PHIT for duty, a mobile approach for psychological health intervention.

The goal of this effort is to support prevention of psychological health problems through innovation in mobile personal health assessment and self-help intervention (SHI). For the U.S. military, we are developing and evaluating a field-deployable personalized application, PHIT for DutyTM, to help build resilience in healthy troops and support prevention in high-risk personnel. PHIT for Duty is delivered using any smartphone or tablet with optional nonintrusive physiological and behavioral sensors for health status monitoring. The application integrates a suite of health assessments with an intelligent advisor that recommends, tailors, and presents self-help advisories. PHIT for Duty is intended for secondary prevention of psychological health problems in persons who have been exposed to psychological trauma and may be showing some symptoms of distress, but have not been diagnosed with any psychological disease or disorder.

Ultrafast time-resolved x-ray scattering reveals diffusive charge order dynamics in La2-x Ba x CuO4.

Charge order is universal among high-T c cuprates, but its relation to superconductivity is unclear. While static order competes with superconductivity, dynamic order may be favorable and even contribute to Cooper pairing. Using time-resolved resonant soft x-ray scattering at a free-electron laser, we show that the charge order in prototypical La2-x Ba x CuO4 exhibits transverse fluctuations at picosecond time scales. These sub-millielectron volt excitations propagate by Brownian-like diffusion and have an energy scale remarkably close to the superconducting T c. At sub-millielectron volt energy scales, the dynamics are governed by universal scaling laws defined by the propagation of topological defects. Our results show that charge order in La2-x Ba x CuO4 exhibits dynamics favorable to the in-plane superconducting tunneling and establish time-resolved x-rays as a means to study excitations at energy scales inaccessible to conventional scattering techniques.

Temporal variability of bioavailable Cd, Hg, Zn, Mn and Al in an upwelling regime.

Monthly variability of Cd, Hg, Zn, Mn and Al concentrations in mussels (Mytilus californianus) soft tissue and brown seaweed (Macrocystis pyrifera) was studied at a pristine rocky shore off San Quintin Bay, Baja California, México. The results were related to climatic and hydrographic conditions and to the physiological state of the mussels (condition index) by correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA). A "normalization" to account for the variability induced by the physiological state of the mussel was performed. The PCA was performed in two ways to relate the environmental variables and the condition index to: (1) the metal concentrations in mussels, and (2) the "normalized" mussel concentrations. The association of the variability of Cd with the upwelling season was revealed in both PCAs. The temporal variability of this metal in mussels was highly correlated to that in seaweed, suggesting that the dissolved phase determined the variability of Cd in mussels. However, for Hg, Zn, Mn and Al the results from both PCAs were different. The first PCA showed the relationship of these metals to pluvial precipitation and to the condition index. The PCA for the normalized mussel concentrations showed that, after eliminating the effect of the condition index, only Al was related to pluvial precipitation. Manganese, and to a less degree Zn, were related to these metals in seaweed. Because zinc is an essential element in mussels, some regulation of their internal concentrations is likely. Mercury was not detected in seaweed, but because of its reactive nature, it is not expected that the dissolved fraction could be a significant pathway; therefore, it can be concluded that its temporal variability was determined by the variability in the condition index only.