BackgroundAlthough e-cigarette excise taxes have great potential to prevent the initiation and escalation of e-cigarette use, little information is available on pricing activities of online vape shops, and how well taxation is implemented during web-based sales remains unclear.ObjectivesWe examine e-liquid pricing activities in popular online vape shops that sell nationwide in the USA and present how those stores charge excise taxes based on shipping addresses in states and local jurisdictions that have e-cigarette taxation in place.MethodsWe collect e-liquid sales prices from five online vape shops using web data extraction, standardise prices for e-liquid products, and present e-liquid price distribution in the whole sample and in each store, as well as variations of excise taxes across states/local jurisdictions and between stores. The price data were scraped from the store websites from February to May in 2021.ResultsWe collected data on 14 477 e-liquid products from five stores. The average price of e-liquids is $0.25/mL, and the median price is $0.20/mL in our sample. E-liquid products sold online are very affordable and the average prices are lower compared with price estimates using other sources (eg, self-reports, sales data). In addition, online stores charge state excise taxes inconsistently and fail to comply with county-level or city-level excise taxes.ConclusionE-liquid products sold online are priced low, and stricter enforcement of e-cigarette excise tax is needed in online purchasing channels.
Given the increase in electronic cigarette use during the past decade, the objectives of this study are to obtain comprehensive product-level information from online vape shops, which are one of the most common outlets for e-cigarette users to purchase vaping products, especially e-liquid products, and to examine the appeal of various e-liquid product attributes to consumers. We used web scraping and estimation of generalized estimating equation (GEE) models to obtain and analyze data from five popular online vape shops that sell nationwide across the US. The outcome measures are e-liquid pricing for the following e-liquid product attributes: nicotine concentration (in mg/ml), nicotine form (nicotine-free, freebase, or salt), vegetable glycerin/propylene glycol (VG/PG) ratio, and a variety of flavors. We find that the pricing for freebase nicotine and nicotine salt products are 1% (p<0.001) lower and 12% higher (p<0.001), respectively, than that for products that do not contain nicotine. For nicotine salt-based e-liquid products specifically, the pricing for a 50/50 VG/PG ratio is 10% (p<0.001) higher than the pricing for a more common 70/30 VG/PG ratio, and the pricing for fruity flavors is 2% (p<0.05) higher than that for tobacco/unflavored products. Regulating the nicotine form in all e-liquid products and fruity flavor in nicotine salt-based products will have a great impact on the market and consumers. The preference for VG/PG ratio varies by product nicotine form. More evidence on typical user patterns of a certain nicotine form (i.e., freebase or salt nicotine) is needed to assess the public health consequences of these regulations.
Objective: This study aimed to examine whether a 12-week small-dose lanthanum carbonate (LaCO3; 500 mg/d) treatment could improve calcium and phosphorus metabolism and parathyroid function in Asian patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) under hemodialysis. Methods: This was a prospective observational study of patients treated at our Hospital between 10/2014 and 02/2015. The patients were given 500 mg/d of LaCO3 with lunch for 12 weeks. Results: Baseline and after 12-week treatment serum phosphorus levels were 2.49±0.51 mmol/L and 1.65±0.34 mmol/L (P<0.001). The baseline and after 12-week treatment calcium×phosphorus product were 69.40±17.34 mg2/dL2 and 44.27±9.67 mg2/dL2 (P<0.001). There was no significant difference in serum calcium and iPTH levels from baseline to after 12 weeks treatment (both P>0.05). Fourteen (25.9%) patients developed gastrointestinal adverse reactions to LaCO3and 10 patients improved after treatment. Conclusion: Far below the 1.5-3.0g/d required by the drug instructions, LaCO3 500 mg/d for 12 weeks can still reduce serum phosphorus level and calcium × phosphorus product, without serum calcium and iPTH levels increase. Keywords: Low dose; Lanthanum carbonate; Hyperphosphatemia; End-stage renal disease; Hemodialysis; Asian.
Background: Retailer price promotions are an important marketing strategy to attract consumers. However, there is scarce evidence on how retail price promotions are being implemented by e-cigarette online stores, particularly for e-liquid products that are not often found in brick-and-mortar stores and sold in lower prices compared to other types of e-cigarettes. Objectives: We collect data on e-liquid price-promotion activities from online stores using web scraping. From February to May 2021, we scraped the price promotion data of over 14,000 e-liquid products, from five popular online vape shops that sell nationwide in the US. We present descriptive analyses of price promotion on those products, assess price promotion practices in online stores, and discuss components of the final purchase price paid by online customers. Findings: Of the 14,000 e-liquid products and over, 13,326 (92.36%) were on sale, and each online store on average offered discounts from 9.20% to 47.53% for these products. The distribution of the after-discount price was largely similar across the five stores, and there is evidence that each store had adopted different price-promotion strategies. Conclusion: Despite low prices, price promotions are common for e-liquid products, which may undermine the effect of e-cigarette pricing policies such as excise tax that are designed to raise e-cigarette prices.
Ionic liquids (ILs) excel in extractive distillation (ED) for the separation of binary azeotropes due to their unique physical and chemical properties. However, the mechanism of action of ILs in azeotropes is unclear, and the present-day mechanistic studies have been conducted at specific concentrations. In this work, the formation and separation process of azeotropes and the phase behavior of each component at different component concentrations were studied microscopically by quantum chemistry (QC) calculations, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, and process simulation. The hydrogen-bond donor− acceptor connection between solvents was outlined using the COSMO-SAC model. By using QC to evaluate the hydrogen-bond interaction between ethanol and ILs, the optimal extractant [Dmim][Ac] was chosen. The phase behavior of different concentrations of ILs with ethanol and cyclohexane was further investigated by MD. The two-dimensional atomic number density distribution (ANDD) instinctively indicates the mixing behavior and structural distribution of the cyclohexane−ethanol−ILs ternary system at the atomic level. The radial distribution function (RDF) and spatial distribution function (SDF) showed that the interaction between anions and ethanol in ILs was the strongest, and the amount of ILs had a significant impact on the cations throughout the separation procedure. Although anions have a strong attraction to cyclohexane and ethanol, this effect is not sensitive to the concentration of ILs. Aspen Plus V12 was used to simulate the separation of the cyclohexane−ethanol azeotropic system in the industrial process, and the feasibility of ILs as an extractant was verified. This work provides theoretical guidance for the study of the ED mechanism and solvent selection.
BACKGROUND Identifying the existing brands in the e-cigarette market in the US is key to calculating the market share of different companies and their market power. OBJECTIVE To provide a database of e-cigarette brands to expedite e-cigarette market surveillance and help policymakers monitor market changes following regulatory actions. METHODS To facilitate the surveillance of the e-cigarette market and various product types that exist, we created a semantic database of e-cigarette brand names of 2020-2022 from multiple data sources, including: e-liquid brand data from online vape shops collected in 2021; disposable e-cigarette brand data from online vape shops collected in 2022; e-cigarette brand information from 2020 Nielsen Retail Scanner Data; a pre-existing list of e-cigarette brands on Wikipedia; self-reported brands from e-cigarette users in the US who participated in the 2020 International Tobacco Control Four-Country Smoking and Vaping (ITC 4CV) survey; and e-cigarette brands on Twitter from May 2021 to December 2021, published by Tang et al (2022). RESULTS In total, we identify 907 brands in our database that sell a variety of e-cigarette products through different channels (e.g., brick-and-mortar stores or online), such as e-liquids, pods/cartridges, disposables, devices, and starter kits. We also observe and document the top five e-cigarette brands by sales volume in counts in brick-and-mortar stores during 2020, the top five e-liquid brands by product frequency counts available in five popular online vape shops in 2021, as well as the top five e-cigarette brands by frequency counts in self-reported data from the ITC 4CV US 2020 survey. CONCLUSIONS Continuous monitoring of existing e-cigarette brands is crucial for e-cigarette market surveillance, and our semantic database can serve as a useful research tool to assess manufacturers’ marketing behaviors.
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