The Effect of Physical Cues on Customer Loyalty: Based on the Mediating Effect of Customer Engagement and Value Co-creation

As a new business model, e-commerce live broadcasting has great value in the commercial field. Based on value co-creation theory and the stimulus-organic-response model, this study explores the influence of physical cues in e-commerce live broadcast scenes on customer loyalty. Using the audience of China's e-commerce live broadcasting platform as the research object, 404 valid data points were collected through a questionnaire survey, and a structural equation analysis model was adopted to explore the relationship among the physical clues of the e-commerce live broadcasting scene, customer engagement, value co-creation, and customer loyalty and to verify the mediating effect of customer engagement and value co-creation. The research shows that aesthetic appeal, layout, and function have a positive impact on customer engagement, but financial security has no positive impact on customer engagement. In addition, value co-creation has an intermediary effect, and customer engagement and value co-creation have a double intermediary effect on physical cues and customer loyalty in e-commerce live broadcast scenes. The research not only expands the theory of value co-creation and scene but also provides practical reference value for e-commerce live broadcasting platforms and enterprises and promotes the design of physical cues in e-commerce live broadcasting scenes to improve customer loyalty. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-04-020 Full Text: PD

U(1) × U(1) symmetry-protected topological order in Gutzwiller wave functions

Gutzwiller projection is a way to construct many-body wave functions that could carry topological order or symmetry-protected topological (SPT) order. However, an important issue is to determine whether or not a given Gutzwiller-projected wave function (GWF) carries a nontrivial SPT order, and which SPT order is carried by the wave function. In this paper, we numerically study the SPT order in a spin S = 1 GWF on the kagome lattice. Using the standard Monte Carlo method, we directly confirm that the GWF has (1) gapped bulk with short-range correlations, (2) a trivial topological order via a nondegenerate ground state, and zero topological entanglement entropy, (3) a nontrivial U(1) × U(1) SPT order via the Hall conductances of the protecting U(1) × U(1) symmetry, and (4) a symmetry-protected gapless boundary. This represents numerical evidence of continuous symmetry-protected topological order in two-dimensional bosonic lattice systems.Perimeter Institute for Theoretical PhysicsNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DMR-1005541)National Natural Science Foundation (China) (Grant 11274192)Templeton Foundation (Grant 39901

Focus-Enhanced Scene Text Recognition with Deformable Convolutions

Recently, scene text recognition methods based on deep learning have sprung up in computer vision area. The existing methods achieved great performances, but the recognition of irregular text is still challenging due to the various shapes and distorted patterns. Consider that at the time of reading words in the real world, normally we will not rectify it in our mind but adjust our focus and visual fields. Similarly, through utilizing deformable convolutional layers whose geometric structures are adjustable, we present an enhanced recognition network without the steps of rectification to deal with irregular text in this work. A number of experiments have been applied, where the results on public benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed components and shows that our method has reached satisfactory performances. The code will be publicly available at https://github.com/Alpaca07/dtr soon

Identification of a New HCV Subtype 6xg Among Injection Drug Users in Kachin, Myanmar

Characterizing hepatitis C virus (HCV) genetic diversity not only allows us to trace its origin and evolutionary history, but also provides valuable insights into diagnosis, prevention and therapy of HCV infection. Although eight HCV genotypes and 86 subtypes have been classified, there are still some HCV variants that need to be assigned. The genotype 6 is the most diverse HCV genotype and mainly prevalent in Southeast Asia. In this study, we identified a new HCV subtype 6xg from injection drug users (IDUs) in Kachin, Myanmar. A distinctive feature of 6xg from other subtypes of the genotype 6 was a Lys insertion in NS5A gene, which changes the RRKR/K motif into RRKKR/K. Bayesian analyses showed that HCV 6xg originated during 1984–1988, and experienced a rapid population expansion during 2005–2009. We characterized HCV subtype profile among IDUs in this region, and detected six HCV subtypes, including 1a (12.0%), 3a (12.0%), 3b (24.0%), 6n (16.0%), 6xa (20.0%), and 6xg (12.0%). Importantly, we found that HCV subtype distribution in Kachin was very similar to that in Dehong prefecture of Yunnan, but very distinct from those in other regions of Myanmar and Yunnan, indicating that the China–Myanmar border region shared a unique HCV subtype pattern. The appearance of 6xg and the unique HCV subtype profile among IDUs in the China–Myanmar border region have significant epidemiological and public health implications

Distances and classification of amino acids for different protein secondary structures

Window profiles of amino acids in protein sequences are taken as a description of the amino acid environment. The relative entropy or Kullback-Leibler distance derived from profiles is used as a measure of dissimilarity for comparison of amino acids and secondary structure conformations. Distance matrices of amino acid pairs at different conformations are obtained, which display a non-negligible dependence of amino acid similarity on conformations. Based on the conformation specific distances clustering analysis for amino acids is conducted.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Deficiency of Mkrn2 causes abnormal spermiogenesis and spermiation, and impairs male fertility.

Although recent studies have shed insights on some of the potential causes of male infertility, new underlining molecular mechanisms still remain to be elucidated. Makorin-2 (Mkrn2) is an evolutionarily conserved gene whose biological functions are not fully known. We developed an Mrkn2 knockout mouse model to study the role of this gene, and found that deletion of Mkrn2 in mice led to male infertility. Mkrn2 knockout mice produced abnormal sperms characterized by low number, poor motility, and aberrant morphology. Disruption of Mkrn2 also caused failure of sperm release (spermiation failure) and misarrangement of ectoplasmic specialization (ES) in testes, thus impairing spermiogenesis and spermiation. To understand the molecular mechanism, we found that expression of Odf2, a vital protein in spermatogenesis, was significantly decreased. In addition, we found that expression levels of Odf2 were decreased in Mkrn2 knockout mice. We also found that MKRN2 was prominently expressed in the sperm of normal men, but was significantly reduced in infertile men. This result indicates that our finding is clinically relevant. The results of our study provided insights into a new mechanism of male infertility caused by the MKRN2 downregulation

A new tool for in vitro culture of porcine eggs

Mineral oil is usually used to cover the microdrops of medium in oocytes or embryos culture system here designated as oil method. A large number of oocytes are needed for the production of porcine embryos for in vitro fertilization or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The oil method not only wastes a lot of mineral oil, but needs tedious steps in the transferring of embryos. Here we designed a new method called nest dish, which need not mineral oil, to replace the oil method and improve the development rates of porcine eggs in vitro. The oocyte maturation rate with the mTCM199 (83.2%) was significantly higher than with the NCSU23 (75.5%, P﹤ 0.05), although the parthenogenetic cleavage rates with two media were not significantly different (77.7 and 72.4%, P﹤ 0.05 ). Chosing mTCM199 as base medium, the rate of maturation with concave dish (90.1%) was significantly higher than with the flat dish (82.6%, P﹥ 0.05) in nest method, although no significant differences in the oocyte maturation were found between flat dish (82.6%) in nest method and oil method (80.0%). Parthenogenetic cleavage from nest method (80.1% for concave dish, 78.0% for flat dish) did not show any decrease compared to oil method (76.2%), but the developmental rate to blastocysts in the nest groups(17.9 and 19.5%) were significantly higher than the oil method (12.3%, P﹤ 0.05). These results showed that mTCM199 presented higher maturation rate than that NCSU-23 did, and the nest method with concave dish significantly improved the maturation rate of porcine oocytes in vitro and can replace the conventional oil method.Keywords: Porcine oocytes, in vitro maturation (IVM), microdrop method, nest dish metho