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Background: Low-intensity interventions targeting a range of mental health issues offer a scalable approach for young trauma survivors in low-middle income countries., Aims: Here, we present results from a proof-of-concept, randomized, waitlist-controlled trial evaluating MemFlex, an autobiographical memory-based intervention, for trauma-exposed Afghan youth residing in Iran. MemFlex seeks to reduce the negative and overgeneral memory biases which maintain and predict poor mental health., Materials and Methods: Young people aged 12-18 years (N = 40) with parents who had experienced forced migration from Afghanistan were recruited from high schools in Karaj City in Iran. All had experienced a traumatic event in the last year. Participants were randomized to receive four weeks of a group-based delivery of MemFlex or Waitlist. Our primary cognitive outcome was autobiographical memory flexibility, that is, the ability to deliberately retrieve any memory type on demand. Primary clinical outcome was emotional distress, measured on the Farsi version of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist., Results: Results indicated that MemFlex participants demonstrated large effect sizes for pre-to-post improvement in memory flexibility (d = 2.04) and emotional distress (d = 1.23). These improvements were significantly larger than Waitlist (ds < .49), and were maintained at three-month follow-up., Discussion: Positive benefits were observed for completion of MemFlex, and future comparison against an active intervention appears warranted., Conclusion: Further evaluation of MemFlex in this context may offer a low-cost, and low-resource intervention to improve access to psychological intervention for young migrants in low-middle income countries., (© 2024 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

The external magnetic fields resulting from electronic devices around humans have become more prevalent nowadays, and studying their influence on living matter is a required task. Here, we experimentally model the movement of RBCs in veins under an external magnetic field; we monitor the sedimentation of multiple RBCs at different distances from a surrounding wall. The monitoring is performed in 3D by incorporation of digital holographic microscopy (DHM). DHM not only provides a 3D quantitative phase image of an RBC but also, through its numerical refocusing feature, 3D trajectories of several cells in the field of view can be obtained. Our results show that the magnetic field facilitates the sedimentation of cells, and the effect is higher in proximity to the walls. This influence is attributed to the presence of magnetic field-sensitive materials included in RBCs., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (© 2025 Optica Publishing Group.)

Hyperspectral (HS) imaging bridges conventional imaging into spectroscopy and generates a spatial map of spectral variations. On the one hand, in HS imaging, the effect of the background on the final spectra has to be removed or managed. On the other hand, there are important classes of materials that need to be immobilized for investigation. In this Letter, we introduce acoustic trapping (AT) for contactless, nondestructive, and easy-to-implement immobilization of particles of up to several mm sizes, subjected to HS imaging experiments. We apply and validate the combined HS-AT apparatus for the identification of plastics, which these days have caused a multifaceted environmental pollution threat. We show that fluorescent HS imaging provides distinguishable fluorescent spectral signatures for an array of different acoustically trapped plastics. Moreover, the HS-AT enables tomographic spatio-spectral information of multi-component plastic samples by means of their acoustically controlled rotation. The integrated HS-AT has the potential to serve as a benchtop identification device.