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

Effects of 12-week gait retraining on plantar flexion torque, architecture, and behavior of the medial gastrocnemius in vivo

Objective:This study aims to explore the effects of 12-week gait retraining (GR) on plantar flexion torque, architecture, and behavior of the medial gastrocnemius (MG) during maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC).Methods:Thirty healthy male rearfoot strikers were randomly assigned to the GR group (n = 15) and the control (CON) group (n = 15). The GR group was instructed to wear minimalist shoes and run with a forefoot strike pattern for the 12-week GR (3 times per week), whereas the CON group wore their own running shoes and ran with their original foot strike pattern. Participants were required to share screenshots of running tracks each time to ensure training supervision. The architecture and behavior of MG, as well as ankle torque data, were collected before and after the intervention. The architecture of MG, including fascicle length (FL), pennation angle, and muscle thickness, was obtained by measuring muscle morphology at rest using an ultrasound device. Ankle torque data during plantar flexion MVIC were obtained using a dynamometer, from which peak torque and early rate of torque development (RTD50) were calculated. The fascicle behavior of MG was simultaneously captured using an ultrasound device to calculate fascicle shortening, fascicle rotation, and maximal fascicle shortening velocity (Vmax).Results:After 12-week GR, 1) the RTD50 increased significantly in the GR group (p = 0.038), 2) normalized FL increased significantly in the GR group (p = 0.003), and 3) Vmax increased significantly in the GR group (p = 0.018).Conclusion:Compared to running training, GR significantly enhanced the rapid strength development capacity and contraction velocity of the MG. This indicates the potential of GR as a strategy to improve muscle function and mechanical efficiency, particularly in enhancing the ability of MG to generate and transmit force as well as the rapid contraction capability. Further research is necessary to explore the effects of GR on MG behavior during running in vivo