adequacy of a multidimensional measure of body image; (ii) genetic and environmental epidemiology of this measure; (iii) shared variance between genetic and environmental risk factors for body mass index (BMI) and body image; and (iv) Equal Environment Assumption (EEA) as it related to body attitudes.

Method. Six types of body attitudes, as measured by the Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) and reported by 894 complete female–female twin pairs (mean age 32·35 years, S.D.=41·8) from the Australian Twin Registry, were analysed.

Results. Confirmatory factor analysis of the BAQ supported the adequacy of the measure. Additive genetic and unique environmental influences best accounted for the variance of all six of the BAQ subscales. The relationship between BMI and body attitudes was primarily due to shared genes rather than environment but the majority of genetic and environmental effects on body attitudes were independent of BMI, with the exception of the Feeling Fat subscale, which shared 53% of its genetic risk factors with BMI. One violation of the EEA was suggested, namely similarity of childhood treatment influenced similarity on Lower Body Fatness subscale.

Conclusions. Findings support the notion that: (i) body image is a multidimensional concept; (ii) it is relatively independent of BMI; and (iii) both genetic and non-shared environment are influential determinants of body attitudes.

We present an investigation of the halo dynamics of M31 using planetary nebulae velocities. We have performed on-band [OIII] and off-band continuum imaging for a 3.6 square degree area centred on M31 and follow-up spectroscopy for over 600 planetary nebulae candidates. In the future the halo mass will be measured and the mass distribution and velocity anisotropy will be constrained as a function of radius.

A long cropmark enclosure at Springfield, Essex, interpreted as a Neolithic cursus, was investigated betwee 1979–85 to confirm its date and establish a site sequence. The enclosure was c. 690 m long and 37–49 m wide the ditch being uninterrupted in all areas examined, features within the interior at the eastern end included a incomplete ring of substantial post-pits which it is suggested originally formed a complete circle. Peterborou pottery, predominately Mortlake style, Grooved Ware, a small amount of Beaker pottery, earlier Bronze Age urn sherds, and flint artefacts of the late 3rd-early 2nd millennium were recovered from the cursus ditch an other features. Collectively the evidence indicates a prolonged period of use. The results of the excavations a described, the site is discussed in its local and regional context and the implications of the excavation for our understanding of cursus monuments are considered.

We report recent advances in the development of conjugated polymer device structures. We have fabricated vertical microcavity structures in which the optical path distance is tunable through control of the orientation of a liquid crystal layer, and demonstrate cavity tuning over 59 nm. We show that this structure allows convenient matching of cavity modes to the freespace emission spectrum from poly(r henylene vinylene), PPV. We have investigated the operation of electrically-excited polymer LEDs with short pulse operation, and have achieved current densities above 103 A/cm2 and peak brightnesses of up to 5 × 106 cd/m 2. We have measured the optical absorption due to the injected carriers under these drive conditions, and find an absorption band near 1.6 eV which we attribute to the presence of polarons. This allows measurement of the injected charge density, from which we deduce that carrier mobilities are strongly enhanced at high fields, reaching values of 4 x 10−2 cm2/Vsec for PPV diodes.

A recent review of the state of Ubaid archaeology has urged that more Ubaid sites be excavated and published, and that patterns of Ubaid settlement should be analyzed at a regional scale (Henrickson and Thuesen 1989: pp. 457-8). The primary objective of this paper is therefore rather straightforward: to provide some basic data on artifacts in context from a small excavated Ubaid 3-4 site located within the zone of rain-fed cultivation, and to place these within a regional frame of analysis. The information described, being from both excavation and survey, provides a valuable opportunity to place excavated data within a regional context and to compare this with equivalent data from southern Mesopotamia. It may also provide some insights into the spread of the Ubaid from the south into Upper Mesopotamia.

The site of Khanijdal East was recorded as part of the North Jazira Survey conducted between 1986 and 1990 in the north-west of Iraq immediately north of the Jebel Sinjar. This report amplifies, and in places updates, a summary statement previously made, and rather than repeating already published statements (Wilkinson and Tucker 1995; Ball, Tucker and Wilkinson 1989), we will limit the regional discussion to the addition of supplementary data derived from the primary survey record of the north Jazira project. This additional information should add some fuel to debate on the existence (or otherwise) of regional site hierarchies for the period. Although the data provided from this low-order settlement are, like the settlement itself, rather modest, we feel that publication is justified because, at present, students of this period in Upper Mesopotamia are restricted to a rather small range of sites, such as Gawra, Leilan, Telul al-Thalathat, Tell Hammam et-Turkman, Arpachiyah, Tell Kashkashok and Yarim Tepe, together with a few more that are not yet fully published.

Excavations of sites spanning the Beaker to early Roman periods at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed, are described. The sites are in an area of blown sand which enhanced their preservation and led to the separation of several horizons. The earliest is a buried soil beneath the blown sand which contained Mesolithic to Bronze Age artefacts. At site A, there was a roundhouse associated with Early Bronze Age pottery and dated to 1620±70 and 1400±70 BC uncal., and two other roundhouses, one possibly of Beaker age. After a period of soil formation, a ritual complex of Later Bronze Age date was established, this contemporary with the earliest besanding of the area; it included a stone setting of more than 2000 small stones, an alignment of small water-worn stones and a standing stone. A cremation gave a latest date of 940±70 BC uncal. Other Later Bronze Age activity is recorded at site G/J in the form of a rectangular enclosure, possibly unfinished.

Late Iron Age to early Romano-British settlement was present at sites A and B, consisting of scatters of occupation debris, burnt mounds, cooking pits, hearths and houses, some of stone, some of timber, all taking place in an area being intermittently besanded.

Peripheral to the religious and domestic sites, a field system was excavated. The earliest phase was a linear earthwork from which a C14 date of 400±70 BC uncal. was obtained from charcoal in the ditch. After the decay of this, rectangular fields with stone walls were laid out, one along the line of the erstwhile earthwork, this taking place around the end of the Iron Age as dated by C14 of charcoal directly beneath a wall to 90±70 BC uncal. Some of the fields had been cultivated by a succession of cross- and one-way-ploughing, others used for cattle.

An assemblage of 763 flints included a few Mesolithic artefacts but was mostly of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age date. A succession of ceramic assemblages included a small Middle Neolithic group (4 vessels), two distinct Beaker groups, one early (Lanting and van der Waals steps 1–3 (8 vessels), one late (steps 3–6) (45 vessels), an Early Bronze Age group of collared urns (43 vessels) and a Later Bronze Age group (26 vessels).

Environmental data was not prolific but there was a small quantity of animal bone, mostly cattle and sheep, and cereal grain, mostly barley with some wheat. Marine molluscs were present but sparsely utilized and there was no other indication of the exploitation of the coastal resources such as seals, birds, fish andiseaweed. Land Mollusca indicated open country from the Iron Age onwards when the record begins.

The importance of the site is in the ritual complex from site A, the succession of Iron Age/Romano-British occupation horizons, the succession of ceramic assemblages, the field system and the fact that blown sand horizons have allowed the preservation and separation of the sequence much of which would have been at best conflated in to a single horizon or at worst destroyed. Otherwise, there is no evidence that the site was in any way special with regard to the relationship of human activity and sand deposition until the Middle Ages when the area was used as a rabbit warren. Nor was the coastal location important, at least as could be determined by the results. This was a representative of a succession of later prehistoric farming communities and their various domestic, ritual and sepulchral activities in lowland Dyfed.