Uncertainty is unavoidable in life; it is also an indispensable characteristic of educational settings. The process of learning a foreign language naturally involves interaction and coconstruction of knowledge. During this process, students may encounter uncertainty from a variety of sources, including the course, context, friends, or the teacher. Besides, to communicate meaningfully, the mutual effort of both the listener and the speaker is needed to deal with uncertainty. Considering this, the present study makes an effort to comprehend how learners appreciate and manage uncertainty in language learning environments. Although uncertainty is considered a multidisciplinary research topic, a limited number of studies are found in the literature which examine how students experience uncertainty and how they react to it. Regarding foreign language learning, related research focused on a specific form of uncertainty, Tolerance of Ambiguity, which is conceptualized as a cognitive style. In-class pen-and-paper surveys, reflective journals, video recordings, and stimulated recall interviews were the instruments used to gather data. The findings demonstrate that language learners frequently encounter uncertainty during the language learning process due to course-related, cognitive, and social factors, and learners may appreciate uncertainty in both positive and negative ways. Additionally, learners\' emotional reactions to uncertainty depend on their positive or negative appraisals of uncertain situations. By recognizing and embracing uncertainty, language learners will adapt to it and be able to handle it through a variety of techniques. The results suggest that learners employ a variety of strategies, such as reducing, maintaining, and resolving uncertainty as well as ignoring uncertainty.

Artificial intelligence has substantially improved the efficiency of data utilization across various sectors. However, the insufficient filtering of low-quality data poses challenges to uncertainty management, threatening system stability. In this study, we introduce a data-valuation approach employing deep reinforcement learning to elucidate the value patterns in data-driven tasks. By strategically optimizing with iterative sampling and feedback, our method is effective in diverse scenarios and consistently outperforms the classic methods in both accuracy and efficiency. In China\'s wind-power prediction, excluding 25% of the overall dataset deemed low-value led to a 10.5% improvement in accuracy. Utilizing just 42.8% of the dataset, the model discerned 80% of linear patterns, showcasing the data\'s intrinsic and transferable value. A nationwide analysis identified a data-value-sensitive geographic belt across 10 provinces, leading to robust policy recommendations informed by variances in power outputs and data values, as well as geographic climate factors.

BACKGROUND: Whether and how the uncertainty about a public health crisis should be communicated to the general public have been important and yet unanswered questions arising over the past few years. As the most threatening contemporary public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in these unresolved issues by both academic scholars and public health practitioners.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of communicating uncertainty about COVID-19-related threats and solutions on individuals\' risk perceptions and misinformation vulnerability, as well as the sequential impact of these effects on health information processing and preventative behavioral intentions.
METHODS: A 2×2 (threat uncertainty [presence vs absence]×solution uncertainty [presence vs absence]) full-fractional between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 371 Chinese adults. Focusing on the discussion of whether the asymptomatic cases detected during the COVID-19 pandemic would further lead to an uncontrolled pandemic, news articles were manipulated in terms of whether the infectiousness of asymptomatic cases and the means to control the transmission are presented in terms of their certainty or uncertainty. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions, being instructed to read one news article. After reading the news article assigned, participants were asked to respond to a series of questions to assess their cognitive and behavioral responses.
RESULTS: Individuals were more susceptible to believing false COVID-19-related information when a certain threat and uncertain solution were framed in the news article. Moreover, individuals\' perceptions of crisis severity increased when exposed to news information containing uncertain solutions. Both misinformation vulnerability and perceived severity were positively associated with information processing. Information seeking was positively associated with protective behavioral intention, whereas information avoidance was negatively associated with protective behavioral intention.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings imply that uncertainty, depending on its aspect, can be effectively communicated to the public during an emerging public health crisis. These results have theoretical and practical implications for health communicators and journalists. Given its limited influence on individuals\' cognitive and behavioral responses, uncertainty related to a health threat should be disseminated to meet the public\'s expectation of information transparency. However, caution is advised when communicating uncertainty related to potential solutions, as this factor exhibited a mixed impact on individual responses during a crisis.

Radiation and radioactive substances result in the production of radioactive wastes which require safe management and disposal to avoid risks to human health and the environment. To ensure permanent safe disposal, the performance of a deep geological repository for radioactive waste is assessed against internationally agreed risk-based standards. Assessing postclosure safety of the future system\'s evolution includes screening of features, events, and processes (FEPs) relevant to the situation, their subsequent development into scenarios, and finally the development and execution of safety assessment (SA) models. Global FEP catalogs describe important natural and man-made repository system features and identify events and processes that may affect these features into the future. By combining FEPs, many of which are uncertain, different possible future system evolution scenarios are derived. Repository licensing should consider both the reference or \"base\" evolution as well as alternative futures that may lead to radiation release, pollution, or exposures. Scenarios are used to derive and consider both base and alternative evolutions, often through production of scenario-specific SA models and the recombination of their results into an assessment of the risk of harm. While the FEP-based scenario development process outlined here has evolved somewhat since its development in the 1980s, the fundamental ideas remain unchanged. A spectrum of common approaches is given here (e.g., bottom-up vs. top-down scenario development, probabilistic vs. bounding handling of uncertainty), related to how individual numerical models for possible futures are converted into a determination as to whether the system is safe (i.e., how aleatoric uncertainty and scenarios are integrated through bounding or Monte Carlo approaches).

To examine how former caregivers for parents living with dementia engage in personal health planning.
An inductive, qualitative study.
Virtual, audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews.
Thirty-two midlife former primary caregivers for parents who died following advanced dementia 3 months to 3 years prior.
Participants responded to a series of open-ended interview prompts. Interview recordings were transcribed and evaluated by a trained, diverse team to generate Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) domains and categories.
Caregivers developed health planning outlooks (ie, mindsets regarding willingness and ability to engage in personal health planning) that guided health planning activities (ie, engaging in a healthy lifestyle, initiating cognitive/genetic testing, maintaining independence and aging in place, ensuring financial and legal security). An agentic outlook involved feeling capable of engaging in health planning activities and arose when caregivers witnessed the impact and feasibility of their parents\' health planning. Anxiety-inducing and present-focused outlooks arose when caregivers faced barriers (eg, low self-efficacy, lack of social support, perception that parent\'s health planning did not enhance quality of life) and concluded that personal health planning would not be valuable or feasible.
Caregiving for a parent living with dementia (PLWD) shapes former caregivers\' personal health planning. Interventions should support former caregivers who have developed low self-efficacy or pessimistic views on healthy aging to support them in addressing health planning activities.

What are fertility staff experiences of managing COVID-19-related uncertainty after fertility clinics re-opened?
Staff identified many COVID-19-related uncertainty sources, the main being the COVID-19 health threat, to which most clinics and staff responded effectively by implementing safety protocols and building strong collaborative environments that facilitated the acquisition and application of information to guide organizational responses during a rapidly changing situation, but with costs for staff and patients.
COVID-19 created significant disruption in fertility care delivery, including temporary clinic closure and treatment delay. Patients experienced significant distress, including concerns regarding the impact of COVID-19 and its vaccine on fertility and pregnancy. Multiple studies show that COVID-19-related uncertainty is a major threat and burden for healthcare staff, but this has not been investigated in reproductive medicine.
A cross-sectional, online mixed-method bilingual (English, Spanish) survey (active 25 January-23 May 2021) was distributed to fertility staff across the UK, Latin America, and Africa.
Eligibility criteria were being a healthcare worker at a fertility clinic that had re-opened since its COVID-19-related closure, 18 years of age or older and ability to respond in English or Spanish. The survey was created in English, translated to Spanish, made available using Qualtrics, and consisted of four parts: (i) background and physical and mental wellbeing, (ii) open-ended questions regarding COVID-19 uncertainty, (iii) appraisal items regarding perceptions and impact of uncertainty, and (iv) changes in the workplace. The British Fertility Society and the African Network and Registry of Assisted Reproduction circulated the survey across the UK and Africa via email hyperlinks and social media platforms. The Argentinian Society of Reproductive Medicine and the Latin American Network of Assisted Reproduction distributed the survey across Latin America in the same manner. Thematic analysis was performed on responses from open-ended question to produce basic codes. Deductive coding grouped sub-themes across questions into themes related to the theory of uncertainty management. Descriptive statistics and repeated measures analysis of variance were used on the quantitative data.
In total, 382 staff consented to the survey, 107 did not complete (28% attrition), and 275 completed. Sixty-three percent were women, 69% were physicians, and 79% worked at private clinics. Thematic analysis produced 727 codes, organized in 92 sub-themes, and abstracted into 18 themes and one meta-theme reflecting that uncertainty is stressful but manageable. The types of uncertainties related to the threat of COVID-19 (20.6%), unpredictability of the future (19.5%), failure of communication (11.4%), and change in the workplace (8.4%). Staff appraisals of negative and positive impact of uncertainty were significantly lower (P < 0.001) than appraisals of stress, controllability, and having what it takes to cope with uncertainty. To process uncertainty, clinics focused on information dissemination (30.8%) and building a collaborative work environment (5.8%), while staff employed proactive coping (41.8%) and emotional and cognitive processing (9.6%). Main organizational responses consisted on work restructuring (41.3%, e.g. safety protocols), adapting to adversity (9.5%, e.g. supplies, preparation), and welfare support (13.8%), though staff perceived lack of support (17.5%). Negative consequences of uncertainty were worse self- and patient welfare (12.1%) and worse communication due to virtual medicine and use of mask (9.6%). Positive consequences were work improvements (8.3%), organizational adaptation (8.3%), improved relationships (5.6%), and individual adaptation (3.2%). Ninety-two percent of participants thought changes experienced in the workplace due to COVID-19 were negative, 9.1% nor negative nor positive, and 14.9% positive. Most staff thought that their physical (92.4%) and mental health (89.5%) were good to excellent.
Participants were self-selected, and most were physicians and embryologists working at private clinics based in Latin America. The study did not account for how variability in national and regional COVID-19 policy shaped staff experiences of uncertainty.
To address COVID-19 uncertainty, clinics need to promote collaborative (clinic, staff, patients) processing of uncertainty, clear team coordination and communication, organizational flexibility, and provision of support to staff and patients, with an emphasis on cognitive coping to decrease threat of and increase tolerance to uncertainty. Uncertainty management interventions bespoke to fertility care that integrate these components may increase clinics resilience to COVID-19-related and other types of uncertainty.
Cardiff University funded this research. S.G. reports consultancy fees from Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S, speaker fees from Access Fertility, SONA-Pharm LLC, Meridiano Congress International, and Gedeon Richter, and grants from Merck Serono Ltd. F.Z.-H. reports speaker fees from Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S and that he is a chair of the Latin American Registry of ART, Committee of Ethic and Public Policies, and Chilean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a vice chair of the International Committee for monitoring ART. K.A., N.C., G.B., and J.B. report no conflict in relation to this work.
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The aim of this study is to examine the illness uncertainties (IU) that children experience and the ways they manage them in order to construct a long-term, comprehensive developmental care for children with illness. Semi-structured, in-person interviews were conducted with six Japanese female adolescent cancer survivors, all recruited from the same hospital in Tokyo, Japan. Using directed content analysis, all transcriptions that fell under the definition \"the person is unable to construct the meaning of an illness related event of her/his self or another, and is aware of the state\" were coded with the codes defined from the data, which were then cross-referenced with the existing literature. The results indicated new aspects of children\'s IU; uncertainties regarding hospitalization and the necessity to distinguish and examine IU with and without answers. In terms of IU management, we discuss the informative value \"role models,\" and depict how uncertainty acceptance may be a new form of solution.

The management of uncertainty is integral to health and illness. Individuals manage uncertainty about their health through communication enmeshed in family systems, but existing theorizing focuses on individuals without accounting for family processes. An iterative qualitative analysis of 42 dyadic, family interviews (N = 84) revealed (a) moments in the context of hereditary cancer that involved individual-centered and familial uncertainty appraisal and management, (b) family members\' communication strategies to prompt relatives to engage familial uncertainty, and (c) the communicative (re)creation and negotiation of family models for uncertainty management. The findings illuminate tensions that individuals encounter across their lifespan as they appraise and manage uncertainty about hereditary cancer risks. This study extends uncertainty management theory to encompass familial uncertainty management and contributes insights useful for the management of hereditary cancer.

Drawing from the uncertainty management theory, we examine how authoritarian leadership and humble leadership interact with employee political skill to predict prohibitive voice. We conducted a two-wave survey study of 43 managers and 176 subordinates in a power company in China. Our findings indicate that authoritarian leadership has a minimal negative effect on the psychological safety of employees with higher political skill, which in turn leads to a minimal negative effect on their prohibitive voice. Moreover, humble leadership is positively associated with prohibitive voice for employees with lower political skill. For employees with higher political skill, no type of leadership behavior has a significant influence on their prohibitive voice. We outline the implications of these findings for both theoretical and managerial practices.

Causes of and treatments for long-COVID syndrome remain unknown. Drawing on uncertainty management theory (UMT), this study elucidates the communicative nature of crowdsourced medicine as a means by which COVID \"long-haulers\" respond to their poorly understood illness.
31,892 posts on the long-haulers subreddit (r/covidlonghaulers) were analyzed, starting with its creation date, July 24th, 2020, until January 7, 2021. The Meaning Extraction Method was used to identify clusters of words that mathematically group together across the text observations.
Analyses yielded 16 distinct factors of words, which we thematized based on their composition, the data, and UMT. The 16 themes encompassed symptoms (e.g., pain, respiratory, sensory), diagnostic concerns (testing, diagnosis), broad health concerns (immunity, physical activity, diet), chronicity, support, identity, and anxiety.
Findings provide a succinct, yet robust set of themes reflecting the information-seeking (i.e., \"This is happening to me\") and support-seeking functions of long-haulers\' talk (i.e., \"Is this happening to you?\"). Findings have implications for collective uncertainty management, online crowdsourcing, and patient advocacy.
We recommend that health care providers employ sensitivity when addressing the anxiety that long-haulers are experiencing while also validating that their physical symptoms are real. Online communities help long-haulers manage their uncertainty.