Understanding the Role of Commitments in Explaining P2P Lending Investing Willingness: Antecedents and Consequences

As a relatively new e-commerce phenomenon, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has the potential to thoroughly change the structure of the loan segment in the financial industry. And the success of P2P lending heavily depend on users’ continuous use. However, this topic has not been fully studied in IS research. The high practical significance and lack of research indicate the importance of the present study. This study aims to apply Meyer and Allen’s three-component model of commitment to construct a research model, which incorporates context-specific antecedents. To test the model, we use a survey of 216 actual lenders of the P2P lending platform in China. Results derived from data indicated that lenders’ continuous investments were jointly determined by continuous commitment and affective commitment. Further, platform assurance, trust on third-party, economic feasibility and quality of alternatives performed well as antecedents of continuous commitment. And perceived critical mass and platform assurance were significantly associated with affective commitment. The results of this research provided theoretical implications for future research and practical implications for the success of P2P lending platforms

Semimetal Contacts to Monolayer Semiconductor: Weak Metalization as an Effective Mechanism to Schottky Barrier Lowering

Recent experiment has uncovered semimetal bismuth (Bi) as an excellent electrical contact to monolayer MoS$_2$ with ultralow contact resistance. The contact physics of the broader semimetal/monolayer-semiconductor family beyond Bi/MoS$_2$, however, remains largely unexplored thus far. Here we perform a comprehensive first-principle density functional theory investigation on the electrical contact properties between six archetypal two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) semiconductors, i.e. MoS$_2$, WS$_2$, MoSe$_2$, WSe$_2$, MoTe$_2$ and WTe$_2$, and two representative types of semimetals, Bi and antimony (Sb). As Bi and Sb work functions energetically aligns well with the TMDC conduction band edge, Ohmic or nearly-Ohmic $n$-type contacts are prevalent. The interlayer distance of semimetal/TMDC contacts are significantly larger than that of the metal/TMDC counterparts, which results in only weak metalization of TMDC upon contact formation. Intriguingly, such weak metalization generates semimetal-induced gap states (MIGS) that extends below the conduction band minimum, thus offering an effective mechanism to reduce or eliminate the $n$-type Schottky barrier height (SBH) while still preserving the electronic structures of 2D TMDC. A modified Schottky-Mott rule that takes into account SMIGS, interface dipole potential, and Fermi level shifting is proposed, which provides an improved agreement with the DFT-simulated SBH. We further show that the tunneling-specific resistivity of Sb/TMDC contacts are generally lower than the Bi counterparts, thus indicating a better charge injection efficiency can be achieved through Sb contacts. Our findings reveal the promising potential of Bi and Sb as excellent companion electrode materials for advancing 2D semiconductor device technology.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Abstract or concrete? The impact of regional typicality and advertising appeal types on consumption intention toward geographical indication products

The essential characteristic of geographical indication products is the association of the products with their region of origin. However, consumers have different associations between products and their region of origin (i.e., different regional typicality) according to different geographical indication products. In this regard, this research aims to explore how to adopt supporting advertising appeal types to improve consumers' attitudes and intentions toward geographical indication products with different regional typicality. To this end, this article proposes and tests the interaction between regional typicality and advertising appeal types on consumption intention toward products and the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of this effect. Using three studies, this research finds that the adoption of abstract (vs. concrete) appeal is more likely to enhance consumption intention toward products when the geographical indication products have high regional typicality. Moreover, the reverse is true when the geographical indication products have low regional typicality. Furthermore, the results show that processing fluency mediates the interaction effect. In addition, the high (low) regional typicality and abstract (concrete) appeal on consumption intention toward products are more significant in the distant (close) spatial distance condition. In this way, this research provides a new perspective for studying consumer behavior with respect to geographical indication products and has implications for promoting the sales of geographical indication products and enhancing the brand value of geographical indication

Effects of Girdling and Foliar Fertilization with K on Physicochemical Parameters, Phenolic and Volatile Composition in ‘Hanxiangmi’ Table Grape

Aroma is one of the most important indicators of grape quality. Girdling and foliar fertilization with K (K2O) are common agronomic practices applied to improve berry quality in grape production. However, little is known about its effect on the accumulation and biosynthesis of the entire aromatic profile. Our study was aimed to explore the influences of girdling and foliar fertilization with K (alone or in combination) on the general properties, phenolic composition, volatile free aroma compounds, spatial and temporal expression of terpene-related genes and sensory properties in ‘Hanxiangmi’ table grape. In this study, we found that girdling and foliar fertilization with K (alone or in combination) facilitated fruit enlargement and increased the accumulation of phenolic compounds in skin. The combination treatment of girdling and foliar fertilization with K significantly promoted the concentrations of total soluble solids (TSS) in the pulp and proanthocyanidins in the berry skin, and had a lower titratable acidity (TA) compared to those of the control. In contrast, girdling treatment alone increased the concentrations of titratable acidity. Volatile free aroma composition analysis revealed that the combination treatment increased the volatile compounds and concentrations significantly, most notably in terpenes, such as nerol, citronellol and linalool. Spatial and temporal expression analysis showed that the expression level of VvDXS was significantly correlated with linalool and total terpenes concentrations, as a result of which, we speculated that VvDXS is the candidate gene for the regulation of important grape terpenes. We hope that our results can direct farmers to better apply girdling and foliar fertilization with K in grape production

Revisit Input Perturbation Problems for LLMs: A Unified Robustness Evaluation Framework for Noisy Slot Filling Task

With the increasing capabilities of large language models (LLMs), these high-performance models have achieved state-of-the-art results on a wide range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. However, the models' performance on commonly-used benchmark datasets often fails to accurately reflect their reliability and robustness when applied to real-world noisy data. To address these challenges, we propose a unified robustness evaluation framework based on the slot-filling task to systematically evaluate the dialogue understanding capability of LLMs in diverse input perturbation scenarios. Specifically, we construct a input perturbation evaluation dataset, Noise-LLM, which contains five types of single perturbation and four types of mixed perturbation data. Furthermore, we utilize a multi-level data augmentation method (character, word, and sentence levels) to construct a candidate data pool, and carefully design two ways of automatic task demonstration construction strategies (instance-level and entity-level) with various prompt templates. Our aim is to assess how well various robustness methods of LLMs perform in real-world noisy scenarios. The experiments have demonstrated that the current open-source LLMs generally achieve limited perturbation robustness performance. Based on these experimental observations, we make some forward-looking suggestions to fuel the research in this direction.Comment: Accepted at NLPCC 2023 (Oral Presentation

Long noncoding RNA DANCR, working as a competitive endogenous RNA, promotes ROCK1-mediated proliferation and metastasis via decoying of miR-335-5p and miR-1972 in osteosarcoma

Background: Accumulating evidences indicate that non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) including long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) acting as crucial regulators in osteosarcoma (OS). Previously, we reported that Rho associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase 1 (ROCK1), a metastatic-related gene was negatively regulated by microRNA-335-5p (miR-335-5p) and work as an oncogene in osteosarcoma. Whether any long non-coding RNAs participate in the upstream of miR-335-5p/ROCK1 axial remains unclear. Methods: Expression of differentiation antagonizing non-protein coding RNA (DANCR) and miR-335-5p/miR-1972 in osteosarcoma tissues were determined by a qRT-PCR assay and an ISH assay. Osteosarcoma cells' proliferation and migration/invasion ability changes were measured by a CCK-8/EDU assay and a transwell assay respectively. ROCK1 expression changes were checked by a qRT-PCR assay and a western blot assay. Targeted binding effects between miR-335-5p/miR-1972 and ROCK1 or DANCR were verified by a dual luciferase reporter assay and a RIP assay. In vivo experiments including a nude formation assay as well as a CT scan were applied to detect tumor growth and metastasis changes in animal level. Results: In the present study, an elevated DNACR was found in osteosarcoma tissue specimens and in osteosarcoma cell lines, and the elevated DNACR was closely correlated with poor prognosis in clinical patients. Functional experiments illustrated that a depression of DANCR suppressed ROCK1-mediated proliferation and metastasis in osteosarcoma cells. The results of western blot assays and qRT-PCR assays revealed that DANCR regulated ROCK1 via crosstalk with miR-335-5p and miR-1972. Further cellular behavioral experiments demonstrated that DNACR promoted ROCK1-meidated proliferation and metastasis through decoying both miR-335-5p and miR-1972. Finally, the outcomes of in vivo animal models showed that DANCR promoted tumor growth and lung metastasis of osteosarcoma. Conclusions: LncRNA DANCR work as an oncogene and promoted ROCK1-mediated proliferation and metastasis through acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) in osteosarcoma

Relationship between university students’ physical activity and mobile phone dependence: Mediating effect of subjective well-being and moderating effect of psychological capital

BackgroundWith the ongoing development of the information society, the Internet and smartphones have become an essential way of life, but also fostered the problem of mobile phone dependence. Physical activity and subjective well-being have both been shown to correlate with mobile phone dependence, but the impact of subjective well-being on the relationship between physical activity and mobile phone dependence is not fully understood. This study investigates subjective well-being as a potential mediating variable in the relationship. It also investigates whether psychological capital moderates the association between subjective well-being and mobile phone dependence.MethodsA total of 9,569 students from 38 universities in Jiangsu Province were selected. Participants were surveyed via the online questionnaire distribution platform Questionnaire Star. Common method bias test and Pearson correlation tests were used to analyze the study indicators, and the theoretical model for this study was validated using Process plug-in developed by Hayes and set at p < 0.05 (two- tail) as statistically significant.ResultsThe levels of physical activity, subjective well-being, and psychological capital were all significantly higher for male students than female students. However, female students had a significantly higher level of mobile phone dependence. As predicted, there was a direct negative correlation between physical activity and mobile phone dependence, and subjective well-being mediated that relationship. Psychological capital moderated the relationship between subjective well-being and mobile phone dependence. It also positively moderated the indirect effect between physical activity and mobile phone dependence via subjective well-being