Enzyme- and metal-free electrochemical sensor for highly sensitive superoxide anion detection based on nitrogen doped hollow mesoporous carbon spheres

In this work, a highly sensitive enzyme- and metal-free electrochemical method for superoxide anion (O[rad]) detection has been developed by employing screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCE) modified by nitrogen doped hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (N-HMCS). For comparison, solid carbon spheres (SCS) and hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (HMCS) were also synthesized to fabricate the modified SPCE. Compared with SCS/SPCE and HMCS/SPCE, N-HMCS/SPCE displayed a higher electrochemical performance. When applied for electrochemical detection of O[rad], N-HMCS/SPCE exhibited a high sensitivity of 1.49\ua0μA\ua0cm\ua0μM, better than SCS/SPCE and HMCS/SPCE and many of enzyme- or metal-based superoxide anion sensors. N-HMCS is expected to become a new generation of sensing materials for electrochemical analysis of O[rad]

Equilibrium competition, social welfare and corruption in procurement auctions

We study the e¤ects of corruption on equilibrium competition and social welfare in a public procurement auction. In our model, rms are invited to the auction at positive costs, and a bureaucrat who runs the auction on behalf of a government may request a bribe from the winning rm. We rst present the over-invitation re- sults in the absence of corruption, in which more than a socially optimal number of rms will be invited. Second, we show that the e¤ects of corruption on equilibrium outcomes vary across di¤erent forms of bribery. For a xed bribe, corruption has no e¤ect on equilibrium competition, although it does induce social welfare loss. For a proportional bribe, a corrupt bureaucrat may invite fewer or more rms to the auction depending on how much he weights his personal interest relative to the government payo¤. Thus, corruption may result in either Pareto-improving or dete- riorating allocations. Finally, we show that information disclosure may consistently induce more rms to be invited, regardless of whether there is corruption

Equilibrium Competition, Social Welfare and Corruption in Procurement Auctions

We study the effects of corruption on equilibrium competition and social welfare in a public procurement auction. A government pays costs to invite firms to the auction, and a bureaucrat who runs the auction may request a bribe from the winning firm. We first show that, with no corruption, the bureaucrat will invite more than the socially optimal number of firms to the auction. Second, the effects of corruption on equilibrium outcomes vary across different forms of bribery. For a fixed bribe, corruption does not affect equilibrium competition, yet it does induce social welfare loss. For a proportional bribe, the bureaucrat may invite either fewer or more firms, depending on how much he weights his private interest relative to the government payoff. Finally, we show that information disclosure may consistently induce more firms to be invited, regardless of whether there is corruption

A Dynamic Processing System for Sensor Data in IoT

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT for short), innumerable Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed to capture the information of environmental status in the surrounding physical environment. The data from WSNs, called sensor data, are generated in high frequency. Similar to data of other open-loop applications, for example, network monitoring data, sensor data are heterogeneous, redundant, real-time, massive, and streaming. Hence, sensor data cannot be treated as the IoT business data, which brings complexity and difficulty to information sharing in the open-loop environment. This paper proposes a dynamic sensor data processing (SDP) system to capture and process sensor data continuously on the basis of data streaming technology. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to train threshold dynamically for data compression avoiding redundancy. With the help of rules setting, the proposed SDP is able to detect exception situations. Meanwhile, the storage models in SQL and NOSQL databases are analyzed and compared trying to seek an appropriate type of database for sensor data storage. The experimental results show that our SDP can compress sensor data through dynamically balancing the accuracy and compression rate and the model on NOSQL database has better performance than the model on SQL database

The influence of different cutting parameters on the glass edge quality

The influence of different cutting parameters on the glass edge quality was investigated, including the cutter material, the sharpening angle of the cutting roll, the cutting speed and the load applied to the roll. The results show that there are less defects on the edge of the glass cut by diamond cutter. There is no obvious influence of cutting speed on the glass edge quality. The cutter with a smaller sharpening angle is more applicable for the cutting of thin glass, and the thick glass is more suitable to use a bigger sharpening angle cutter. Higher cutting load is helpful for the breaking of the glass along the cutting line. However, it may cause more defects on the edge and the surface of the glass