Introduced as battery-powered sticks that emit nicotine-infused vapor, vape pens have transformed into increasingly sophisticated entertainment devices. And that, researchers say, is a potentially huge problem. Disposable vapes gained small illuminated displays last year, typically to show how much battery life remained. In about six months, though, the displays grew to the size of a flip phone screen and came equipped with retro games similar to Pac-Man and Tetris -- all on a product that costs less than 20. The speed at which vapes advanced to include an interactive display, as well as the devices' potential appeal to young people, is raising concerns about nicotine addiction among teenagers, say UC Riverside researchers Man Wong and Prue Talbot.

In contextual dynamic pricing, a seller sequentially prices goods based on contextual information. Buyers will purchase products only if the prices are below their valuations. The goal of the seller is to design a pricing strategy that collects as much revenue as possible. We focus on two different valuation models. The first assumes that valuations linearly depend on the context and are further distorted by noise. Under minor regularity assumptions, our algorithm achieves an optimal regret bound of $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(T^{2/3})$, improving the existing results. The second model removes the linearity assumption, requiring only that the expected buyer valuation is $\beta$-H\"older in the context. For this model, our algorithm obtains a regret $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(T^{d+2\beta/d+3\beta})$, where $d$ is the dimension of the context space.

Vape users are inhaling'acutely toxic' compounds that could cause'a new wave of chronic diseases' in the next couple of decades, a new study warns. Researchers in Ireland have used artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate the chemical reactions that take place inside flavoured vapes, also known as e-cigarettes. They found that e-liquids – the liquid inside that gives vapes their flavour – contain a'cocktail' of chemicals that produce'toxic' compounds when heated. Vaping has a'significantly different profile of chemical hazards' compared with traditional tobacco smoking', the study authors report. While they don't say vaping is more harmful than smoking tobacco, they're concerned that new but unspecified health issues will result from the vaping craze.

The popularity of vaping has been increasing over the past years. Many people that used to smoke traditional cigarettes are now switching to vaping. Some people have even argued that vaping can help a person stop smoking. Some proponents of vaping argue that the practice is less dangerous when compared to smoking conventional tobacco. However, some people have argued that electronic cigarettes create aerosols that can be a health issue.