Attitudes Toward Organ Donation Among Saudi Arabians

The specific aim examined the relationship between Saudi Arabians’ attitudes toward organ donation and acculturation. The study tested the hypothesis that controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, Saudis who were more acculturated to Western culture would be more positive about organ donation. A self-administrated Qualtrics questionnaire was distributed to the entire population of the College of the Social Sciences (approximately 12,000 faculty members, staff, and students) at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The instrument asked 63 questions about sociodemographic characteristics, acculturation, and attitudes about organ donation. The response rate was almost 8%, n=893. Students comprised 90.6% of respondents. Their mean age was 23.37 years, 74% were males, and the majority were raised in the Central Region of Saudi Arabia and resided in cities. Factor analysis created three scales of acculturation: Interest in Western Media & Travel, Adopt Western Cultures, and Attachment to Saudi Culture. Using factor analysis, two scales emerged to measure attitudes about organ donation: Willingness to be a Living Organ Donor, and General Support for Organ Donation. Two questions were also used: Willingness to Sign Donor Registry and Willingness to Share Wishes about Organ Donation with Family. Linear and logistic regressions tested the hypothesis that controlling for age, gender, participants’ education, and income, acculturation would predict organ donation attitudes. All else equal, higher Interest in Western Media & Travel significantly predicted positive attitudes about increased willingness to become a live organ donor, higher general support for organ donation, greater willingness to grant permission to donate, and higher willingness to share wishes with their family about donation. Greater desire to Adopt Western Culture was significantly related to increased general support for organ donation. Increased Attachment to Saudi Culture significantly reduced general support for organ donation. Females were significantly more likely to have positive attitudes about organ donation. Both acculturation and organ donation attitudes are multidimensional, and their relationship depends on the type of acculturation and attitudes. Higher levels of acculturation to Western culture increased support for organ donation

Using Soft Polymer Template Engineering of Mesoporous TiO2 Scaffolds to Increase Perovskite Grain Size and Solar Cell Efficiency

The mesoporous (meso)-TiO2 layer is a key component of high-efficiency perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, pore size controllable meso-TiO2 layers are prepared using spin coating of commercial TiO2 nanoparticle (NP) paste with added soft polymer templates (SPT) followed by removal of the SPT at 500 °C. The SPTs consist of swollen crosslinked polymer colloids (microgels, MGs) or a commercial linear polymer (denoted as LIN). The MGs and LIN were comprised of the same polymer, which was poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm). Large (L-MG) and small (S-MG) MG SPTs were employed to study the effect of the template size. The SPT approach enabled pore size engineering in one deposition step. The SPT/TiO2 nanoparticle films had pore sizes > 100 nm, whereas the average pore size was 37 nm for the control meso-TiO2 scaffold. The largest pore sizes were obtained using L-MG. SPT engineering increased the perovskite grain size in the same order as the SPT sizes: LIN < S-MG < L-MG and these grain sizes were larger than those obtained using the control. The power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of the SPT/TiO2 devices were ∼20% higher than that for the control meso-TiO2 device and the PCE of the champion S-MG device was 18.8%. The PCE improvement is due to the increased grain size and more effective light harvesting of the SPT devices. The increased grain size was also responsible for the improved stability of the SPT/TiO2 devices. The SPT method used here is simple, scalable, and versatile and should also apply to other PSCs

Investigation of the Optical Properties of a Novel Class of Quinoline Derivatives and Their Random Laser Properties Using ZnO Nanoparticles

Quinoline Schiff bases display potential applications in optoelectronics and laser fields because of their unique optical properties that arise from extensive delocalization of the electron cloud, and a high order of non-linearity. In this context, a new class of conjugated quinoline-derivative viz. N-(quinolin-3-ylmethylene)anilines were synthesized from 2-hydroxyquinoline-3-carbaldehyde in two good yielding steps. The ability of these imines to accept an electron from a donor is denoted by their electron acceptor number and sites, which is calculated using density functional theory (DFT). The optical properties such as FT-IR, Raman, UV-VIS, and EDS spectra were calculated using TD-DFT, which also provided the energy gap, HOMO-LUMO structure. The optical properties of the synthesized imino quinolines were experimentally studied using photoluminescence and absorption spectroscopy. The properties such as Stokes shift and quantum yield were calculated using experimental data. Furthermore, the compound bearing a methyl group on the aryl ring and ZnO nanoparticles (hydrothermally synthesized) were dissolved in toluene, and optically excited with a 355 nm nanosecond laser, which produced a random laser