scholarly journals Chronic Exposure to High Altitude and Job Burnout Among Chinese Military Personnel at Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: The Mediating Effect of Fatigue and Moderating Effect of Deployment Duration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi-hao Tu ◽  
Li Peng ◽  
Jing-wen He ◽  
Xing-hua Shen
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Chronic Exposure ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Job Burnout ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Low Altitude

Abstract Background: Job burnout among military personnel is associated with many negative consequence including depression, various forms of job withdrawal, and poor job performance. The present study aimed to investigate how chronic exposure to HA, fatigue, and deployment duration may influence burnout among Chinese military personnel. Methods: Military plateau drivers at Golmud (average altitude: 2,890m) as high altitude group (N = 194) and military drivers at Fuzhou (average altitude: 84m) as low altitude group (N = 190) completed the self-administrated questionnaires. Path analysis with ordinary least squares regression procedures were used to test the mediating effect of fatigue and moderating effect of deployment duration.Results: A simple mediation from altitude to burnout through fatigue was supported by the results. Military personnel at high altitude experienced severer fatigue than those at low altitude (B = 1.215, t = 4.303, p < 0.001), and fatigue in turn caused greater job burnout (B = 0.347, t = 6.132, p < 0.001). The mediating effect of fatigue was significant (M = 0.421, Boot LLCI = 0.207, Boot ULCI = 0.668) and explained 15.21% of the total effect of altitude on burnout. However, the moderating effects of deployment duration were not supported in the present study. Conclusion: The problem of job burnout among military personnel on the plateau may be diminished by relieving their mental and physical fatigue induced by chronic exposure to high altitude and increasing the number of vacation days away from plateau.

scholarly journals Effect of High-Altitude Environment on Driving Safety: A Study on Drivers’ Mental Workload, Situation Awareness, and Driving Behaviour

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Xinyan Wang ◽  
Wu Bo ◽  
Weihua Yang ◽  
Suping Cui ◽  
Pengzi Chu
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Situation Awareness ◽  
Mental Workload ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Driving Safety ◽  
Risky Driving ◽  
Driving Behaviour ◽  
Driving Risk ◽  
Low Altitude ◽  
The Relationship

This study aims to analyze the effect of high-altitude environment on drivers’ mental workload (MW), situation awareness (SA), and driving behaviour (DB), and to explore the relationship among those driving performances. Based on a survey, the data of 356 lowlanders engaging in driving activities at Tibetan Plateau (high-altitude group) and 341 lowlanders engaging in driving activities at low altitudes (low-altitude group) were compared and analyzed. The results suggest that the differences between the two groups are noteworthy. Mental workload of high-altitude group is significantly higher than that of low-altitude group, and their situation awareness is lower significantly. The possibility of risky driving behaviours for high-altitude group, especially aggressive violations, is higher. For the high-altitude group, the increase of mental workload can lead to an increase on aggressive violations, and the situation understanding plays a full mediating effect between mental workload and aggressive violations. Measures aiming at the improvement of situation awareness and the reduction of mental workload can effectively reduce the driving risk from high-altitude environment for lowlanders.

scholarly journals Coping with extremes: lowered myocardial phosphofructokinase activities and glucose content but increased fatty acids content in highland Eurasian Tree Sparrows

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Boyang Ding ◽  
Yuliang Zhao ◽  
Yanfeng Sun ◽  
Qian Zhang ◽  
Mo Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fatty Acid ◽  
High Altitude ◽  
Citrate Synthase ◽  
Substrate Utilization ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Metabolic Enzyme ◽  
Glucose Content ◽  
Metabolic Substrate ◽  
Physiological Adjustments ◽  
Low Altitude

Abstract Background Efficient and selective utilization of metabolic substrates is one of the key strategies in high-altitude animals to cope with hypoxia and hypothermia. Previous findings have shown that the energy substrate utilization of highland animals varies with evolutionary history and phylogeny. The heart is a proxy for the cardiopulmonary system, and the metabolic substrate utilization in the myocardium is also under the strong selective pressure of chronically hypoxic and hypothermic environments. However, little information is available on the physiological adjustments in relation to metabolic substrate utilization in the myocardium for coping with high-altitude environments. Methods We compared the metabolic enzyme activities, including hexokinase (HK), phosphofructokinase (PFK), pyruvate kinase (PK), citrate synthase (CS), carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1 (CPT-1), lactic dehydrogenase (LDH), and creatine kinase (CK), and metabolic substrate contents including glucose (Glu), triglyceride (TG), and free fatty acid (FFA) in the myocardium of a typical human commensal species, Eurasian Tree Sparrows (Passermontanus) between the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (the QTP, 3230 m) and low altitude population (Shijiazhuang, 80 m), and between sexes. Results Among the seven metabolic enzymes and three substrates investigated, we identified no significant differences in PK, CPT-1, HK, CS, LDH, and CK activities and TG content of the myocardium between high and low altitude populations. However, the QTP sparrows had significantly lower Glu content and PFK activities but higher FFA content relative to their lowland counterparts. In addition, male sparrows had higher myocardial HK and CS activities relative to females, independent of altitude. Conclusions Our results showed that the QTP sparrows elevated fatty acid utilization rather than glucose preference in the myocardium relative to lowland counterpart, which contributes to uncovering both the physiological adjustments for adapting to the extreme conditions of the QTP, intraspecifically.

scholarly journals De Novo Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Analyses Reveal the Ecological Adaptation of High-Altitude Bombus pyrosoma

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 631
Author(s):  
Yanjie Liu ◽  
Huiyue Zhao ◽  
Qihua Luo ◽  
Yadong Yang ◽  
Guangshuo Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Signaling Pathways ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Cold Temperatures ◽  
High Altitude Adaptation ◽  
Altitude Adaptation ◽  
Low Altitude ◽  
Upregulated Genes

Bombus pyrosoma is one of the most abundant bumblebee species in China, with a distribution range of very varied geomorphology and vegetation, which makes it an ideal pollinator species for research into high-altitude adaptation. Here, we sequenced and assembled transcriptomes of B. pyrosoma from the low-altitude North China Plain and the high-altitude Tibet Plateau. Subsequent comparative analysis of de novo transcriptomes from the high- and low-altitude groups identified 675 common upregulated genes (DEGs) in the high-altitude B. pyrosoma. These genes were enriched in metabolic pathways and corresponded to enzyme activities involved in energy metabolism. Furthermore, according to joint analysis with comparative metabolomics, we suggest that the metabolism of coenzyme A (CoA) and the metabolism and transport of energy resources contribute to the adaptation of high-altitude B. pyrosoma. Meanwhile, we found many common upregulated genes enriched in the Toll and immune deficiency (Imd)signaling pathways that act as important immune defenses in insects, and hypoxia and cold temperatures could induce the upregulation of immune genes in insects. Therefore, we suppose that the Toll and Imd signaling pathways also participated in the high-altitude adaptation of B. pyrosoma. Like other organisms, we suggest that the high-altitude adaptation of B. pyrosoma is controlled by diverse mechanisms.

scholarly journals Comparative transcriptomics of 3 high-altitude passerine birds and their low-altitude relatives

2019 ◽  
pp. 201819657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Hao ◽  
Ying Xiong ◽  
Yalin Cheng ◽  
Gang Song ◽  
Chenxi Jia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acid ◽  
High Altitude ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Amino Acid Substitutions ◽  
Passerine Birds ◽  
Specific Expression ◽  
Low Altitude ◽  
Specific Expression Pattern

High-altitude environments present strong stresses for living organisms, which have driven striking phenotypic and genetic adaptations. While previous studies have revealed multiple genetic adaptations in high-altitude species, how evolutionary history (i.e., phylogenetic background) contributes to similarity in genetic adaptations to high-altitude environments is largely unknown, in particular in a group of birds. We explored this in 3 high-altitude passerine birds from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and their low-altitude relatives in lowland eastern China. We generated transcriptomic data for 5 tissues across these species and compared sequence changes and expression shifts between high- and low-altitude pairs. Sequence comparison revealed that similarity in all 3 high-altitude species was high for genes under positive selection (218 genes) but low in amino acid substitutions (only 4 genes sharing identical amino acid substitutions). Expression profiles for all genes identified a tissue-specific expression pattern (i.e., all species clustered by tissue). By contrast, an altitude-related pattern was observed in genes differentially expressed between all 3 species pairs and genes associated with altitude, suggesting that the high-altitude environment may drive similar expression shifts in the 3 high-altitude species. Gene expression level, gene connectivity, and the interactions of these 2 factors with altitude were correlated with evolutionary rates. Our results provide evidence for how gene sequence changes and expression shifts work in a concerted way in a group of high-altitude birds, leading to similar evolution routes in response to high-altitude environmental stresses.

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