Association of jasmonic acid priming with multiple defense mechanisms in wheat plants under high salt stress

Salinity is a global conundrum that negatively affects various biometrics of agricultural crops. Jasmonic acid (JA) is a phytohormone that reinforces multilayered defense strategies against abiotic stress, including salinity. This study investigated the effect of JA (60 μM) on two wheat cultivars, namely ZM9 and YM25, exposed to NaCl (14.50 dSm−1) during two consecutive growing seasons. Morphologically, plants primed with JA enhanced the vegetative growth and yield components. The improvement of growth by JA priming is associated with increased photosynthetic pigments, stomatal conductance, intercellular CO2, maximal photosystem II efficiency, and transpiration rate of the stressed plants. Furthermore, wheat cultivars primed with JA showed a reduction in the swelling of the chloroplast, recovery of the disintegrated thylakoids grana, and increased plastoglobuli numbers compared to saline-treated plants. JA prevented dehydration of leaves by increasing relative water content and water use efficiency via reducing water and osmotic potential using proline as an osmoticum. There was a reduction in sodium (Na+) and increased potassium (K+) contents, indicating a significant role of JA priming in ionic homeostasis, which was associated with induction of the transporters, viz., SOS1, NHX2, and HVP1. Exogenously applied JA mitigated the inhibitory effect of salt stress in plants by increasing the endogenous levels of cytokinins and indole acetic acid, and reducing the abscisic acid (ABA) contents. In addition, the oxidative stress caused by increasing hydrogen peroxide in salt-stressed plants was restrained by JA, which was associated with increased α-tocopherol, phenolics, and flavonoids levels and triggered the activities of superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase activity. This increase in phenolics and flavonoids could be explained by the induction of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase activity. The results suggest that JA plays a key role at the morphological, biochemical, and genetic levels of stressed and non-stressed wheat plants which is reflected in yield attributes. Hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analyses showed that salt sensitivity was associated with the increments of Na+, hydrogen peroxide, and ABA contents. The regulatory role of JA under salinity stress was interlinked with increased JA level which consequentially improved ion transporting, osmoregulation, and antioxidant defense

Organizational Development-Lean Thinking Through the LeanGame Learning Game

This article presents research where organizational change was carried out in the health care organization in Satakunta’s Health Care District. In the district´s new strategy, Lean thinking was chosen to support a strategic goal, to increase employee´s and patients´ satisfaction towards the care they received. This development need has been reported in earlier studies to find enhancement ways for operations. LeanGame is an educational game, which combines two distinct elements: Lean, a philosophy and management system, and interactive game that let players get to familiarize themselves the Lean thinking through the game. The LeanGame is linked to the organization's strategic approach for continuous development implementation. This paper introduces the LeanGame piloting in Health Care District.. Article handles development of LeanGame and the LeanGame piloting. Article describes results of piloting, reveals the results of testing the educational game in professional development and gives future research suggestions as well as future development needs for Lean Game

Promoting lean management and healthy healthcare workers in nursing departments in Switzerland

More and more hospitals are introducing Lean approaches to counteract economic pressure and to increase their efficiency. Previous research shows that introducing Lean brings certain economic benefits for hospitals. However, studies also indicate a negative impact on employee well-being. In the project described in this chapter, we followed an innovative approach to implement Lean and simultaneously maintain employee well-being by offering specific workshops to address working conditions and employee health. The results of our evaluation showed partial success. In general, compared to the control group, the situation in the intervention group remained stable, whereas the control group, without workshops, experienced a deterioration of working conditions and health in the same period