Graphical review: The redox dark side of e-cigarettes; exposure to oxidants and public health concerns.

Since the initial marketing in 2005, the use of e-cigarettes has increased exponentially. Nonetheless, accumulating evidence has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of e-cigarettes in leading to smoking cessation, and decreasing the adverse health impacts of cigarette smoking. The number of adolescents adapted to e-cigarettes has been increasing substantially each year, and this adaptation has promoted openness to tobacco smoking. The present review discusses controversies regarding the smoking cessation effects of e-cigarettes, recent governmental policies and regulations of e-cigarette use, toxic components and vaporization products of e-cigarettes, and the novel molecular mechanisms underlying the adverse health impacts of e-cigarettes leading to oxidative stress in target tissues, and consequent development of cardiopulmonary diseases (i.e. COPD), neurodegenerative disorders (i.e. Alzheimer's' disease), and cancer. Health warning signs on the packaging and professional consultation to avoid adaptation in risk groups might be helpful solutions to control negative impacts of e-cigarettes. It is also recommended to further expand basic and clinical investigations to reveal more detailed oxidative stress mechanisms of e-cigarette induced damages, which would ultimately result in more effective protective strategies

How the Chinese system of charges and subsidies affects pollution control efforts by China's top industrial polluters

There have been extensive theoretical studies of firms'responses to environmental regulations ad enforcement but few empirical analyses of firms'expenditures on pollution abatement in response to different regulations and enforcement strategies. The authors empirically analyze the pollution abatement efforts of Chinese industrial firms under a system combining pollution charges and abatement subsidies. Using data on China's top industrial polluters and on regional development in China, they find that the combination of charges and subsidies used in china has provided effective incentives for the most heavily polluting industrial firms to abate pollution. Chinese industries operate under a unique pollution control system, a market-based instrument combining emissions charges and abatement subsidies. This combination of charges and subsidies has given firms incentive to invest in wastewater treatment facilities. The pollution levy, although low, has significantly improved investments in abatement. The authors found that the more pollution a firm generates, the more likely it is to invest in pollution abatement. This study was only of top polluters, which are closely monitored by environmental agencies, so the results may not be valid for other sources of industrial pollution.Sanitation and Sewerage,Environmental Economics&Policies,Pollution Management&Control,Public Health Promotion,Water and Industry,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Pollution Management&Control,TF030632-DANISH CTF - FY05 (DAC PART COUNTRIES GNP PER CAPITA BELOW USD 2,500/AL,Sanitation and Sewerage

Semiparametric GEE analysis in partially linear single-index models for longitudinal data

In this article, we study a partially linear single-index model for longitudinal data under a general framework which includes both the sparse and dense longitudinal data cases. A semiparametric estimation method based on a combination of the local linear smoothing and generalized estimation equations (GEE) is introduced to estimate the two parameter vectors as well as the unknown link function. Under some mild conditions, we derive the asymptotic properties of the proposed parametric and nonparametric estimators in different scenarios, from which we find that the convergence rates and asymptotic variances of the proposed estimators for sparse longitudinal data would be substantially different from those for dense longitudinal data. We also discuss the estimation of the covariance (or weight) matrices involved in the semiparametric GEE method. Furthermore, we provide some numerical studies including Monte Carlo simulation and an empirical application to illustrate our methodology and theory.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AOS1320 in the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org