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Birth control pills are one of the synthetic steroid hormones used as pharmaceutical drugs that are believed to cause higher transgender cases in the environment today, thus causing more cancer risk, such as vaginal and breast cancer, to human populations. This research aims to detect the occurrence and quantify the concentration of three types of steroid hormones (progesterone, 17∝-ethynylestradiol and estrone) in the riverine and coastal environment. A method called dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction with solidification of floating organic drop followed by HPLC was used for hormone determination. Water samples were obtained through grab sampling along coastal and river courses. The results show a trend of hormone concentration, where progesterone had the highest occurrence, with total average of 0.11679 ± 0.08796 ng/mL, followed by 17∝ ethynylestradiol at 0.53329 ± 0.30904 ng/mL, while estrone showed the least frequency of concentration with total average of 0.02406 ± 0.00481 ng/mL.

Background and Objective: Sufficient amount of chlorine is needed to be maintained in the pool as not only the adult go for swimming but also children with more sensitive skin. This study was conducted to determine the presence of coliform group of bacteria which involved faecal coliform and Escherichia coli as microbial indicators for water quality contamination in the Sports Complex swimming pool water that is treated with chlorine disinfectant. Materials and Methods: Identification of faecal coliform and Escherichia coli were done through Membrane Filtration Method from APHA standard. The amount of free chlorine content in the swimming pool were also analyzed using HACH Spectrophotometer in order to relate the reactions of the supplied free chlorine towards the number of the microbial colonies inside the swimming pool. Results: The result shows that the outdoor swimming pool has a higher concentration for both faecal coliform and Escherichia coli compare to the indoor swimming pool and the highest concentration of faecal coliform can reached 266±64.65 CFU 100 mLG1 and Escherichia coli up to 113±57.40 CFU 100 mLG1 . This showed that coliform bacteria still presence in the swimming pool at the sports complex although it has been treated with chlorine disinfectant. In a meantime, for the free chlorine content it showed that the average concentration in outdoor pool were recorded lower at 0.492±0.531 mg LG1 which was way below the minimum limit 1.0 mg LG1 of the permissible NSPF standard, whereas indoor pool were recorded at 1.069±0.585 mg LG1 . Conclusion: The microbial presence and chlorine content in indoor swimming pool can be said more hygienic and cleaner to swim compare to the outdoor.

Heavy metals contamination in paddy field was conducted using Oryza sativa. Paddy soils and rice plants were sampled along seven transverse lines of the paddy field before the harvesting time. The paddy plants were separated into roots, stems, leaves and grains. Metal concentrations of the samples were carried out using ICP-OES Spectrometer machine OPTIMA 5300 DV. Metals enrichment factor and translocation were also measured in this study. The results showed that the plant roots of O. sativa accumulated relatively large amount of lead, cadmium, chromium and copper, while zinc highest in the stem. The correlation test showed that there was a strong correlation for zinc and cadmium concentrations in O. sativa with the paddy soil. Enrichment factor (EF) showed that lead, cadmium and copper were concentrated in the root of O. sativa, while chromium and zinc metals were more concentrated in the shoot part. Translocation factor (TF) showed that Oryza sativa was able to transfer zinc and chromium from root to the shoot part of O. sativa. O. sativa has the potential of being used for the phytoremediation of zinc and chromium from the paddy soil. Key words: Heavy metals, Oryza sativa, enrichment factor (EF), translocation factor (TF).

This paper aims to determine the relationship between carbon monoxide levels with vehicles, including types and motions of vehicles in a school traffic environment. Children are more vulnerable as they spend most of their time in school and their still-developing respiratory system makes them more susceptible to air pollution compared to adults. The research was carried out by direct measurement of carbon monoxide using MultiRAE Lite PGM-6208 and counting of vehicles manually using tally counter with different traffic flow scenarios, type of vehicles, school days, locations and in schools. From the findings, it is found that the measurements of carbon monoxide exposures were significantly greater in town schools compared to rural area; weekdays recorded much higher carbon dioxide levels compared to weekends; moving vehicles had stronger effects compared to idle vehicles; and light-duty vehicles (LDV) had highest among other types of vehicles. The results show a large impact of traffic management and transport mode on carbon monoxide exposures to school children in the schools.

The typical methods of treatment for acidic and metal contaminated water effluent such as the Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) will always focus on either civil engineering methods, such as disposal, excavation, drainage and encapsulation or process based technologies such as effluent washing and treatment. These techniques are not environmental friendly, costly and unsustainable, thus environmental damaging. Nowadays, there is a growing need for an alternative remediation treatment that is innovative and more natural in order to prevent pollution in the environment. Therefore, in this study, a new alternative treatment, that is more organic, biodegradable and cost effective, using bone meal was presented. In this research, bone meal comprising of chicken bones were used as an alternative passive treatment to determine its potential in neutralizing and removing heavy metals from the abandoned cooper mine, Mamut Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) waste water effluent. A pretreatment process for bone meal was performed by incineration process where it was heated up in the furnace at 500°C for 24 h after it was cleaned, crushed, boiled and dried. Batch experiment test has been carried out to test whether the selected bone meal sizes 45, 75 and 150 I¼m was able to neutralize the AMD Mamut water samples. Inductive Plasma Couple-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES) test was carried out to test the concentration of the heavy metals before and after the treatment. The surface morphology of bone meal was examined by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Enlargement of pores after the neutralization treatment was seen on the surface morphology of the bone meal by SEM analyses. A significant rising of pH from 2.98 to 5.69 within 6 h 30 min was observed during neutralization process and 99% removal of Fe, Zn, Al, Cu and 36% removal of Mg concentration was achieved after the treatment through the neutralization treatment of the AMD waste water effluent. The results from this study conclude that bone meal has the potential to neutralize and remove heavy metals from acidic and metal contaminated AMD waste water effluent.

Background: Indoor air quality (IAQ) in shopping malls is an interesting case of study since a shopping mall is a public place where people favor to spend their time. This study was conducted to investigate the IAQ of shopping malls in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, whereby three shopping malls were selected as investigation sites. Methods: The parameters being studied include particulate matter (PM0.3-∞, PM0.5-∞, PM2-∞ and PM5-∞) and ozone. Indoor and outdoor air measurements were performed in the three shopping malls on weekdays and weekends to determine the I/O ratios. Results: In this study, overall average indoor PM concentrations on weekends were higher than weekdays, reaching maxima average concentrations of 421.44 ± 102.96 µg/m3 for PM0.3-∞, 41.75 ± 15.54 µg/m3 for PM0.5-∞, 1.30 ± 0.41 µg/m3 for PM2-∞, and 0.21 ± 0.09 µg/m3 for PM5-∞. Correlation between indoor and outdoor PM concentrations mostly showed poor relationship in the three shopping malls, showing that indoor sources such as re-suspension phenomena due to occupant's activities were clearly the main contributors to indoor PM concentrations. Poor ventilation system also affected IAQ by increasing the PM accumulation. However, I/O ratios were often less than 1.0, indicating that PM in indoor air arises predominantly from outdoor air transported to indoors. Average indoor ozone concentration at all the shopping malls was measured to be below the 0.05 ppm of ICOP-IAQ 2010. Conclusion: The overall assessment of IAQ in the three shopping malls showed that SM2 has a better IAQ compared to SM1 and SM3.