University of Saskatchewan

About: University of Saskatchewan is a education organization based out in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 25021 authors who have published 52579 publications receiving 1483049 citations. The organization is also known as: USask.

Abscisic Acid-induced freezing resistance in cultured plant cells.

Abstract: The effect of abscisic acid (ABA) on the cold hardiness of cell suspension was investigated. Cell suspension cultures of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L. cv Norstar), winter rye (Secale cereale L. cv Cougar), and bromegrass Bromo inermis Leyss treated with 7.5 × 10−5 molar ABA for 4 days at 20°C could tolerate −30°C, whereas the control cultures tolerated only −7 to −8°C. The optimum concentration for increasing the cold hardiness of the cultures was 7.5 × 10−5 molar. The degree of cold hardiness and the rate of hardening obtained by ABA treatment was significantly higher than that induced by low temperature alone. Of ten species tested, ABA was only effective on those cultures which were capable of cold hardening upon exposure to low temperatures. The results suggest that ABA bypasses the cold requirement for hardening and also suggests that ABA triggers the genetic system(s) responsible for inducing the hardening process.

Global prevalence and disease burden of vitamin D deficiency: a roadmap for action in low- and middle-income countries.

Abstract: Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for bone health and may influence the risks of respiratory illness, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and chronic diseases of adulthood. Because many countries have a relatively low supply of foods rich in vitamin D and inadequate exposure to natural ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation from sunlight, an important proportion of the global population is at risk of vitamin D deficiency. There is general agreement that the minimum serum/plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration (25(OH)D) that protects against vitamin D deficiency-related bone disease is approximately 30 nmol/L; therefore, this threshold is suitable to define vitamin D deficiency in population surveys. However, efforts to assess the vitamin D status of populations in low- and middle-income countries have been hampered by limited availability of population-representative 25(OH)D data, particularly among population subgroups most vulnerable to the skeletal and potential extraskeletal consequences of low vitamin D status, namely exclusively breastfed infants, children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women, and the elderly. In the absence of 25(OH)D data, identification of communities that would benefit from public health interventions to improve vitamin D status may require proxy indicators of the population risk of vitamin D deficiency, such as the prevalence of rickets or metrics of usual UVB exposure. If a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is identified (>20% prevalence of 25(OH)D 1%), food fortification and/or targeted vitamin D supplementation policies can be implemented to reduce the burden of vitamin D deficiency-related conditions in vulnerable populations.

Barriers to Goals of Care Discussions With Seriously Ill Hospitalized Patients and Their Families: A Multicenter Survey of Clinicians

Abstract: Importance Seriously ill hospitalized patients have identified communication and decision making about goals of care as high priorities for quality improvement in end-of-life care. Interventions to improve care are more likely to succeed if tailored to existing barriers. Objective To determine, from the perspective of hospital-based clinicians, (1) barriers impeding communication and decision making about goals of care with seriously ill hospitalized patients and their families and (2) their own willingness and the acceptability for other clinicians to engage in this process. Design, Setting, and Participants Multicenter survey of medical teaching units of nurses, internal medicine residents, and staff physicians from participating units at 13 university-based hospitals from 5 Canadian provinces. Main Outcomes and Measures Importance of 21 barriers to goals of care discussions rated on a 7-point scale (1 = extremely unimportant; 7 = extremely important). Results Between September 2012 and March 2013, questionnaires were returned by 1256 of 1617 eligible clinicians, for an overall response rate of 77.7% (512 of 646 nurses [79.3%], 484 of 634 residents [76.3%], 260 of 337 staff physicians [77.2%]). The following family member–related and patient-related factors were consistently identified by all 3 clinician groups as the most important barriers to goals of care discussions: family members’ or patients’ difficulty accepting a poor prognosis (mean [SD] score, 5.8 [1.2] and 5.6 [1.3], respectively), family members’ or patients’ difficulty understanding the limitations and complications of life-sustaining treatments (5.8 [1.2] for both groups), disagreement among family members about goals of care (5.8 [1.2]), and patients’ incapacity to make goals of care decisions (5.6 [1.2]). Clinicians perceived their own skills and system factors as less important barriers. Participants viewed it as acceptable for all clinician groups to engage in goals of care discussions—including a role for advance practice nurses, nurses, and social workers to initiate goals of care discussions and be a decision coach. Conclusions and Relevance Hospital-based clinicians perceive family member–related and patient-related factors as the most important barriers to goals of care discussions. All health care professionals were viewed as playing important roles in addressing goals of care. These findings can inform the design of future interventions to improve communication and decision making about goals of care.

The Importance of Awareness for Team Cognition in Distributed Collaboration

Abstract: Although the phrase team cognition suggests something that happens inside people’s heads, teams are very much situated in the real world, and there are a number of things that have to happen out in that world for teams to be able to think and work together. This is not just spoken communication. Depending on the circumstances, effective team cognition includes things like using environmental cues to establish a common ground of understanding, seeing who is around and what they are doing, monitoring the state of artefacts in a shared work setting, noticing other people’s gestures and what they are referring to, and so on (Clark, 1996; Hutchins, 1996).

Effect of CH3NH3PbI3 thickness on device efficiency in planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells

Abstract: Recent advances in the development of perovskite solar cells based on CH3NH3PbI3 have produced devices with power conversion efficiencies of >15%. While initial work in this area assumed that the perovskite-based cells required a mesoporous TiO2 support, many recent reports have instead focused on the development of planar heterojunction structures. A better understanding of how both cell architecture and various design parameters (e.g., perovskite thickness and morphology) affect cell performance is needed. Here, we report the fabrication of perovskite solar cells based on a ZnO nanoparticle electron transport layer, CH3NH3PbI3 light absorber, and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) hole transport layer. We show that vapor-phase deposition of the PbI2 precursor film produces devices with performances equivalent to those prepared using entirely solution-based techniques, but with very precise control over the thickness and morphology of the CH3NH3PbI3 layer. Optimization of the layer thickness yielded devices with efficiencies of up to 11.3%. The results further demonstrate that a delicate balance between light absorption and carrier transport is required in these planar heterojunction devices, with the thickest perovskite films producing only very low power conversion efficiencies.