• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.169-175
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• 2011

Objectives: The questionnaire of occupational stress index (OSI) has been popular in the workplace, and it has been tailored for bus drivers in Taiwan. Nevertheless, its outcomes for participants are based on self-evaluations, thus validation by their physiological stress biomarker is warranted and this is the main goal of this study. Methods: A cross-sectional study of sixty-three city bus drivers and fifty-four supporting staffs for comparison was conducted. Questionnaire surveys, 24-hour urine cortisol testing, and blood draws for dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-S) testing were performed. The measured concentrations of these biological measures were logarithmically transformed before the statistical analysis where various scores of stressor factors, moderators, and stress effects of each OSI domain were analyzed by applying multiple linear regression models. Results: For drivers, the elevated 24-hour urine cortisol level was associated with a worker's relationship with their supervisor and any life change events in the most recent 3 months. The DHEA-S level was higher in drivers of younger age as well as drivers with more concerns relating to their salary and bonuses. Non-drivers showed no association between any stressor or satisfaction and urine cortisol and blood DHEA-S levels. Conclusion: Measurements of biomarkers may offer additional stress evaluations with OSI questionnaires for bus drivers. Increased DHEA-S and cortisol levels may result from stressors like income security. Prevention efforts towards occupational stress and life events and health promotional efforts for aged driver were important anti-stress remedies.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.211-247
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• 2021

Livestock species experience several stresses, particularly weaning, transportation, overproduction, crowding, temperature, and diseases in their life. Heat stress (HS) is one of the most stressors, which is encountered in livestock production systems throughout the world, especially in the tropical regions and is likely to be intensified due to global rise in environmental temperature. The gut has emerged as one of the major target organs affected by HS. The alpha- and beta-diversity of gut microbiota composition are altered due to heat exposure to animals with greater colonization of pathogenic microbiota groups. HS also induces several changes in the gut including damages of microstructures of the mucosal epithelia, increased oxidative insults, reduced immunity, and increased permeability of the gut to toxins and pathogens. Vulnerability of the intestinal barrier integrity leads to invasion of pathogenic microbes and translocation of antigens to the blood circulations, which ultimately may cause systematic inflammations and immune responses. Moreover, digestion of nutrients in the guts may be impaired due to reduced enzymatic activity in the digesta, reduced surface areas for absorption and injury to the mucosal structure and altered expressions of the nutrient transport proteins and genes. The systematic hormonal changes due to HS along with alterations in immune and inflammatory responses often cause reduced feed intake and production performance in livestock and poultry. The altered microbiome likely orchestrates to the hosts for various relevant biological phenomena occurring in the body, but the exact mechanisms how functional communications occur between the microbiota and HS responses are yet to be elucidated. This review aims to discuss the effects of HS on microbiota composition, mucosal structure, oxidant-antioxidant balance mechanism, immunity, and barrier integrity in the gut, and production performance of farm animals along with the dietary ameliorations of HS. Also, this review attempts to explain the mechanisms how these biological responses are affected by HS.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.13-27
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• 2022

The Yeongsan River estuary was altered by a sea dike built in 1981 and the sluice gates in the dike were extended recently in 2014. The construction has caused changes in water properties and hydrodynamics and also produced disturbances including hypoxia and algal blooms. We analyzed the water quality and chlorophyll-a data (2009-2018) collected seasonally at 3 stations (Sts. 1-3) along the channel of the estuary by the Marine Environmental Monitoring System. Variations in water quality and chlorophyll-a (an index of phytoplankton biomass) were examined and their stressors were also identified by statistics including correlation and multivariate principal component analyses (PCA). The water quality was mainly affected by freshwater discharge from the dike. Salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll-a were especially affected by the discharge and the effect enhanced during summer and at the upper region near the sea dike decreasing downstream. Three factors were extracted for each station in the PCA accounting for 66.07-72.42% of the variations. The first was an external factor associated with freshwater discharge and the second and third were seasonal or biological factors. The results indicate that the water quality is more affected by short-termed and episodic events such as freshwater discharge than seasonal events and the influence of freshwater discharge on water quality is more extensive than that previously reported. This suggests that the boundary of the estuary should be extended to take into account the findings of this study and a management strategy linked to the freshwater zone is required to manage the integrity and water quality of the Yeongsan River estuary.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.541-548
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• 2023

Behavior serves as an important indicator of the effects of environmental stressors on organisms. In this study, one-year-old abalone Haliotis discus hannai (15.1±0.8 mm) were used and each 0.34 m2 tank was stocked with 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 juvenile abalone. After 328 days, we found that the low stocking density treatment showed significantly higher growth, whereas the high stocking density treatment showed significantly lower growth. In addition, abalone showed a lower rate of movement, distance moved, and velocity at higher stocking densities, but only velocity differed significantly. In contrast, In the Supplied the feed tanks significant difference between the moving distance and velocity. When the two groups of different sizes were mixed in tank, the rate of movement, distance moned, and velocity showed significant differences between differently-sized indivisuals. Our study indicates that breeding abalone at high densities has a negative effect on their growth and survival, which is thought to primarily be caused by spatial competition, and secondarily by differences in body size, ultimately affecting growth and productivity.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.242-248
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• 2016

Thymic atrophy is a complication that results from exposure to many environmental stressors, disease treatments, and microbial challenges. Such acute stress-associated thymic loss can have a dramatic impact on the host's ability to replenish the necessary naïve T cell output to reconstitute the peripheral T cell numbers and repertoire to respond to new antigenic challenges. We have previously reported that treatment with the orexigenic hormone ghrelin results in an increase in the number and proliferation of thymocytes after dexamethasone challenge, suggesting a role for ghrelin in restraint stress-induced thymic involution and cell apoptosis and its potential use as a thymostimulatory agent. In an effort to understand how ghrelin suppresses thymic T cell apoptosis, we have examined the various signaling pathways induced by receptor-specific ghrelin stimulation using a restraint stress mouse model. In this model, stress-induced apoptosis in thymocytes was effectively blocked by ghrelin. Western blot analysis demonstrated that ghrelin prevents the cleavage of pro-apoptotic proteins such as Bim, Caspase-3, and PARP. In addition, ghrelin stimulation activates the Akt and Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) signaling pathways in a time/dose-dependent manner. Moreover, we also revealed the involvement of the FoxO3a pathway in the phosphorylation of Akt and ERK1/2. Together, these findings suggest that ghrelin inhibits apoptosis by modulating the stress-induced apoptotic signal pathway in the restraint-induced thymic apoptosis.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.121-134
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• 2014

Sessile marine bivalves including mussels, oysters and clams are often used as a sentinel species in coastal environmental monitoring since changes in the environmental quality are often well preserved in their tissues and shells. In this study, we investigated overall health condition of the Mediterranean Mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis on the south coast using histology. Reproductive condition as gonad index (GI), condition index (CI) as a ratio of the tissue weight to the shell weight, digestive gland atrophy (DGA), types of parasites, and pathologic conditions including erosion, necrosis, hemocyte infiltration, and neoplasia were examined from each histological preparation. GI decreased from March to July then increased from July to September and spawning mussel could be observed as early as in April and the activity continued until September. CI also followed the monthly changes in GI, indicating that decrease in CI was associated with the weight loss due to spawning. DGA increased from March to June, decreased in July and increased from July to September. High DGA values observed in June and September were coincided with spawning and high water temperature. Histology also showed high prevalence of erosion in the digestive gland in June (36.0%) and September (56.4%), suggesting that high water temperature and spawning acted as environmental stressors. No parasitic organism was identified during the survey, although some symbiotic copepods were observed. Histology was found to be useful and affordable technique in monitoring the overall health of mussel, providing useful pathologic information of the cells and tissues.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2008

Purpose: Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are a group of proteins that are activated when cells are exposed to a variety of environmental stresses, such as infection, inflammation, exposure to toxins, starvation, hypoxia, brain injury, or water deprivation. The activation of HSPs by environmental stress plays a key role in signal transduction, including cytoprotection, molecular chaperone, anti-apoptotic effect, and anti-aging effects. However, the precise mechanism for the action of small HSPs, such as HSP27 and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs: extracellular-regulated protein kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), p38MAPK, stress-activated protein kinase/c-Jun N-terminal kinase (SAPK/JNK), is not completely understood, particularly in application of cell stimulators including platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), angiotensin II (AngII), tumor necrosis factor $\alpha$ (TNF$\alpha$), and $H_2O_2$. This study examined the relationship between stimulators-induced enzymatic activity of HSP27 and MAPKs from rat smooth and skeletal muscles. Methods: 2-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionizationtime-of-flight/time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF/TOF) analysis were used to identify HSP27 from the intact vascular smooth and skeletal muscles. Three isoforms of HSP27 were detected on silver-stained gels of the whole protein extracts from the rat aortic smooth and skeletal muscle strips. Results: The expression of PDGF, AngII, TNF$\alpha$, and $H_2O_2$-induced activation of HSP27, p38MAPK, ERK1/2, and SAPK/JNK was higher in the smooth muscle cells than the control. SB203580 (30${\mu}$M), a p38MAPK inhibitor, increased the level of HSP27 phosphorylation induced by stimulators in smooth muscle cells. Furthermore, the age-related and starvation-induced activation of HSP27 was higher in skeletal muscle cells (L6 myoblast cell lines) and muscle strips than the control. Conclusion: These results suggest, in part, that the activity of HSP27 and MAPKs affect stressors, such as PDGF, AngII, TNF$\alpha$, $H_2O_2$, and starvation in rat smooth and skeletal muscles. However, more systemic research will be needed into physical therapy, including thermotherapy, electrotherapy, radiotherapy and others.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.340-347
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• 2013

This paper studied the causes of job stress of driving crews working in Metropolitan Transit Authorities in Daejeon, Daegu, Seoul Metro Line 9, and Incheon, analyzing psychological, physical, and environmental factors, along withdriving crews' assignments. Regarding driving crews' assignments, it was found that driving crews had strong senses of obligation for their job, and hence their aptitude for their job was in accordance, and also it was found that most driving crews worked devotedly with a desirable occupational view and pride. However, psychological and physical factors that contributed to stress were identified: lack of sleep, high task burden, physical fatigue, and boring daily life. Furthermore, the driving crews' irregular working conditions and irregular meal time and burden related to on-time transit service with prolonged immobilization raised their stress levels. In terms of external environmental factors, it was found that driving crews' anxiety due to possible accidents caused a roughly four-fold increase in stress levels compared to other factors. Furthermore, personnel system and salary issue were also found to be closely related to the driving crews' job stress.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.6A
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• pp.965-976
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• 2006

A realistic lifetime seismic-reliability based approach is unavoidable to perform Life-Cycle Cost (LCC)-effective optimum design, maintenance, and retrofitting of structures against seismic risk. So far, though a number of researchers have proposed the LCC-based seismic design and retrofitting methodologies, most researchers have only focused on the methodological point. Accordingly, in most works, they have not been quantitatively considered critical factors such as the effects of seismic retrofit, maintenance, and environmental stressors on lifetime seismic reliability assessment of deteriorating structures. Thus, in this study, a systemic lifetime seismic reliability analysis methodology is proposed and a program HPYER-DRAIN2DX-DS is developed to perform the desired lifetime seismic reliability analysis. To demonstrate the applicability of the program, it is applied to an example bridge with or without seismic retrofit and maintenance strategies. From the numerical investigation, it may be positively stated that HYPER-DRAIN2DX-DS can be utilized as a useful numerical tool for LCC-effective optimum seismic design, maintenance, and retrofitting of bridges.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1A
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• pp.75-89
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• 2006

This paper presents a practical and realistic Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) optimum design methodology of steel bridges considering time effect of bridge reliability under environmental stressors such as corrosion and heavy truck traffics. The LCC functions considered in the LCC optimization consist of initial cost, expected life-cycle maintenance cost and expected life-cycle rehabilitation costs including repair/replacement costs, loss of contents or fatality and injury losses, road user costs, and indirect socio-economic losses. For the assessment of the life-cycle rehabilitation costs, the annual probability of failure which depends upon the prior and updated load and resistance histories should be accounted for. For the purpose, Nowak live load model and a modified corrosion propagation model considering corrosion initiation, corrosion rate, and repainting effect are adopted in this study. The proposed methodology is applied to the LCC optimum design problem of an actual steel box girder bridge with 3 continuous spans (40 m+50 m+40 m=130 m), and various sensitivity analyses of types of steel, local corrosion environments, average daily traffic volume, and discount rates are performed to investigate the effects of various design parameters and conditions on the LCC-effectiveness. From the numerical investigation, it has been observed that local corrosion environments and the number of truck traffics significantly influence the LCC-effective optimum design of steel bridges, and thus realized that these conditions should be considered as crucial parameters for the optimum LCC-effective design.