The prevalence of e-cigarette use has increased globally amongst children and adolescents in recent years. In response to the increasing prevalence and emerging evidence about the potential harms of ...e-cigarettes in children and adolescents, leading public health organisations have called for approaches to address increasing e-cigarette use. Whilst evaluations of approaches to reduce uptake and use regularly appear in the literature, the collective long-term benefit of these is currently unclear.
The co-primary objectives of the review were to: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to prevent e-cigarette use in children and adolescents (aged 19 years and younger) with no prior use, relative to no intervention, waitlist control, usual practice, or an alternative intervention; and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to cease e-cigarette use in children and adolescents (aged 19 years and younger) reporting current use, relative to no intervention, waitlist control, usual practice, or an alternative intervention. Secondary objectives were to: (1) examine the effect of such interventions on child and adolescent use of other tobacco products (e.g. cigarettes, cigars types, and chewing tobacco); and (2) describe the unintended adverse effects of the intervention on individuals (e.g. physical or mental health of individuals), or on organisations (e.g. intervention displacement of key curricula or learning opportunities for school students) where such interventions are being implemented.
We searched CENTRAL, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase, Ovid PsycINFO, EBSCO CINAHL, and Clarivate Web of Science Core Collection from inception to 1 May 2023. Additionally, we searched two trial registry platforms (WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform; US National Institutes of Health Ongoing Trials Register ClinicalTrials.gov), Google Scholar, and the reference lists of relevant systematic reviews. We contacted corresponding authors of articles identified as ongoing studies.
We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), including cluster-RCTs, factorial RCTs, and stepped-wedge RCTs. To be eligible, the primary targets of the interventions must have been children and adolescents aged 19 years or younger. Interventions could have been conducted in any setting, including community, school, health services, or the home, and must have sought to influence children or adolescent (or both) e-cigarette use directly. Studies with a comparator of no intervention (i.e. control), waitlist control, usual practice, or an alternative intervention not targeting e-cigarette use were eligible. We included measures to assess the effectiveness of interventions to: prevent child and adolescent e-cigarette use (including measures of e-cigarette use amongst those who were never-users); and cease e-cigarette use (including measures of e-cigarette use amongst children and adolescents who were e-cigarette current-users). Measures of e-cigarette use included current-use (defined as use in the past 30 days) and ever-use (defined as any lifetime use).
Two review authors independently screened the titles and abstracts of references, with any discrepancies resolved through consensus. Pairs of review authors independently assessed the full-text articles for inclusion in the review. We planned for two review authors to independently extract information from the included studies and assess risk of bias using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool. We planned to conduct multiple meta-analyses using a random-effects model to align with the co-primary objectives of the review. First, we planned to pool interventions to prevent child and adolescent e-cigarette use and conduct two analyses using the outcome measures of 'ever-use' and 'current-use'. Second, we planned to pool interventions to cease child and adolescent e-cigarette use and conduct one analysis using the outcome measure of 'current-use'. Where data were unsuitable for pooling in meta-analyses, we planned to conduct a narrative synthesis using vote-counting approaches and to follow the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) guidelines.
The search of electronic databases identified 7141 citations, with a further 287 records identified from the search of trial registries and Google Scholar. Of the 110 studies (116 records) evaluated in full text, we considered 88 to be ineligible for inclusion for the following reasons: inappropriate outcome (27 studies); intervention (12 studies); study design (31 studies); and participants (18 studies). The remaining 22 studies (28 records) were identified as ongoing studies that may be eligible for inclusion in a future review update. We identified no studies with published data that were eligible for inclusion in the review.
We identified no RCTs that met the inclusion criteria for the review, and as such, there is no evidence available from RCTs to assess the potential impact of interventions targeting children and adolescent e-cigarette use, tobacco use, or any unintended adverse effects. Evidence from studies employing other trial designs (e.g. non-randomised) may exist; however, such studies were not eligible for inclusion in the review. Evidence from studies using non-randomised designs should be examined to guide actions to prevent or cease e-cigarette use. This is a living systematic review. We search for new evidence every month and update the review when we identify relevant new evidence. Please refer to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for the current status of this review.
With rapidly dropping sequencing cost, the popularity of whole-genome DNA methylation sequencing has been on the rise. Multiple library preparation protocols currently exist. We have performed 22 ...whole-genome DNA methylation sequencing experiments on snap frozen human samples, and extensively benchmarked common library preparation protocols for whole-genome DNA methylation sequencing, including three traditional bisulfite-based protocols and a new enzyme-based protocol. In addition, different input DNA quantities were compared for two kits compatible with a reduced starting quantity. In addition, we also present bioinformatic analysis pipelines for sequencing data from each of these library types.
An assortment of metrics were collected for each kit, including raw read statistics, library quality and uniformity metrics, cytosine retention, and CpG beta value consistency between technical replicates. Overall, the NEBNext Enzymatic Methyl-seq and Swift Accel-NGS Methyl-Seq kits performed quantitatively better than the other two protocols. In addition, the NEB and Swift kits performed well at low-input amounts, validating their utility in applications where DNA is the limiting factor.
The NEBNext Enzymatic Methyl-seq kit appeared to be the best option for whole-genome DNA methylation sequencing of high-quality DNA, closely followed by the Swift kit, which potentially works better for degraded samples. Further, a general bioinformatic pipeline is applicable across the four protocols, with the exception of extra trimming needed for the Swift Biosciences's Accel-NGS Methyl-Seq protocol to remove the Adaptase sequence.
Abstract
Summary
In whole genome sequencing data, polymerase chain reaction amplification results in duplicate DNA fragments coming from the same location in the genome. The process of preparing a ...whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) library, on the other hand, can create two DNA fragments from the same location that should not be considered duplicates. Currently, only one WGBS-aware duplicate marking tool exists. However, it only works with the output from a single tool, does not accept streaming input or output, and requires a substantial amount of memory relative to the input size. Dupsifter provides an aligner-agnostic duplicate marking tool that is lightweight, has streaming capabilities, and is memory efficient.
Availability and implementation
Source code and binaries are freely available at https://github.com/huishenlab/dupsifter under the MIT license. Dupsifter is implemented in C and is supported on macOS and Linux.
Dropped-channel polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) compressive sensing (CS) reduces data storage/transmission and receiver hardware requirements by utilising antenna crosstalk and CS ...techniques to recover dropped channel(s). This paper examines the robustness of dropped-channel PolSAR CS (DCPCS) to calibration errors on the antenna crosstalk matrix. Although the antenna design problem is relaxed to a large region of acceptable crosstalk values, very accurate calibration may be required.
Abstract
Data from both bulk and single-cell whole-genome DNA methylation experiments are under-utilized in many ways. This is attributable to inefficient mapping of methylation sequencing reads, ...routinely discarded genetic information, and neglected read-level epigenetic and genetic linkage information. We introduce the BISulfite-seq Command line User Interface Toolkit (BISCUIT) and its companion R/Bioconductor package, biscuiteer, for simultaneous extraction of genetic and epigenetic information from bulk and single-cell DNA methylation sequencing. BISCUIT’s performance, flexibility and standards-compliant output allow large, complex experimental designs to be characterized on clinical timescales. BISCUIT is particularly suited for processing data from single-cell DNA methylation assays, with its excellent scalability, efficiency, and ability to greatly enhance mappability, a key challenge for single-cell studies. We also introduce the epiBED format for single-molecule analysis of coupled epigenetic and genetic information, facilitating the study of cellular and tissue heterogeneity from DNA methylation sequencing.
Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
We identify several important and unsettled legal questions with profound ethical and societal implications arising from generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), focusing on its distinguishable ...characteristics from traditional software and earlier AI models. Our key contribution is formally identifying the issues that are unique to GenAI so scholars, practitioners, and others can conduct more useful investigations and discussions. While established legal frameworks, many originating from the pre-digital era, are currently employed in GenAI litigation, we question their adequacy. We argue that GenAI's unique attributes, including its general-purpose nature, reliance on massive datasets, and potential for both pervasive societal benefits and harms, necessitate a re-evaluation of existing legal paradigms. We explore potential areas for legal and regulatory adaptation, highlighting key issues around copyright, privacy, torts, contract law, criminal law, property law, and the First Amendment. Through an exploration of these multifaceted legal challenges, we aim to stimulate discourse and policy considerations surrounding GenAI, emphasizing a proactive approach to legal and ethical frameworks. While we refrain from advocating specific legal changes, we underscore the need for policymakers to carefully consider the issues raised. We conclude by summarizing key questions across these areas of law in a helpful table for easy reference.
For the first time, this paper presents a taxonomy of legal risks associated with generative AI (GenAI) by breaking down complex legal concepts to provide a common understanding of potential legal ...challenges for developing and deploying GenAI models. The methodology is based on (1) examining the legal claims that have been filed in existing lawsuits and (2) evaluating the reasonably foreseeable legal claims that may be filed in future lawsuits. First, we identified 22 lawsuits against prominent GenAI entities and tallied the claims of each lawsuit. From there, we identified seven claims that are cited at least four times across these lawsuits as the most likely claims for future GenAI lawsuits. For each of these seven claims, we describe the elements of the claim (what the plaintiff must prove to prevail) and provide an example of how it may apply to GenAI. Next, we identified 30 other potential claims that we consider to be more speculative, because they have been included in fewer than four lawsuits or have yet to be filed. We further separated those 30 claims into 19 that are most likely to be made in relation to pre-deployment of GenAI models and 11 that are more likely to be made in connection with post-deployment of GenAI models since the legal risks will vary between entities that create versus deploy them. For each of these claims, we describe the elements of the claim and the potential remedies that plaintiffs may seek to help entities determine their legal risks in developing or deploying GenAI. Lastly, we close the paper by noting the novelty of GenAI technology and propose some applications for the paper's taxonomy in driving further research.
The Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) experiment is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. T2K uses a beam of muon neutrinos (neutrino beam mode) or antineutrinos (antineutrino beam mode) produced at ...the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex and directed towards the Super-Kamiokande detector to study neutrino oscillations in two ways. One is the disappearance of muon neutrinos as they oscillate to other flavors of neutrinos, while the other is the appearance of electron neutrinos that have oscillated from muon neutrinos. In addition to the far detector, Super-Kamiokande, a suite of detectors is set close to the neutrino source to probe the beam composition prior to the neutrinos oscillating. Within the neutrino oscillation analysis, uncertainties due to the neutrino beam flux and the cross section of neutrinos serve as the largest sources of error on the oscillation parameters. By including data from the Near Detector at 280 m (ND280), the uncertainties on the flux and cross section can be constrained beyond what the data at the far detector can do on its own. This work describes the near detector maximum likelihood fit and how it is used to constrain uncertainties for the oscillation analysis. For this thesis, new data samples were included in the near detector fit so that the antineutrino beam mode samples would be treated in the same way as the neutrino beam mode samples. The results are consistent with those seen before; however, they also indicate that certain checks should be updated when the new neutrino interaction model is available before fully transitioning to the new samples. Additionally, tests were performed to study the effect of alternative cross section models on the near detector fit. These studies showed that there is not enough freedom in the current cross section model to fully describe any effects on the data if the underlying cross section differed from the current model.
An iterative learning (IL) approach to disturbance prediction for economic model predictive control (EMPC) is proposed and applied to an integrated solar thermal system (ISTS). The disturbance in the ...system, which is the user hot water demand, is predicted iteratively by taking advantage of the repetitive nature of hot water consumption and utilized by EMPC for improved ISTS control performance. Various user load scenarios are developed for simulations based on historical data, and the performance of the proposed control method is compared against an idealistic EMPC scheme with perfect load information along with existing EMPC methods and a baseline proportional-integral controller. It is demonstrated that the proposed IL approach to EMPC achieves electrical costs within 0.5% of the idealistic case while outperforming all other methods in both energy savings and output temperature management.
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