Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders,Job Stressors and Gender Responses in Foundry Industry

The main aim of this paper was to identify job stressors, gender responses and association of psychosocial work stressors with prevalence of work related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among foundry workers. The data were obtained with ergonomics checklist using Likert scale. The results of this study showed a high prevalence of MSDs among workers. The male workers were more prone to pain in neck while the female workers were more prone to MSDs in upper back and shoulders. Correlation analysis showed significant relationship of dimensions of work aspects with pain and discomfort. It proved that the work-related MSDs are the results of interaction of multiple stressors associated with work and work environment, and other personal factors. ANOVA indicated that the perception of work aspects as stressors differed significantly between male and female workers.     

PROFILE: Risk Assessment as an Environmental Management Tool: Considerations for Freshwater Wetlands

/ This paper presents a foundation for improving the risk assessmentprocess for freshwater wetlands. Integrating wetland science, i.e., use of anecosystem-based approach, is the key concept. Each biotic and abiotic wetlandcomponent should be identified and its contribution to ecosystem functionsand societal values determined when deciding whether a stressor poses anunreasonable risk to the sustainability of a particular wetland.Understanding the major external and internal factors that regulate theoperational conditions of wetlands is critical to risk characterization.Determining the linkages between these factors, and how they influence theway stressors affect wetlands, is the basis for an ecosystem approach.Adequate consideration of wetland ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, andsoils can greatly reduce the level of uncertainty associated with riskassessment and lead to more effective risk management. In order to formulateeffective solutions, wetland problems must be considered at watershed,landscape, and ecosystem scales. Application of an ecosystem approach can begreatly facilitated if wetland scientists and risk assessors work together todevelop a common understanding of the principles of both disciplines.KEY WORDS: Ecological risk assessment; Freshwater wetlands;Environmental pollution; Chemical stressors; Physical stressors; Biologicalstressors     

So far,so good: Up to now,the challenge–hindrance framework describes a practical and accurate distinction

There are many ways to categorize work‐related stressors, and in recent years, a common distinction in occupational health psychology is between stressors viewed as challenges versus hindrances. Is this a useful conceptualization that provides practical and theoretical implications for IO psychologists? As Kurt Lewin famously prescribed, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory,” and we discuss the challenge–hindrance framework as a developing theory that can be useful for researchers and practitioners. We note that some of the early thinking and development of the challenge–hindrance distinction relied on both resource and appraisal theories of stress. Overall, we find that the challenge–hindrance distinction can be viewed as a framework that is useful by producing interesting, valuable, and innovative research. Simply striving to find meaningful and useful categorizations of stressors can lead us to discover new insights into the occupational stress domain, and the challenge–hindrance categories have already spurred a great deal of research.     

Using Temporal Coherence to Determine the Response to Climate Change in Boreal Shield Lakes

Climate change is expected to have important impacts on aquatic ecosystems. On the Boreal Shield, mean annual air temperatures are expected to increase 2 to 4°C over the next 50 years. An important challenge is to predict how changes in climate and climate variability will impact natural systems so that sustainable management policies can be implemented. To predict responses to complex ecosystem changes associated with climate change, we used long-term biotic databases to evaluate how important elements of the biota in Boreal Shield lakes have responded to past fluctuations in climate. Our long-term records span a two decade period where there have been unusually cold years and unusually warm years. We used coherence analyses to test for regionally operating controls on climate, water temperature, pH, and plankton richness and abundance in three regions across Ontario: the Experimental Lakes Area, Sudbury, and Dorset. Inter-annual variation in air temperature was similar among regions, but there was a weak relationship among regions for precipitation. While air temperature was closely related to lake surface temperatures in each of the regions, there were weak relationships between lake surface temperature and richness or abundance of the plankton. However, inter-annual changes in lake chemistry (i.e., pH) were correlated with some biotic variables. In some lakes in Sudbury and Dorset, pH was dependent on extreme events. For example, El Nino related droughts resulted in acidification pulses in some lakes that influenced phytoplankton and zooplankton richness. These results suggest that there can be strong heterogeneity in lake ecosystem responses within and across regions.     

Changes in Lumbriculus variegatus metabolites under hypoxic exposure to benzo(a)pyrene,chlorpyrifos and pentachlorophenol: Consequences on biotransformation

The regulation of endogenous metabolites is still not fully understood in aquatic invertebrates exposed concurrently to toxicants and hypoxia. Despite the prevalence of hypoxia in the aquatic environment, toxicity estimations seldom account for multiple stressors thereby differing from natural conditions. In this study, we examined the influence of hypoxia (<30% O₂) on contaminant uptake and the composition of intracellular metabolites in Lumbriculus variegatus exposed to benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P, 3 μg L⁻¹), chlorpyrifos (CPF, 100 μg L⁻¹) or pentachlorophenol (PCP, 100 μg L⁻¹). Tissue extracts of worms were analyzed for 123 metabolites by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and metabolite levels were then related to treatments and exposure time. Hypoxia markedly increased the accumulation of B(a)P and CPF, which underlines the significance of oxygen in chemical uptake. The oxygen effect on PCP uptake was less pronounced. Succinate and glycerol-3-phosphate increased significantly (p < 0.0001) following hypoxic treatment, whereas sugars, cysteine, and cholesterol were effectively repressed. The buildup of succinate coupled with the corresponding decline in intracellular 2-oxo- and 2-hydroxy glutaric acid is indicative of an active hypoxia inducible factor mechanism. Glutamate, and TCA cycle intermediates (fumarate, and malate) were disturbed and evident in their marked suppression in worms exposed concurrently to hypoxia and PCP. Clearly, hypoxia was the dominant stressor for individuals exposed to B(a)P or CPF, but to a lesser extent upon PCP treatment. And since oxygen deprivation promotes the accumulation of different toxicants, there may be consequences on species composition of metabolites in natural conditions.     

Assessing the nature of the combined effects of copper and zinc on estuarine infaunal communities

Elevated levels of copper and zinc in sediment have been shown to adversely affect estuarine infauna. We investigated the additivity of the combined effects of copper and zinc on infaunal recolonisation through a manipulative field experiment in Orewa estuary, New Zealand, using defaunated sediment discs treated with these metals. The nature of their combined effects varied among infaunal taxa and the particular variables being examined. Additive effects were detected for species richness, for the mean log abundances of the polychaetes Prionospio sp. and Scoloplos cylindrifer and for the multivariate response of the community as a whole. Antagonistic effects were detected for the mean log abundances of total infauna and the polychaete Heteromastus sp. Characterising the potentially interactive nature of the combined effects of multiple heavy metals is essential in order to build predictive models of future environmental impacts of metal accumulation in estuarine sediments.     

Ants as Indicators of Exposure to Environmental Stressors in North American Desert Grasslands

The relative abundance of ant species was measured by pit-fall trapping at 44 sites in southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona, U.S.A.. Sites were selected for study based on documentation of a history of disturbance or protection from disturbance, exposure to varying intensities of livestock grazing, dominance by an exotic species of plant and vegetation change resulting from disturbance or restoration efforts. Ant community composition, relative abundances of species, and species richness were the same on disturbed and undisturbed sites. None of the metrics based on hypothesized responses of ants to disturbance clearly distinguished between disturbed and undisturbed sites. Ant communities on sites where restoration efforts have resulted in distinct differences in vegetative cover and composition were similar to the ant communities on degraded unrehabilitated sites on the same soil type. Ant communities in riparian cottonwood gallery forests in Arizona and New Mexico were similar but differed from the assemblages in exotic salt cedar and native ash riparian woodlands. Ant species exhibited remarkable resistance to human-induced disturbances in these rangeland areas. In grasslands dominated by the South African grass, Eragrostis lehmanniana Nees, large seed harvesting ants, Pogonomyrmex spp., were greatly reduced in abundance compared to native grasslands. Other ant metrics were not different in E. lehmanniana grasslands and native grasslands. We conclude that ants cannot be used as indicators of exposure to stress, ecosystem health or of rehabilitation success on rangeland ecosystems. Ants are also not useful indicators of faunal biodiversity in rangeland ecosystems.     

全球变暖环境下基于金属媒介的气候敏感性研究：对一种典型两栖动物的早期和潜在影响

尽管有很多复杂的模型预测了未来温度对变温动物的影响,广泛分布的亚致命性污染物对变温动物的热应激反应产生的影响却少有模型提及。由不断上升的温度所带来更高的代谢率可以让变温动物获利地加快代谢与发育,但在长期亚致命性污染物的存在下,因清除或解毒而导致的对生存资源的额外需求很可能使得生物难以跟上温度上升的步伐,即毒物诱导的气候敏感性假说。在以自然湖水为背景的室外生物鉴定中,我们调查了一种模式变温动物在6个不同浓度的镉、铜和铅混合物以及3个热动态下(环境温度,高于环境温度1.5摄氏度以及高于环境温度2.5摄氏度)的日周期性温度变化。金属浓度在大约10倍生物可利用性慢性标准单位 (BCCU,慢性标准浓度的生物可利用性比例总和)之下时,升温对于寇普氏树蛙(Hyla chrysoscelis)没有显著作用。在高于10倍BCCU以及高于环境温度1.5摄氏度的处理条件下,生长受到促进。相反地,在28倍BCCU以及升温2.5摄氏度的条件下,不仅生长情况收到抑制,变态后20 d未成年树蛙的身体状况指标相比于背景环境(环境温度下的湖水)中的未成年树蛙也要低34%。这些发现认为毒物诱导的气候敏感性是通过对青少年阶段的生物产生长期潜在的影响而实现的。在22世纪,即使在最保守的全球变暖预测模型下,亚致命性污染物依然会加剧变温动物所遭受的来自升温的影响。
精选自Tyler A. Hallman, Marjorie L. Brooks. Metals-mediated climate susceptibility in a warming world: larval and latent effects on a model amphibian. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: Volume 35, Issue 7, pages 1872–1882, July 2016. DOI: 10.1002/etc.3337
详情请见http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.3337/full
     

Using cumulative human-impact models to reveal global threat patterns for seahorses

Understanding threats acting on marine organisms and their conservation status is vital but challenging given a paucity of data. We studied the cumulative human impact (CHI) on and conservation status of seahorses (Hippocampus spp.)—a genus of rare and data-poor marine fishes. With expert knowledge and relevant spatial data sets, we built linear-additive models to assess and map the CHI of 12 anthropogenic stressors on 42 seahorse species. We examined the utility of indices of estimated impact (impact of each stressor and CHI) in predicting conservation status for species with random forest (RF) models. The CHI values for threatened species were significantly higher than those for nonthreatened species (category based on International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List). We derived high-accuracy RF models (87% and 96%) that predicted that 5 of the 17 data-deficient species were threatened. Demersal fishing practices with high bycatch and pollution were the best predictors of threat category. Major threat epicenters were in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Our results and maps of CHI may help guide global seahorse conservation and indicate that modeling and mapping human impacts can reveal threat patterns and conservation status for data-poor species. We found that for exploring threat patterns of focal species, species-level CHI models are better than existing ecosystem-level CHI models.