The development of mobile payment in China-A study of Alipay

Mobile payment is now a mature technology based on mobile phones. China owns the largest penetration rate in terms of mobile payment compared to other developed countries such as USA, South Korea even though the development of m-payment in China did not start until 2011. Besides, the underlying technology and application scenarios are different from other countries. Inspired by the gap, this paper aims to study the development of mobile payment in China by studying the third party mobile payment vendor giant – Alipay through qualitative methods and to figure out what factors contribute to its success. By means of the concept of digital ecosystem, summarization of past literatures, theoretical models, SWOT and PEST analysis, it turns out that various factors contribute to the success of Alipay, internal factors such as thoughtful strategies, external factors such as economy, technology trend. Besides, Alipay’s future is far more complicated than imagination. The evolution of Alipay may also reflect the importance of building a long-standing business. Overall, the success of m-payment in China is not occasional, but a result of various aspects which could offer implication for other businesses

EFFECTS OF 12-WEEK GAIT RETRAINING ON THE MORPHOLOGY OF MEDIAL GASTROCNEMIUS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 12-week gait retraining on the morphological properties of medial gastrocnemius. Thirty-four male habitual rearfoot strike runners were recruited and randomized divided into gait training group and control group. The medial gastrocnemius morphological properties were measured using an ultrasound device before and after training. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA (group × time) was used for analysis. The significance level was set as 0.05. The results found that after 12-week gait retraining, there was no significant group main effect and interaction effect for all parameters. A main effect of time was observed in the fascicle length (p = 0.016) and normalized fascicle length (p = 0.026). After training, the fascicle length for the GR and CON groups significantly increased by 8.5% (GR) and 2.2% (CON), and the normalized fascicle length increased by 8.8% (GR) and 2.0% (CON). It was indicated that both gait retraining and running training effectively increase the fascicle length of the medial gastrocnemius, thereby providing potential means of increasing the velocity of muscle contraction and reducing the risk of a calf strain while running

K-BERT: Enabling Language Representation with Knowledge Graph

Pre-trained language representation models, such as BERT, capture a general language representation from large-scale corpora, but lack domain-specific knowledge. When reading a domain text, experts make inferences with relevant knowledge. For machines to achieve this capability, we propose a knowledge-enabled language representation model (K-BERT) with knowledge graphs (KGs), in which triples are injected into the sentences as domain knowledge. However, too much knowledge incorporation may divert the sentence from its correct meaning, which is called knowledge noise (KN) issue. To overcome KN, K-BERT introduces soft-position and visible matrix to limit the impact of knowledge. K-BERT can easily inject domain knowledge into the models by equipped with a KG without pre-training by-self because it is capable of loading model parameters from the pre-trained BERT. Our investigation reveals promising results in twelve NLP tasks. Especially in domain-specific tasks (including finance, law, and medicine), K-BERT significantly outperforms BERT, which demonstrates that K-BERT is an excellent choice for solving the knowledge-driven problems that require experts.Comment: 8 pages, 2019091

Morphological and viscoelastic properties of the Achilles tendon in the forefoot, rearfoot strike runners, and non-runners in vivo

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in the morphological and viscoelastic properties of the Achilles tendon (AT) among different groups (rearfoot strikers vs. forefoot strikers vs. non-runners). Thirty healthy men were recruited, including habitual forefoot strike runners (n = 10), rearfoot strike runners (n = 10), and individuals with no running habits (n = 10). The AT morphological properties (cross-sectional area and length) were captured by using an ultrasound device. The real-time ultrasound video of displacement changes at the medial head of the gastrocnemius and the AT junction during maximal voluntary isometric contraction and the plantar flexion moment of the ankle was obtained simultaneously by connecting the ultrasound device and isokinetic dynamometer via an external synchronisation box. The results indicated that male runners who habitually forefoot strike exhibited significantly lower AT hysteresis than male non-runners (p < 0.05). Furthermore, a greater peak AT force during maximal voluntary contraction was observed in forefoot strike male runners compared to that in male individuals with no running habits (p < 0.05). However, foot strike patterns were not related to AT properties in recreational male runners (p > 0.05). The lower AT hysteresis in male FFS runners implied that long-term forefoot strike patterns could enhance male-specific AT’s ability to store and release elastic energy efficiently during running, resulting in a more effective stretch-shortening cycle. The greater peak AT force in male FFS runners indicated a stronger Achilles tendon

Fast and deterministic optical phased array calibration via pointwise optimisation

Owing to the structural errors in the optical phased array, an initial random phase reduces the quality of the deflection beam. The most commonly applied approach to phase calibration is based on adaptive optics. However, adaptive optimisation approaches have slow convergence and low diffraction efficiency. We proposed a pointwise optimisation approach to achieve fast and accurate beam deflection. This approach conducts phase calibration, combining global traversal and local searches individually for each array element. We built a phase-calibration optical system containing a one-dimensional optical waveguide phase array for further verification and designed the relevant mechanics. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the pointwise optimisation approach accelerates the calibration process and improves the diffraction efficiency

Glycomics: Immunoglobulin GN-glycosylation associated with mammary gland hyperplasia in women

© Copyright 2020, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers 2020. Mammary gland hyperplasia (MGH) is very common, especially among young and middle-aged women. New diagnostics and biomarkers for MGH are needed for rational clinical management and precision medicine. We report, in this study, new findings using a glycomics approach, with a focus on immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycosylation. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a community-based population sample in Beijing, China. A total of 387 participants 40-65 years of age were enrolled in this study, including 194 women with MGH (cases) and 193 women who had no MGH (controls). IgG N-glycans were characterized in the serum by ultra-performance liquid chromatography. The levels of the glycan peaks (GPs) GP2, GP5, GP6, and GP7 were lower in the MGH group compared with the control group, whereas GP14 was significantly higher in the MGH group (p \u3c 0.05). A predictive model using GP5, GP21, and age was established and a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed. The sensitivity and specificity of the model for MGH was 61.3% and 63.2%, respectively, likely owing to receptor mechanisms and/or inflammation regulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting on an association between IgG N-glycosylation and MGH. We suggest person-to-person variations in IgG N-glycans and their combination with multiomics biomarker strategies offer a promising avenue to identify novel diagnostics and individuals at increased risk of MGH