This paper presents the results of a clinical, observational, descriptive study to quantify the use patterns of electronic cigarette users in their natural environment. Previously published work regarding puff topography has been widely indirect in nature, and qualitative rather than quantitative, with the exception of three studies conducted in a laboratory environment for limited amounts of time. The current study quantifies the variation in puffing behaviors among users as well as the variation for a given user throughout the course of a day. Puff topography characteristics computed for each puffing session by each subject include the number of subject puffs per puffing session, the mean puff duration per session, the mean puff flow rate per session, the mean puff volume per session, and the cumulative puff volume per session. The same puff topography characteristics are computed across all puffing sessions by each single subject and across all subjects in the study cohort. Results indicate significant inter-subject variability with regard to puffing topography, suggesting that a range of representative puffing topography patterns should be used to drive machine-puffed electronic cigarette aerosol evaluation systems.

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Any large-scale anthropogenic or natural disaster, such as a chemical spill, terrorist attack, fire, hurricane, or flooding, impacts human behavior and vehicle movement in the affected area. The response of the affected population is driven by available information about the event. However, inattentiveness to public announcements via vehicle radios, listening to other audio media, and an initial lack of reliable information in the chaotic moments immediately after a disaster will result in an uninformed or misinformed public. For example, the sudden and unannounced nature of a disaster often results in uncertainty with regard to geographic location and extent of the event, resulting in inaccurate information worsened by inattention to public communication. Therefore, the uncertainties and lack of attention to the initial public announcements exacerbate the initial emergency response effort. The question of how the communication network might enhance or diminish the proliferation of information that would facilitate the evacuation of the population must be addressed. Consequently, the authors created a simple model of interpersonal communication via cell phones and their respective personal contact networks to begin a study of the role and impact of information as it passed rapidly through personal communication channels as individuals share in the context of initial repetitive public information during an evolving disaster response. The model demonstrates that increasing the access to mobile phones can significantly improve the speed and degree of success of evacuations.