have you seen these research?

[greenleaves7]

have you seen the studies - strategies to reduce tin and other metals in electronic cigarettes and ''puffing topography of electronic cigarette users'' ? both came out in teh plosone magazine recently online.

just thought it was a bit interesting. any thoughts?

 

[Oliver]

Hello UCR researchers, @greenleaves7, pleased to make your acquaintance.

Can you please explain why you have been scraping member profiles on ECF and what research question doing so can possibly answer?

Would you also explain why, despite numerous instances of my contacting your abuse department, you've failed to come back to me explaining why you're stealing this site's data?

Would surely appreciate a response before I get the lawyers involved.

Other members, in case you don't know the history here: Prue Talbot's lab did a shockingly poor piece of research back in 2013. They scraped the data from this (health and safety) forum, and reported the descriptions of symptoms as were "side-effects" of vaping. They failed to counter this with any mention of the hundreds and thousands of people who come on the site and do not report such symptoms, and they failed to mention that many of the symptoms are well know symptoms of smoking-cessation.

Here's an excellent summary by @Bill Godshall: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/f...ecf-posts-grossly-misrepresents-facts.389104/

Anyway, the team is back, conducting some kind of research into ECF members' discussions and scraping user profiles. I'd like to know why. I'd also like to know why University California Riverside's ethics department appears to have gone into hibernation.

 

[edyle]

have you seen the studies - strategies to reduce tin and other metals in electronic cigarettes and ''puffing topography of electronic cigarette users'' ? both came out in teh plosone magazine recently online.

just thought it was a bit interesting. any thoughts?

Now where is that 'dislike' or thumbsdown button we always keep asking for?

 

[Oliver]

Also, in answer to your original question:

It's unlikely vapers will find this study particularly interesting, since the products you tested were almost universally not used (you must know this??) by ECFers.

With regards to tin and other metals - yeah, standards need to be sorted to eliminate this. FYI, I visited a factory in China which makes cigalikes for one of the biggest of those companies. They use no solder at all - instead, they use cold-welding to fuse the filaments with the terminal point - I suspect this is what you found, and not "brazing".

As I said - standards will sort this.

 

[Oliver]

Oh, yeah - this was the email I received back:

"
Thanks for the information, I have passed your email to our Computer Science
Department, the owner of the machine with the IP xx.xx.xx.xx. I have no
further information about the machine in question, though I suspect it was
compromised in some fashion, and thus your alert will help us clean it and
maintain a healthier campus environment. In the future please feel free to
send abuse notices to abuse@ucr.edu."

It wasn't compromised - you were purposefully scraping our site for your research agenda.

 

[retired1]

Not to mention, they then turned around and asked to use that data in a project they're doing. Compromised my hind end.

 

[retired1]

And, to prove it wasn't a compromised machine, the IP address in question points right back to this department: http://dblab.cs.ucr.edu/

Note one of the purposes:

Core data mining: Tools for visualizing and data mining, and adaptive classification techniques.

 

[Oliver]

Honestly, @greenleaves7, don't be shy. We're happy to discuss things with you, if you engage in an open and transparent manner.

 

[Kent C]

It posted on reddit as well....

https://www.reddit.com/r/electronic...me_ecigarette_studies_that_came_out_recently/

My thoughts recently....

"It only takes ONE bad chemical"

 

[Oliver]

Thanks Kent - I chipped in there

 

[sofarsogood]

This is not the easiest thread to follow. Industrial espionage? There needs to be an ecig action movie about a global power struggle over control of the tobacco/ecig market. Billions and billions... to paraphrase Carl Sagan

 

[Jman8]

have you seen the studies - strategies to reduce tin and other metals in electronic cigarettes and ''puffing topography of electronic cigarette users'' ? both came out in teh plosone magazine recently online.

just thought it was a bit interesting. any thoughts?

I've reviewed the studies and find them between incredibly suspect in the assertions they are making and rather boring in the points they are raising. Am happy to discuss the portions that are suspect. To me, it comes off as science that I am entirely surprised anyone would wish to fund. Though I know there are entities that are essentially anti-vaping and so it makes sense within that context that such mundane data would get funded, even while it is noting very little of importance.

Like in the tin/metal study under the Discussion heading, the opening paragraph says:

The long term cumulative health effects of inhaling mixtures of metals in EC aerosol are not known, but it would be advantageous to remove metals from EC aerosols if possible.

Clearly this would be opinion and not a scientific conclusion, after openly admitting that effects are unknown. And even more so after noting in the study that the metals are found in either trace amounts or in non detectable amounts. But because they are found in trace amounts, it provides ample opportunity to explore the many ultra fine nuances of otherwise mundane data and essentially make a teeny tiny hill out of an otherwise molehill.

From the concluding paragraph of the same study, under Discussion heading, it says:

In summary, quality control in the manufacturing and labeling of EC has been a concern since their introduction

Demonstrates the inherent bias of the researchers and what this study is actually about. It isn't really concerned with trace metals found in EC (not really really), but instead in making the point above, that these companies that make them surely need quality control. I think there will be many consumers who agree with this, but not realizing the long term cumulative effects to what such a move in the market will mean. It means that some companies won't be able to participate in the market. Great from the anti-vaping perspective, right? I mean how can it not be good if this study ultimately leads to some companies going off to market due to teeny tiny amounts of metals that could harm consumers over the long term, though we don't know that, but let's suppose for fear mongering purposes that it will be entirely harmful. The key is that now some of the companies that didn't want to play the game of expensive QC are off the market. But let's be clear that they are off the open market, where adult consumers are likely to purchase their product. And let's also be clear that an underground market will emerge because of such tactics in place and this is precisely where minors will be getting their product. I hope people who pay for and conduct such studies realize their responsibility and role they are playing in contributing to an underground market where QC is absolutely not necessary. This likely has a direct causal link to what type of product kids will be accessing given the fact that many do not wish for them to purchase from the open, legal market. Here's the part where the researchers and funders pat themselves on their collective backs for instituting an even more dangerous market for minors given their zealous, and rather trivial concerns about all the tiniest of nuances for all things EC. Insert slow clap here.

 

[cigarbabe]

• "
  

  Honestly, @greenleaves7, don't be shy. We're happy to discuss things with you, if you engage in an open and transparent manner.

  I don't think open,honest or transparency are in their vocabulary.
• C.B.

 

[Qew]

Looking into the whole Plos One thing, I came across this on Wiki:
(I know Wiki is not the know all end all, but this, I believe, is accurate.)

"Publication concept
PLOS ONE is built on several conceptually different ideas compared to traditional peer-reviewed scientific publishing in that it does not use the perceived importance of a paper as a criterion for acceptance or rejection. The idea is that, instead, PLOS ONE only verifies whether experiments and data analysis were conducted rigorously, and leaves it to the scientific community to ascertain importance, post publication, through debate and comment."

Also this:
"PLOS ONE is financed by charging authors a publication fee. The "author-pays" model allows PLOS journals to provide all articles to everybody for free (i.e., open access) immediately after publication. As of July 2010, PLOS ONE charged authors US$1,350[20] to publish an article.....This model has drawn criticism, however. In 2011 Richard Poynder posited that journals such as PLoS ONE that charge authors for publication rather than charging users for access may produce a conflict of interest that reduces peer review standards (accept more articles, earn more revenue)."

And this:
"Operating under a pay-to-publish model, PLOS ONE publishes approximately 70% of submitted manuscripts."

So, getting this "study" published was just a matter of writing a check. I think I will ignore this breaking news.

 

[philoshop]

It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Someone has certainly set the bar of ethics low with this 'research'.

 

[Kent C]

As I said - standards will sort this.

Or we will.... :- )

One of the best 'standard' creation threads was Dangerous Cartos - perhaps Prue might peruse that one as well. It's the evolution of the clearomizer/tank. Not going to include all 'details' but it started with the 'E1' clearo by Royal Smokers? Badkolo was our "contact". In attempting to respond to feedback, solder was eliminated, as was glue, as was short wicks, and glass was used instead of plastic along with other 'tweaks' going through several 'versions'. Later bottom coils were a direct result of our 'dry hits' on top coils and it all is basically the reason why we have Kanger Subtanks, GS AIR, Nautilus, Delta KF4 and other tanks, today. No gov't standards needed. Just ECFers with minds. And because of word of mouth and demand, it even makes clones and less expensive clearos better as well for people who never heard of ECF.

Same could be said for a lot of threads here - Battery Surprise! thread, Some of the battery incident threads, which resulted in better short and charge protection by some of us contacting manufacturers and vendors.

 

[Oliver]

Yup, completely agree with that, Kent - I remember that process well.

 

[DC2]

Anyway, the team is back, conducting some kind of research into ECF members' discussions and scraping user profiles. I'd like to know why. I'd also like to know why University California Riverside's ethics department appears to have gone into hibernation.

I think they're too busy doing sciencey-type stuff to respond to your inquiries.

 

[retired1]

I think they're too busy doing quasi-sciencey-type stuff to respond to your inquiries.

Fixed that for ya.

 

[DC2]

Fixed that for ya.

I thought it was implied, but no harm in having some clarification.