Social learning is a critical adaptation for dealing with different forms of variability. Uncertainty is a severe form of variability where the space of possible decisions or probabilities of associated outcomes are unknown. We identified four theoretically-important sources of uncertainty: temporal environmental variability, payoff ambiguity, selection-set size, and effective lifespan. When these combine, it is nearly impossible to fully learn about the environment. We develop an evolutionary agent-based model to test how each form of uncertainty affects the evolution of social learning. Agents perform one of several behaviors, modeled as a multi-armed bandit, to acquire payoffs. All agents learn about behavioral payoffs individually through an adaptive behavior-choice model that uses a softmax decision rule. Use of vertical and oblique payoff-biased social learning evolved to serve as a scaffold for adaptive individual learning—they are not opposite strategies. Different types of uncertainty had varying effects. Temporal environmental variability suppressed social learning, whereas larger selection-set size promoted social learning, even when the environment changed frequently. Payoff ambiguity and lifespan interacted with other uncertainty parameters. This study begins to explain how social learning can predominate despite highly variable real-world environments when effective individual learning helps individuals recover from learning outdated social information.

The generalizability crisis is compounded, or even partially caused, by a lack of specificity in psychological theories. Expanding the use of mechanistic models among psychologists is therefore important, but faces numerous hurdles. A cultural evolutionary approach can help guide and evaluate interventions to improve modeling efforts in psychology, such as developing standards and implementing them at the institutional level.

A subset of events within the UK Government Events Research Programme (ERP), developed to examine the risk of transmission of COVID-19 from attendance at events, was examined to explore the public health impact of holding mass sporting events. We used contact tracing data routinely collected through telephone interviews and online questionnaires, to describe the potential public health impact of the large sporting and cultural events on potential transmission and incidence of COVID-19. Data from the EURO 2020 matches hosted at Wembley identified very high numbers of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and were traced through NHS Test & Trace. This included both individuals who were potentially infectious (3036) and those who acquired their infection during the time of the Final (6376). This is in contrast with the All England Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon, where there were similar number of spectators and venue capacity but there were lower total numbers of potentially infectious cases (299) and potentially acquired cases (582). While the infections associated with the EURO 2020 event may be attributed to a set of socio-cultural circumstances which are unlikely to be replicated for the forthcoming sporting season, other aspects may be important to consider including mitigations for spectators to consider such as face coverings when travelling to and from events, minimising crowding in poorly ventilated indoor spaces such as bars and pubs where people may congregate to watch events, and reducing the risk of aerosol exposure through requesting that individuals avoid shouting and chanting in large groups in enclosed spaces.

This paper reconsiders the contribution of Henry Ludwell Moore to dynamic economics through the use of harmonic analysis. We show that Moore’s analysis is innovative in its use of the Fourier transformation for the identification of cycles with different periodicities. This enables Moore to identify cycles of longer length with more precision than would be the case for the standard methodology. We are able to replicate the main features of his results and confirm the existence of a rainfall cycle with a periodicity similar to that of the business cycle (eight years). However, we find that the evidence for a longer (thirty-three-year) rainfall cycle is weaker than Moore indicates. We also argue that a central theme of Moore’s analysis—the relationship among rainfall, agricultural productivity, and the business cycle—marks an early precursor of the “real business cycle” approach. George Stigler’s (1962) dismissal of Moore’s work on cycles as “a complete failure” is therefore, in our opinion, unfair. Instead, we argue that, although his work is certainly flawed, it nevertheless deserves a place in both the history of business cycle theory and empirical economics.

Recognition that alien plants pose a significant threat to biodiversity has not always translated into effective management strategies, policy reforms, and systems to establish priorities. Thus, many alien plant management decisions for the protection of biodiversity occur with limited knowledge of what needs to be protected (other than biodiversity in a generalized sense) or the urgency of actions. To rectify this, we have developed a triage system that enables alien plant management decisions to be made based on (1) the urgency of control relative to the degree of threat posed to biodiversity, compared with (2) the likelihood of achieving a successful conservation outcome as a result of alien plant control. This triage system is underpinned by a two-step approach, which identifies the biodiversity at risk and assesses sites to determine priorities for control. This triage system was initially developed to manage the threat posed by bitou bush to native species in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It has subsequently been improved with the national assessment of lantana in Australia, and the adaptation from a single to multiple alien plant species approach on a regional scale. This triage system identifies nine levels of priority for alien plant management aimed at biodiversity conservation, ranging from immediate, targeted action to limited or no action. The development of this approach has enabled long-term management priorities to be set for widespread alien plants that are unlikely to be eradicated. It also enables control to occur in a coordinated manner for biodiversity conservation at a landscape scale, rather than as a series of individual unconnected short-term actions.

Pollen grains and spores, plant macrofossils, and sponge spicules from a 7.2-m sediment core from Jackson Pond dating back to 20,000 yr B.P. are the basis for new interpretations of vegetational, limnological, and climatic changes in central Kentucky. During the full-glacial interval (20,400 to 16,800 yr B.P.) upland vegetation was closed spruce forest with jack pine as a subdominant. Aquatic macrophyte and sponge assemblages indicate that the site was a relatively deep, open pond with low organic productivity. During late-glacial time (16,800 to 11,300 yr B.P.) spruce populations continued to dominate while jack pine declined and sedge increased as the vegetation became a more open, taiga-like boreal woodland. Between 11,300 and 10,000 yr B.P., abundances of spruce and oak pollen oscillated reciprocally, possibly reflecting the Younger Dryas oscillation as boreal taxa underwent a series of declines and increases at the southern limit of their ranges before becoming extirpated and replaced by deciduous forest. In the early Holocene (10,000 to 7300 yr B.P.) a mesic deciduous woodland developed; it was replaced by xeric oak-hickory forest during the middle Holocene between 7300 and 3900 yr B.P. Grass increased after 3900 yr B.P., indicating that the presettlement vegetation mosaic of mixed deciduous forest and prairie (the “Kentucky Barrens”) became established in central Kentucky after the Hypsithermal interval. Sponge spicules increased in number during the Holocene, reflecting reduced water depths in the pond. Sediment infilling, as well as climatic warming and the expansion of fringing shrub thickets, increased nutrient and habitat availability for freshwater sponges.

Analysis of in situ-produced 10Be and 26Al demonstrate that some Australian inselbergs (granitic domes) are among the most stable geomorphic surfaces in the world, eroding at rates as low as 0.6 m/myr. Twenty isotopic analyses of ten samples suggest that the bare bedrock tops of these isolated granitic domes have been exposed to cosmic radiation for at least 0.5 myr and are eroding at a mean model rate less than 0.7 ± 0.1 m/myr (n = 6). Isotopic analyses of samples collected from the top of Mt. Wudinna, Little Wudinna, and Yarwondutta Rock are most consistent with continuous exposure during erosion. On the other hand, samples collected from the flanks of some domes and the tops of other domes have isotopic abundances suggestive of complex exposure histories including burial and reexposure. These unique isotopic data provide the first quantitative information for evaluating longstanding, but previously untested, hypotheses regarding the antiquity and development of these enigmatic landforms and indicate that some Eyre Peninsula inselbergs are probably relict features of pre-Pleistocene landscapes.

Resurgent cotton production compels better acreage forecasts for planning seed, chemical, and other input requirements. Structural models describe leading acreage response indicators, and forecasts are compared to time-series models. Cotton price, loan rate, deficiency payments, lagged corn acreage, the PIK program, and previous cotton yield significantly influence cotton acreage response.