There is no general agreement on the spirometric definition of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The global initiative for obstructive lung disease recommends a fixed ratio between forced expiratory volume in one-second (FEV1 ) and forced vital capacity (FVC) of 0·7.

Mass spectrometry is a fundamental tool for discovery and analysis in the life sciences. With the rapid advances in mass spectrometry technology and methods, it has become imperative to provide a standard output format for mass spectrometry data that will facilitate data sharing and analysis. Initially, the efforts to develop a standard format for mass spectrometry data resulted in multiple format

has a center frequency of 100MHz and a passband of 10MHz. The filter architecture is insensitive to parasitic capacitances, which allows for the implementation of bandpass filters over a very large frequency range. Intrinsic parasitic Q-enhancement techniques have been used, thus, obviating the need for any additional Q-tuning circuitry. The presented filter has small implementation losses with ch

This chapter begins by providing a general contextualisation of hate speech and the controversies around it. It then asks two questions: Is Holocaust denial a form of hate speech? If the answer is positive, should Holocaust denial be banned?The second section explains what is hate speech. The third section is concerned with the relationship between hate speech and hate crime. The fourth section di

The newly emerged pathogen, Candida auris, presents a serious threat to public health worldwide. This multidrug-resistant yeast often colonizes and persists on the skin of patients, can easily spread from person to person, and can cause life-threatening systemic infections. New antifungal therapies are therefore urgently needed to limit and control both superficial and systemic C. auris infectio

This chapter studies the entanglements of autobiographical writing with activism in the work of Hamed Farmand (1976–), an Iranian child rights activist who lives in the diaspora. Farmand spent five years of his childhood in 1980s Iran without his mother, who was a political prisoner during this period. As an adult, he began reflecting on this experience and writing about his life across different

Increasing evidence suggests that Lewy body disease (LBD) is associated with clinically important cardiac complications, including sick sinus syndrome, atrial fibrillation and sudden cardiac death. The high prevalence of sick sinus syndrome and atrial fibrillation in LBD suggests the presence of disease-related atrial conduction disorders. To explore whether LBD is associated with atrial conductio

Self-efficacy is tightly intertwined with person-centered care and correlates with engaging in self-care behaviors, an important part of hypertension treatment. Evidence indicates that e-Health-based self-management interventions could increase self-efficacy. The objectives of this study were to investigate whether an intervention with a person-centered approach supported by e-Health technology ca

Background: Gestational diabetes is one of the most common pregnancy complications, affecting 14% of all pregnancies globally, and its prevalence is increasing. Gestational diabetes is associated with short and long-term complications for both the mother and their offspring, which are possible to prevent by glycemic control mainly facilitated by healthy lifestyle behaviors. Hence, women diagnosed

Cardiovascular disease is multidimensional and new ideas are needed to develop the conventional risk factor paradigm that has been based on the Framingham Heart Study since more than 30 years. Traditional risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, hyperlipidemia and diabetes can only explain about 50% of the distribution of coronary heart disease whereas the inclusion of new risk markers or prote

Psychosocial stress in adulthood is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, possibly mediated by behavioural and physiological factors. However, it is unknown whether low stress resilience earlier in life is related to subsequent development of type 2 diabetes. We examined whether low stress resilience in late adolescence is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in adultho

It has often been recognized that a discrepancy exists during the clinical consultation between the chronological age of a patient on the one hand with the signs and symptoms of biological age that can be recorded on the other hand. In cardiovascular medicine this is obvious when a heavy smoker presents with features of early biological aging, for example skin appearance and impaired lung function

TCF7L2 harbors the variant with the strongest effect on type 2 diabetes (T2D) identified to date, yet the molecular mechanism as to how variation in the gene increases the risk for developing T2D remains elusive. The phenotypic changes associated with the risk genotype suggest that T2D arises as a consequence of reduced islet mass and/or impaired function, and it has become clear that TCF7L2 plays