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With the advancement of technology and diversification of payment methods, mobile payment methods have gradually replaced traditional cash payments and become the mainstream payment mode. Although mobile payment is more convenient, is it faster than cash payment when their physical differences are controlled? Does it affect consumer behavior? We designed two studies to explore these questions. In Study 1, we required 192 participants to physically pay by cash or mobile phone and measured their willingness to pay (WTP). In Study 2, we compared the speed of the two payment methods when the physical differences between them were eliminated and measured consumers' willingness to buy from 46 students. Our results indicated that the effect of mobile payment, which increases WTP, also applies to specific products, and it does not occur if the money is a gift, as opposed to if it is earned. Moreover, when the process of cash payment is made as easy as mobile payment, people still spend less time on mobile payments than cash payment, and mobile payment effect is impacted by payment time. The above results supplement the evidence that payment methods have an impact on consumer behavior, and provide consumers, merchants, and regional managers with suggestions on payment methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Untargeted metabonomics has provided new insight into the pathogenesis of sarcopenia. In this study, we explored plasma metabolic signatures linked to a heightened risk of sarcopenia in a cohort study by LC-MS-based untargeted metabonomics., Methods: In this nested case-control study from the Adult Physical Fitness and Health Cohort Study (APFHCS), we collected blood plasma samples from 30 new-onset sarcopenia subjects (mean age 73.2 ± 5.6 years) and 30 healthy controls (mean age 74.2 ± 4.6 years) matched by age, sex, BMI, lifestyle, and comorbidities. An untargeted metabolomics methodology was employed to discern the metabolomic profile alterations present in individuals exhibiting newly diagnosed sarcopenia., Results: In comparing individuals with new-onset sarcopenia to normal controls, a comprehensive analysis using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) identified a total of 62 metabolites, predominantly comprising lipids, lipid-like molecules, organic acids, and derivatives. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis indicated that the three metabolites hypoxanthine (AUC=0.819, 95% CI=0.711-0.927), L-2-amino-3-oxobutanoic acid (AUC=0.733, 95% CI=0.598-0.868) and PC(14:0/20:2(11Z,14Z)) (AUC= 0.717, 95% CI=0.587-0.846) had the highest areas under the curve. Then, these significant metabolites were observed to be notably enriched in four distinct metabolic pathways, namely, "purine metabolism"; "parathyroid hormone synthesis, secretion and action"; "choline metabolism in cancer"; and "tuberculosis"., Conclusion: The current investigation elucidates the metabolic perturbations observed in individuals diagnosed with sarcopenia. The identified metabolites hold promise as potential biomarkers, offering avenues for exploring the underlying pathological mechanisms associated with sarcopenia., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Han, Chen, Liang, Liu, Yu, Song, Zhao, Zhang, Zhu, Shi and Guo.)

A new conductive carbon hybrid combining both reduced graphene nanoscrolls and carbon nanotubes (rGNSs-CNTs) is prepared, and used to host Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles through an in situ synthesis method. As an anode material for LIBs, the obtained Fe 3 O 4 @rGNSs-CNTs shows good electrochemical performance. At a current density of 0.1 A g -1 , the anode material shows a high reversible capacity of 1232.9 mAh g -1 after 100 cycles. Even at a current density of 1 A g -1 , it still achieves a high reversible capacity of 812.3 mAh g -1 after 200 cycles. Comparing with bare Fe 3 O 4 and Fe 3 O 4 /rGO composite anode materials without nanoscroll structure, Fe 3 O 4 @rGNSs-CNTs shows much better rate capability with a reversible capacity of 605.0 and 500.0 mAh g -1 at 3 and 5 A g -1 , respectively. The excellent electrochemical performance of the Fe 3 O 4 @rGNSs-CNTs anode material can be ascribed to the hybrid structure of rGNSs-CNTs, and their strong interaction with Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles, which on one hand provides more pathways for lithium ions and electrons, on the other hand effectively relieves the volume change of Fe 3 O 4 during the charge-discharge process.

In high-dimensional data clustering practices, the cluster structure is commonly assumed to be confined to a limited number of relevant features, rather than the entire feature set. However, for high-dimensional data, identifying the relevant features and discovering the cluster structure are still challenging problems. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a novel fuzzy c-means (FCM) model with sparse regularization (ℓq(0