A-26771 E

Background: Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use has increased substantially in recent years. While e-cigarettes have been proposed as a potentially effective smoking cessation tool, dualuse in smokers is common and e-cigarettes are widely used by non-smokers, including youth and young-adult non-smokers. Nicotine, the primary addictive component in cigarettes, is present at varying levels in many e-liquids. E-cigarettes may lead to initiation of nicotine use in adult and youth non-smokers, re-initiation of nicotine dependence in ex-smokers or increased severity of nicotine dependence in dual-users of cigarettes and e-cigarettes. As such, there are important clinical and policy implications to understanding factors impacting nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes. However, the broad and rapidly changing range of e-liquid constituents and e-cigarette hardware which could impact nicotine exposure presents a challenge. Recent changes in regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes underscore the importance of synthesizing current knowledge on common factors which may impact nicotine exposure. Methods: This review focuses on factors which may impact nicotine exposure by changing e-cigarette use behavior, puff topography, altering the nicotine yield (amount of nicotine exiting the e-cigarette mouth piece including nicotine exhaled as vapor) or more directly by altering nicotine absorption and bioavailability. Results: Topics reviewed include e-liquid components or characteristics including flavor additives (e.g., menthol), base e-liquid ingredients (propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin), components commonly used to dissolve flavorants (e.g., ethanol), and resulting properties of the e-liquid (e.g., pH), e-cigarette device characteristics (e.g., wattage, temperature, model) and user behavior (e.g., puff topography) which may impact nicotine exposure. Conclusion: E-liquid characteristics and components, e-cigarette hardware and settings, and user behavior can all contribute substantially to nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes.

In this work, we derive general expansions in vibrational coordinates for the (E + A) ⊗ (e + a) vibronic Hamiltonians of molecules with one and only one C3 axis. We first derive the expansion for the lowest C3 symmetry. Additional symmetry elements systematically eliminate terms in the expansion. We compare our expansions with the previous results for two cases, the and the C3 (E + A) ⊗ e. The first comparison demonstrates the robustness, completeness, conciseness, and convenience of our formalism. There is a systematic discrepancy in the second comparison. We discuss the origin of the discrepancy and use a numerical example to corroborate our expansion. Our formalism covers 153 vibronic problems in 6 point groups. It also gives general expansions for the spin-orbit vibronic Hamiltonians of the p-type (E + A) ⊗ (e + a) problems.

Context: The formation of red cell alloantibodies resulting from both transfusion and pregnancy can cause adverse effects from allogeneic blood transfusions. Alloanti-E is commonly detected among Thai and Asian populations. Aims: This study aimed to determine RHCE*E and RHCE*e genotype incompatibility in a southern Thai Muslim population and to compare it with those previously reported for other populations. Subjects and methods: Nine hundred and twenty-seven DNA samples obtained from 427 unrelated healthy blood donors from southern Thai Muslims and 500 samples from Central Thais were included. Samples were genotyped for RHCE*E and RHCE*e using an in-house polymerase chain reaction with the sequence-specific primer technique. Results: Significant differences were found when we compared the allele frequencies of the RHCE*E and RHCE*e between southern Thai Muslims and Central Thais: RHCE*E 0.162 versus 0.197 and RHCE*e 0.838 versus 0.803 and also found in Chinese, American native, Japanese, Korean, Alaskan native, Hawaiian, South Asian, Brazilian Japanese-descendant, and Malay Malaysian populations (P < 0.05). In addition, the E/e incompatibilities among southern Thai Muslims and Central Thais were 24.23% and 26.71%, respectively. Conclusions: This study was the first to determine the RHCE*E and RHCE*e genotype incompatibility among southern Thai Muslims, enabling the estimation of their potential alloimmunization risk. These data could be useful to provide safe blood transfusions across ethnic populations.