The Effect of a Merit Point Incentive System on the Willingness to Donate Organs.

PURPOSE: Although over 90% of the population of the United States supports organ donation, only 60% of the population is registered as donors. Currently, there is a need for a nonmonetary incentive that will improve willingness to donate. We assessed the young adult population's perspective on their willingness to donate organs when merit points are granted to their family members to prioritize their potential transplant if needed. METHODS: We administered a Qualtrics survey from March 2022 to September 2022 to the undergraduate students volunteering to participate at Saint Louis University, which comprised 10 questions that addressed the attitudes of participants regarding the effects of various factors, including the type of donation and the presence of merit points (vouchers granted to self or a family member to facilitate a potential transplant if needed), on participant's willingness to donate an organ while alive or after death. The responses were analyzed by using SAS software (SAS Institute). RESULTS: A total of 572 participants completed the survey. Overall, only 6.5% of surveyed students were unwilling to donate after death. The willingness to donate while alive to a family member was significantly higher than donating to a stranger (95.8% vs 71.2%, P < .0001). When merit points were added, the unwillingness to donate significantly decreased from 6.5% to 3.8%. However, this change was observed only when the merit points were given to a family member and not to self. When merit points were granted, unwillingness to provide a living donation to a stranger decreased from 28.8% to 16.4% (P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: Merit points to first-degree family members improve students' expressed willingness to donate organs after death; however, self-merit points did not decrease the rate of "unwillingness to donate after death." When living donation is assessed, offering merit points appears to decrease the "unwillingness to donate to strangers." The adoption of a merit point system in the United States may increase the rates of organ donation.

Semi-annual oscillations in Saturn's low-latitude stratospheric temperatures.

Observations of oscillations of temperature and wind in planetary atmospheres provide a means of generalizing models for atmospheric dynamics in a diverse set of planets in the Solar System and elsewhere. An equatorial oscillation similar to one in the Earth's atmosphere has been discovered in Jupiter. Here we report the existence of similar oscillations in Saturn's atmosphere, from an analysis of over two decades of spatially resolved observations of its 7.8-microm methane and 12.2-microm ethane stratospheric emissions, where we compare zonal-mean stratospheric brightness temperatures at planetographic latitudes of 3.6 degrees and 15.5 degrees in both the northern and the southern hemispheres. These results support the interpretation of vertical and meridional variability of temperatures in Saturn's stratosphere as a manifestation of a wave phenomenon similar to that on the Earth and in Jupiter. The period of this oscillation is 14.8 +/- 1.2 terrestrial years, roughly half of Saturn's year, suggesting the influence of seasonal forcing, as is the case with the Earth's semi-annual oscillation.