Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is a serious threat to public health, and a significant cause of lung cancer and heart disease among non-smokers. Even though Greek hospitals have been declared smoke free since 2002, smoking is still evident. Keeping the above into account, the aim of this study was to quantify the levels of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and to estimate the attributed lifetime excess heart disease and lung cancer deaths per 1000 of the hospital staff, in a large Greek public hospital. Environmental airborne respirable suspended particles (RSP) of PM2.5 were performed and the personnel’s excess mortality risk was estimated using risk prediction formulas. Excluding the intensive care unit and the operating theatres, all wards and clinics were polluted with environmental tobacco smoke. Mean SHS-RSP measurements ranged from 11 to 1461 μg/m³ depending on the area. Open wards averaged 84 μg/m³ and the managing wards averaged 164 μg/m³ thus giving an excess lung cancer and heart disease of 1.12 (range 0.23-1.88) and 11.2 (range 2.3–18.8) personnel in wards and 2.35 (range 0.55-12.2) and 23.5 (range 5.5–122) of the managing staff per 1000 over a 40-year lifespan, respectively. Conclusively, SHS exposure in hospitals in Greece is prevalent and taking into account the excess heart disease and lung cancer mortality risk as also the immediate adverse health effects of SHS exposure, it is clear that proper implementation and enforcement of the legislation that bans smoking in hospitals is imperative to protect the health of patients and staff alike. Full article

Selected Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emitted from various anthropogenic sources including industries and motor vehicles act as primary precursors of ozone, while some VOC are classified as air toxic compounds. Significantly large VOC emission sources impact the air quality in Corpus Christi, Texas. This urban area is located in a semi-arid region of South Texas and is home to several large petrochemical refineries and industrial facilities along a busy ship-channel. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has setup two continuous ambient monitoring stations (CAMS 633 and 634) along the ship channel to monitor VOC concentrations in the urban atmosphere. The hourly concentrations of 46 VOC compounds were acquired from TCEQ for a comprehensive source apportionment study. The primary objective of this study was to identify and quantify the sources affecting the ambient air quality within this urban airshed. Principal Component Analysis/Absolute Principal Component Scores (PCA/APCS) was applied to the dataset. PCA identified five possible sources accounting for 69% of the total variance affecting the VOC levels measured at CAMS 633 and six possible sources affecting CAMS 634 accounting for 75% of the total variance. APCS identified natural gas emissions to be the major source contributor at CAMS 633 and it accounted for 70% of the measured VOC concentrations. The other major sources identified at CAMS 633 included flare emissions (12%), fugitive gasoline emissions (9%), refinery operations (7%), and vehicle exhaust (2%). At CAMS 634, natural gas sources were identified as the major source category contributing to 31% of the observed VOC. The other sources affecting this site included: refinery operations (24%), flare emissions (22%), secondary industrial processes (12%), fugitive gasoline emissions (8%) and vehicle exhaust (3%). Full article

Long term exposure to solvents and air pollutants can lead to deleterious effects on respiratory, haematological and thyroid functioning. The aim of this study was to investigate whether chronic exposure to solvents like benzene and pollutants like carbon monoxide in petrol filling workers had adverse effect on blood parameters, thyroid and respiratory functions. The study group consisted of 42 healthy, non-smoker petrol filling workers, aged 20-50 years with work (exposure) duration from 2-15 years while 36 healthy subjects of the same age group served as controls. Physical examination and measurement of pulmonary functions by portable electronic spirometer were performed. Complete blood pictures (CBP) were determined by normal haematology lab procedure and hormones by Chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) light absorption techniques. There was a significant decrease in the lung volumes and capacities; the restrictive pattern was more prevalent in the workers when compared with the control groups. But in the workers exposed for long period (more than 10 years) the restrictive pattern was changed to mixed pattern. A significant increase in haemoglobin (Hb) (>16 mg %) and red blood cells (RBC) (5.4 million cells/mm³) were observed in workers with longer period of exposure when compared with the control subjects (14.483 mg% and 4.83 million cells/mm³ for Hb and RBC respectively). White blood cell count except eosinophils and platelets were significantly lower in workers compared to controls. Marked increase in the tetra iodothyroinine (T4), free thyroxine (T4F) level and significant decrease in thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH), and tri-iodothyronine (T3) were observed between long term exposed and non – exposed groups. Till now researchers focused only on the effect of solvents in workers professionally exposed to solvents without considering the effect of concomittant air pollution. The result obtained from present study indicates that there is a significant toxic effect of solvents and air pollutants on workers exposed for longer duration. Improved detection and prevention technologies are needed to answer environmentally related health questions for petrol filling workers. Full article

We have studied the effect of simultaneous oral treatment of aqueous garlic extract (Allium sativum) on heavy metal (nickel II and chromium VI) induced changes in serum lipid profile. Nickel sulfate and potassium dichromate treated rats showed a significant increase in serum low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), very low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (VLDL-C) and triglyceride (TG) level as well as decrease in serum high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) level. Simultaneous garlic administration with nickel sulfate showed improvement in serum LDL-C, HDL-C, VLDL-C and TG level. But in case of potassium dichromate, garlic administration did not show satisfactory improvement in lipid profile except VLDL-C and TG level. The results indicate that garlic (Allium sativum) has some beneficial effect in preventing heavy metal (nickel and chromium VI) induced alteration of lipid profile. Full article

This study was carried out in the summer of 2005 and investigated all of active public swimming pools (85 out of 93) in Amman, the capital of Jordan. The aim of this study was to find out if these swimming pools are in compliance with Jordanian Standards for Swimming Pools Water (JS 1562/2004). The pools were surveyed against the water microbial quality and other physicochemical parameters indicated in the standards. Two samples from each pool were collected for microbial analysis and pools monitoring were carried out during the afternoon of the weekends when the pools are most heavily used. The results indicated overall poor compliance with the standards. Compliance of the pools water to the microbial parameters was 56.5%, for residual chlorine 49.4%, for pH 87.7%, water temperature 48.8%, and bathing load 70.6%. The results also indicated that water microbial quality deteriorated with time. Multivariate analysis showed significant association of water contamination with time of sample collection, residual chlorine, water temperature and load of swimmers. The poor compliance was attributed to lack of proper disinfection, staff training, proper maintenance, and timely inspection. Full article

Tumkur Taluk is located in the southeastern corner of Karnataka state between 13º 06'30" to 13º 31' 00" North latitude and 76º 59' 00" to 77º 19' 00" East Longitude. The Taluk spreads over an area of 1043 sq.km falling within the semiarid region and frequently facing water scarcity as well as quality problems. The major sources of employment are agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry, engaging almost 80% of the workforce. Water samples are collected from 269 stations during pre-monsoon and 279 locations during post-monsoon of the year 2006, and were subjected to analysis for chemical characteristics. The type of water that predominates in the study area is Ca-Mg-HCO3 type during both preand post-monsoon seasons of the year 2006, based on hydro-chemical facies. Besides, suitability of water for irrigation is evaluated based on sodium adsorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate, sodium percent, salinity hazard and USSL diagram. Full article

The objectives of the study were to monitor and assess the road traffic noise in its spatial-temporal aspect in an urban area. The paper discusses the observations, results and their interpretation based on the study. Noise recordings from site, collected from April 2006 to March 2006, were used for statistical analysis and generation of various noise indices. Noise maps were also created for impact analysis and formulation of Noise Risk Zones. Mean Ldn value ranged between 55.1 and 87.3 dB (A). Day time Leq level ranged between 51.2 and 89.0 dB (A), where it ranged between 43.5 and 81.9 dB (A) during night. The study reveals that present noise level in all the locations exceeds the limit prescribed by CPCB. Based on the finding it can be said that the population in this industrial town are exposed to significantly high noise level, which is caused mostly due to road traffic. Full article

The ability of domestic cooking gas to induce hepatotoxicity and clastogenicity in mice was studied. The mice were exposed to domestic gas for twenty-one days at doses of 100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg and 300 mg/kg respectively. The positive control group of mice were given sodium arsenite intraperitoneously at a dose of 2.5mg/kg body weight. While the negative control group had only distilled water, sodium arsenite significantly (p < 0.05) induced the formation of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes (mPCEs), serum and liver gamma glutamyl transferase (γGT) and alkaline phosphatase (AP) activities respectively as compared with the observations made in the negative control group. Similarly, the domestic gas significantly (p<0.05) induced mPCEs formation, serum and liver, γGT and AP activities. The degree of induction was in the order of 100 mg/kg < 200 mg/kg < 300 mg/kg. However, when compared with the positive control group, the domestic cooking gas at the tested doses was not as potent as sodium arsenite in its ability to induce enzyme activity and mPCEs formation. Limited histopathological analysis of liver samples from treated and untreated mice showed distended blood vessels, necrosis and hepatocellular degeneration in the groups treated with high doses of domestic gas or sodium arsenite as compared with the untreated group. Our findings suggest that the domestic cooking gas has some degree of clastogenic and hepatotoxic activities in mice. Health risks may therefore be associated with long-term occupational and / or domestic exposure in humans. Full article

Electrocoagulation (EC) is an electrochemical technique which has been employed in the treatment of various kinds of wastewater. In this work the potential use of EC for the treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME) was investigated. In a laboratory scale, POME from a factory site in Chumporn Province (Thailand) was subjected to EC using aluminum as electrodes and sodium chloride as supporting electrolyte. Results show that EC can reduce the turbidity, acidity, COD, and BOD of the POME as well as some of its heavy metal contents. Phenolic compounds are also removed from the effluent. Recovery techniques were employed in the coagulated fraction and the recovered compounds was analysed for antioxidant activity by DPPH method. The isolate was found to have a moderate antioxidant activity. From this investigation, it can be concluded that EC is an efficient method for the treatment of POME. Full article