Physical Fitness Standards to Support Readiness and Deployability: An Examination of Department of the Air Force Policies and Culture.

To ensure its service members have the requisite physical fitness to serve, the Department of the Air Force (DAF) has established a variety of medical and physical standards. The DAF also recognizes that building a more comprehensive understanding of how different factors influence exercise habits, test preparation, and the perceived importance of fitness is critical to promoting a ready and deployable force. The authors evaluate Air Force (AF) data relevant to the Tier 1 fitness assessment (FA) from all AF-FAs completed by active duty officers and enlisted personnel from fiscal year (FY) 2005 to FY 2018 to examine the fitness of the AF's active component. The Tier 1 FA consists of four components: a 1.5-mile run or 2.0-kilometer walk, designed to measure cardiorespiratory fitness; an abdominal circumference (AC) measurement for body composition; and push-ups and sit-ups, which assess muscular fitness. In this study, the authors explore the relationships between component fitness scores with career and health outcomes and examine airmen's perceptions of current fitness policies and the culture of fitness across the DAF. They conclude by recommending several strategies to improve the rationale for and the validity and acceptance of the AF-FA.

Needs of Male Sexual Assault Victims in the U.S. Armed Forces.

In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, Congress included a requirement to improve prevention of and response to sexual assaults in which the victim is a male member of the U.S. armed forces. To support this effort, RAND researchers reviewed previous research on male sexual assault and specifically considered research on male sexual assault in the U.S. military. The researchers also conducted interviews with individuals who provide support services to U.S. military personnel and with civilian experts who study male sexual assault or provide services to male victims. Although research considering the needs of and services for male sexual assault victims is more limited than research addressing female victims of sexual assault, the available research provides initial information on the prevalence, characteristics, consequences, and public perceptions of male sexual assault. This literature-along with the results of interviews that addressed needs of male sexual assault victims, reporting and help-seeking among victims, and knowledge and perceptions about such assaults-suggests potential avenues for the U.S. Department of Defense to pursue to better address the needs of male sexual assault victims in the U.S. military. These avenues include improvements to reporting procedures, counseling services, outreach, and education and training of service providers and servicemembers.

The evolution of extreme cooperation via shared dysphoric experiences.

Willingness to lay down one's life for a group of non-kin, well documented historically and ethnographically, represents an evolutionary puzzle. Building on research in social psychology, we develop a mathematical model showing how conditioning cooperation on previous shared experience can allow individually costly pro-group behavior to evolve. The model generates a series of predictions that we then test empirically in a range of special sample populations (including military veterans, college fraternity/sorority members, football fans, martial arts practitioners, and twins). Our empirical results show that sharing painful experiences produces "identity fusion" - a visceral sense of oneness - which in turn can motivate self-sacrifice, including willingness to fight and die for the group. Practically, our account of how shared dysphoric experiences produce identity fusion helps us better understand such pressing social issues as suicide terrorism, holy wars, sectarian violence, gang-related violence, and other forms of intergroup conflict.

Activated T cell trans-endothelial migration relies on myosin-IIA contractility for squeezing the cell nucleus through endothelial cell barriers.

Following activation, T cells are released from lymph nodes to traffic via the blood to effector sites. The re-entry of these activated T cells into tissues represents a critical step for them to carry out local effector functions. Here we have assessed defects in effector T cells that are acutely depleted in Myosin-IIA (MyoIIA) and show a T cell intrinsic requirement for this motor to facilitate the diapedesis step of extravasation. We show that MyoIIA accumulates at the rear of T cells undergoing trans-endothelial migration. T cells can extend protrusions and project a substantial portion of their cytoplasm through the endothelial wall in the absence of MyoIIA. However, this motor protein plays a crucial role in allowing T cells to complete the movement of their relatively rigid nucleus through the endothelial junctions. In vivo, this defect manifests as poor entry into lymph nodes, tumors and into the spinal cord, during tissue-specific autoimmunity, but not the spleen. This suggests that therapeutic targeting of this molecule may allow for differential attenuation of tissue-specific inflammatory responses.