A full-year study of sickness absence was done on 148 workers in a bus company. 58.8% of the workers took one or more than one day of absence while 42.2% took no absence at all. Sickness absence rates were 1.64 spells per person, 2.26 days per person and mean length of spell was 1.38 days per spell. The figures were low compared with Western countries or Singapore. Indian had higher absence rates and bus drivers and conductors had less days and spells of absence than office staff and mechanics in the same company.
A total of 941 screening tests for HBV antigen and antibody were done. These included 342 male adults, 492 female adults and 107 children under 15 years. Most of them had no clinical symptoms. There were 18 cases of active hepatitis of various causes. Percentage of positive for HBsAg: adult male 12.3%, adult female 6.5%, children under 15 years 1.9%, overall 8.1%. Percentage of positive for anti-HBs antibody: 18.5%.
Study site: private laboratory, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
The plasma cholinesterase baseline levels in Malaysian workers are within the guidelines used. There is a need to carry out close monitoring of workers handling organophosphate s even in a well-run, modern factory where there are no hazards in the plant operation. Abnormal results are mainly because many of our workers are unaware of the health hazards and do not follow orders properly, ie personal hygiene, such as washing of hands before eating, etc. The use of temporary workers should be discouraged because of poor compliance with rules and difficulty in follow up. Product stewardship and education of farmers, sprayers and end users are of paramount importance. Finally there is a great need for educaiton of everyone from factory workers, farmers, sprayers to the general public.
The concept of "carrying capacity" has been widely used in various disciplines in reference to human-environment sustainability. No unified cognition exists regarding carrying capacity limits for humans. As a typical type of carrying capacity, the water environment carrying capacity (WECC) has been researched for human-water environment sustainability. However, most recent research has focused on the assessment of the water environment carrying capacity of a certain region or river basin. The detailed resilience potential of human-water environment systems that could improve the local water environment carrying capacity has not been systematically exploited. The key concerns of the existence of water environment carrying capacity limits and the exact value have not been addressed. This study first distinguished the characteristics of related concepts, such as carrying capacity, planetary boundaries, resilience, limitations, thresholds and tipping points. An analytical framework was then established to exploit the resilience potential from the four dimensions of "scale, structure, pattern and network". The economy scale with full use of the resilience potential is 11,511,880 M yuan under the current technology and development status, which is nearly 37 times that of the current scale of the economy. The analytical framework confirms that the limit on the water environment carrying capacity is a dynamic value, which could be changed from the four dimensions. The socioeconomic scale that the local water environment can support would be nearly unlimited in some extreme ideal situation. The results would provide some enlightenment on the carrying capacity and other similar marked concepts of theoretical research and provide support for human-environment sustainability.
Socket sclerosis is usually asymptomatic and does not require any treatment. The only potential complication arises during orthodontic treatment, wherein sclerosed socket of the premolar teeth may be an obstacle in closing the space by movement of teeth through the extraction space. This article demonstrates the problems encountered during the orthodontic treatment of a 20-year-old Malaysian woman with socket sclerosis and the treatment strategy employed to overcome the same.