High blood cholesterol levels can cause hardening of the arteries at a younger age. For many people, high cholesterol levels are the result of an unhealthy lifestyle -- most commonly, eating a diet that is high in fat. Other risk factors are heavy alcohol use, lack of exercise, and being overweight.
Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition: Comparator. In electronics, a comparator is a device that compares two voltages or currents and switches its output to indicate which is larger. They are commonly used in devices such as analog-to-digital converters.
A continuous comparator will output either a 1 or a 0 any time a high or low signal is applied to its input and will change quickly when the inputs are updated. However, many applications only require comparator outputs at certain instances, such as in A/D converters and memory.