The use of tobacco products during adolescence increases the risk for adverse health effects and lifelong nicotine addiction. In 2014, an estimated 4.6 million middle and high school students were current users of any tobacco product, of whom an estimated 2.2 million were current users of two or more types of tobacco products. Symptoms of nicotine dependence are increased for multiple tobacco p...

Cold start recommendations are important because they help build user loyalty, which is the key to the success of e-services and e-commerce systems. Recommending useful information for new users generally creates a sense of belonging and loyalty, and encourages them to visit e-commerce systems frequently. However, as new users take time to become familiar with recommendation systems, the system...

INTRODUCTION E-cigarettes can be categorized into two basic types, (1) cigalikes, that are disposable or use pre-filled cartridges and (2) tanks, that can be refilled with liquids. The aims of this study were to examine: (1) predictors of using the two e-cigarette types, and (2) the association between type used, frequency of use (daily vs. non-daily vs. no use), and quitting. METHODS Online ...

The aim of our study was to explore reasons for starting and then stopping electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use. Among a national sample of 3878 U.S. adults who reported ever trying e-cigarettes, the most common reasons for trying were curiosity (53%); because a friend or family member used, gave, or offered e-cigarettes (34%); and quitting or reducing smoking (30%). Nearly two-thirds (65%) o...

BACKGROUND Concern that the use of exogenous testosterone may increase breast cancer risk coexists with rising use of this medication in the United States. We sought to examine the relationship between the use of estrogen plus testosterone (E + T) therapy (esterified estradiol plus methyltestosterone) and the occurrence of breast cancer. METHODS A total of 31,842 postmenopausal participants i...

BACKGROUND Women who use combined hormonal contraceptives and cigarettes have an increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) events. We reviewed the literature to determine whether women who use hormonal contraceptives (HC) and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) also have an increased risk. STUDY DESIGN Systematic review. METHODS We searched for articles reporting myocardial infarction (MI), s...

Large databases of temporal records have made it possible for researchers to verify their hypotheses related to temporal event sequences. However, with the overwhelming size of data and numerous possible patterns, an important issue is what patterns should be highlighted and presented to users. We implement a visualization tool, PairFinder, to enable users to efficiently locate patterns of inte...

This paper presents the University of Amsterdam’s participation in the TREC 2015 Contextual Suggestion Track. Creating e↵ective profiles for both users and contexts is the main key to build an e↵ective contextual suggestion system. To address these issues, we investigate building users’ and groups’ profiles for e↵ective contextual personalization and customization. Our main aim is to answer the...

OBJECTIVE This study explores the presence and actions of an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) brand, Blu, on Twitter to observe how marketing messages are sent and diffused through the retweet (i.e., message forwarding) functionality. Retweet networks enable messages to reach additional Twitter users beyond the sender's local network. We follow messages from their origin through multiple retw...