Prevalence and Population Attributable Risk for Chronic Airflow Obstruction in a Large Multinational Study

Rationale: The Global Burden of Disease programme identified smoking, and ambient and household air pollution as the main drivers of death and disability from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).Objective: To estimate the attributable risk of chronic airflow obstruction (CAO), a quantifiable characteristic of COPD, due to several risk factors.Methods: The Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease study is a cross-sectional study of adults, aged≥40, in a globally distributed sample of 41 urban and rural sites. Based on data from 28,459 participants, we estimated the prevalence of CAO, defined as a post-bronchodilator one-second forced expiratory volume to forced vital capacity ratio Measurements and Main Results: Mean prevalence of CAO was 11.2% in men and 8.6% in women. Mean PAR for smoking was 5.1% in men and 2.2% in women. The next most influential risk factors were poor education levels, working in a dusty job for ≥10 years, low body mass index (BMI), and a history of tuberculosis. The risk of CAO attributable to the different risk factors varied across sites.Conclusions: While smoking remains the most important risk factor for CAO, in some areas poor education, low BMI and passive smoking are of greater importance. Dusty occupations and tuberculosis are important risk factors at some sites

Cohort Profile: Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) study

The Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease (BOLD) study was established to assess the prevalence of chronic airflow obstruction, a key characteristic of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and its risk factors in adults (≥40 years) from general populations across the world. The baseline study was conducted between 2003 and 2016, in 41 sites across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, the Caribbean and Oceania, and collected high-quality pre- and post-bronchodilator spirometry from 28 828 participants. The follow-up study was conducted between 2019 and 2021, in 18 sites across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. At baseline, there were in these sites 12 502 participants with high-quality spirometry. A total of 6452 were followed up, with 5936 completing the study core questionnaire. Of these, 4044 also provided high-quality pre- and post-bronchodilator spirometry. On both occasions, the core questionnaire covered information on respiratory symptoms, doctor diagnoses, health care use, medication use and ealth status, as well as potential risk factors. Information on occupation, environmental exposures and diet was also collected

Acculturation of knowledge management initiative in commercial banks: the case of Malaysia

Banks merger and financial liberalization has urged that banks’ operation to be based on knowledge. It is deem crucial to identify the adoption of knowledge management initiative in Malaysian commercial banks particularly on Procurement and Empowerment of knowledge; Training and Mentorship; Communication; and Incentives. A survey employing questionnaires was carried out involving all 10 domestic commercial banks focussing on Human Resource Management units. Procurement and empowerment of knowledge (four aspects), training and mentorship (six aspects), communication (three aspects), and incentives (two aspects) were examined. It is evident that knowledge management practices do exist in all of the investigated aspects. The study reveals that banks do procure and utilise knowledge from their industrial associations, competitors, customers, and suppliers and also encourage staff to pursue education by giving incentives such as reimburse the fees for job-related courses. With respect to communication, written documents such as training manuals, job procedures and practices, and articles depicting organizational knowledge are addressed. In addition, financial and non-financial incentives are also practiced which indicate that incentives are also within the concern. It is believed, this study would motivate banks in Malaysia to acknowledge the knowledge management initiative as a new activity to embark on

Simulation of lamb wave interactions with defects in a thin plate

The understanding of Lamb wave propagation and its interaction with defects are crucial part of SHM technology. Being of high relevance due to the costs of experimental equipment, the dynamic finite element analysis is performed in this study. FEA analysis was implemented to simulate propagation of Lamb waves in healthy and defective aluminium plate. The wavefield visualisation shows a high degree of difference between these two plates, which shows the interaction with defects. This study is useful for a good understanding of the Lamb wave interaction with defect before applying this method for a real application

Healing effect of aloe vera gel, in non-healed ulcers

Objective: Aloe Vera gel (AVG) has a prominent role as a contemporary folk remedy. The Non-healed chronic ulcers of 16 non-responders to conventional treatment were treated with AVG for which the clinical efficacy was studied. Methods: This study included 16 patients having chronic ulcer (9 males and 7 females) with mean age of 41.8±14.6 who following failure treatment to conventional therapy, were dispensed AVG to apply. AVG is consisted from gel part of Aloe Vera plant plus one preservative material, in this study EGG jelly