O,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(dimethyl sulfide (DMS))] on various immortalized cell lines, in primary cultures, and in murine xenograft models in vivo. Recently, we also showed that [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] is able to kill Caki-1 renal cells both in vivo and in vitro. In the present paper, apoptotic and autophagic effects of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] and cisplatin were studied and compared using Caki-1 cancerous renal cells. The effects of cisplatin include activation of caspases, proteolysis of enzyme poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP), control of apoptosis modulators B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2-associated X protein (Bax), and BH3-interacting domain death agonist (Bid), and cell cycle arrest in G2/M phase. Conversely, [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] did not induce caspase activation, nor chromatin condensation or DNA fragmentation. The effects of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] include microtubule-associated proteins 1A/1B light chain 3B (LC3)-I to LC3-II conversion, Beclin-1 and Atg-3, -4, and -5 increase, Bcl-2 decrease, and monodansylcadaverine accumulation in autophagic vacuoles. [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] also modulated various kinases involved in intracellular transduction regulating cell fate. [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] inhibited the phosphorylation of mammalian target of rapmycin (mTOR), p70S6K, and AKT, and increased the phosphorylation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK1/2), a kinase activity pattern consistent with autophagy induction. In conclusion, while in past reports the high cytotoxicity of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] was always attributed to its ability to trigger an apoptotic process, in this paper we show that Caki-1 cells die as a result of the induction of a strong autophagic process.We have demonstrated the cytotoxic effects of [Pt( Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is among the top 10 most common cancers in the world; about 20%–30% of patients with RCC have metastasis to the first diagnosis, and over 95% of patients have multiple metastases . HoweverThe development of drugs targeting mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)  has led to significant improvement in RCC prognosis. Although these new agents improve progression-free survival, none have shown a statistically significant improvement in overall survival. In effect, none are curative, and the duration of response is often limited . In addiO,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(dimethyl sulfide (DMS))] has been synthesized, a Pt(II) complex containing two acetyl groups (acac) and a sulfide ligand in the Pt coordination sphere  also has high and rapid citotoxicity on renal Caki-1 cells both in vitro and in vivo  also displayed potent antiangiogenic activity though the inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) expression in tumor tissues  kills cells through a potent induction of apoptosis. Resistance to apoptosis may be due to various factors. During nephrogenesis, the transcription factor paired box protein 2 (PAX2) is differentially expressed depending upon the kidney development phase, and it is barely quantifiable in mature kidney. In Caki-1 cells, PAX2 is overexpressed and contributes to cisplatin resistance  most often activates the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway, another recent in vitro investigation of neuroblastoma cells has revealed that [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] leads to both apoptosis and activation of autophagy  treatment in Caki-1 cells.Thus, the aim of the present paper is to investigate apoptotic and/or autophagic pathways caused by cisplatin and [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] at various concentrations and for different incubation periods. Caki-1 cells  were maintained in McCoy’s medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum, penicillin/streptomycin, and 1% O,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(DMS)] and cisplatin, we used both 3--2,5-diphenol tetrazolium bromide (MTT)  or cisplatin were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde and incubated with 1 mg mL−1 DAPI in phosphate buffeed saline (PBS) for 15–20 min. Cells were mounted on glass slides and analyzed using fluorescence microscopy. For statistical analysis of each experiment, 5–10 fields (magnification 20×) were analyzed using the image analysis software ImageJ so as to detect only the nuclei with chromatin condensation. The mean ± SD was calculated and displayed as a bar graph. For the DNA fragmentation assay, genomic DNA from Caki-1 cells was prepared using the Wizard Genomic DNA Purification Kit  according to the manufacturer’s protocol. DNA was dissolved in Tris-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) buffer, and 40 µg of DNA was separated on a 1.2% agarose gel containing 0.1 mg mL−1 ethidium bromide, visualized under ultraviolet light, and photographed.For the 4,6-diammine-2-phenylindol (DAPI) staining, cells treated with  on mitochondrial enzymes. Indeed, comparable results were obtained when cell number was directly determined by cell counting. Consequently, we used MTT assay in the reported combined experiments.The cytotoxicity data shown here were obtained by MTT metabolic assay and confirmed by SRB assay to rule out potential effects of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] is approximately 5-fold greater than that observed for cisplatin (γ-acac)(DMS)], half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) 6.92 ± 0.084 µM; for cisplatin, IC50 37.35 ± 0.5 µM). Here, a time course cytotoxicity curve was performed using 10 µM [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] and 50 µM cisplatin; it was found that [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] is more powerful than cisplatin (γ-acac)(DMS)], while it was necessary to incubate for about 48 h to get the same effect using 50 μM cisplatin (γ-acac)(DMS)] treatment, was also measured by quantifying the percentage of cells that exhibited annexin V-FITC and/or PI fluorescence. It can be seen that cell death induced by [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] was significantly higher than cell death due to cisplatin (γ-acac)(DMS)] (5 and 10 µM) did not induce variation in cell cycle profiling (γ-acac)(DMS)], while 50 µM cisplatin induced caspase activation after 6 h (γ-acac)(DMS)] did not induce chromatin condensation or DNA fragmentation (γ-acac)(DMS)]-treated cells was observed (10 µM). Thus, these results suggest that in Caki-1 cells, [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] cytotoxicity may not be due to apoptosis. No caspase-9 and -3 proteolytic activation was observed in cells treated with 10 µM [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)]-treated Caki-1 cells. As shown by immunoblotting detection of AIF in Caki-1 extracts, following treatment with AIF siRNA, AIF protein levels were significantly decreased (p = 0.01) or [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] (p = 0.06) treatment in Caki-1 cells (γ-acac)(DMS)]-induced apoptosis prompted us to study another mechanism of cell death, autophagy. Monodansylcadaverine may be used as a specific marker for autophagic vacuoles, since it accumulates in acidic compartments enriched in lipids, and staining intensity increases in cells induced to undergo autophagy. Caki-1 cells were then treated with 10 µM [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] at different incubation times  and subsequently stained with MDC and DAPI . A time-dependent increase of fluorescence signals was evident in autophagic vacuoles of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)]-treated cells (γ-acac)(DMS)] (DMS)] D. O,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(DMS)] induced LC3-I (19 kDa) to LC3-II (17 kDa) conversion in a time-dependent manner; no effects were seen when using 50 µM cisplatin (γ-acac)(DMS)], we observed that Beclin-1 and Atg-3, -4, and -5 increased, Bcl-2 decreased, and JNK1/2 was activated by phosphorylation (γ-acac)(DMS)]-induced Beclin-1 increase (γ-acac)(DMS)]. O,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(DMS)] inhibited the phosphorylation of mTOR already after 1 h treatment, thus promoting the inhibition of p70S6K phosphorylation. Consistently with previous data showing a functional relationship between mTOR and PI3K/AKT  inhibited, in a time-dependent manner, the phosphorylation of AKT (γ-acac)(DMS)] to those exerted by temsirolimus, a soluble ester of rapamycin and a natural product and inhibitor of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)  or temsirolimus. We show that temsirolimus had a significant cytotoxicity starting at 10 µM; such cytotoxicity was lower than that exerted by equal concentrations of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] /AKT-mTOR-p70S6K pathway in Caki-1 cells treated with  D.O,O′-acac)(γ-acac)(DMS)], synthesized for the first time several years ago  is also able to consistently decrease the tumor mass of mouse xenograft model of breast,  is a Pt(II) complex, having two acetylacetonate (acac) ligands and dimethylsulfide (DMS) coordinated to the metal, with the biological activities already cited above. Differently from cisplatin, for which the activity appears to be both genomic and non-genomic, [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] shows a small reactivity with nucleobases and a characteristic reactivity with sulfur ligands  capable of acting intracellularly with different modalities from those caused by cisplatin. In the present study we used the renal cancer cells, Caki-1, that are considered to be a cisplatin-resistant cell line; in these cells [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] is able to induce a strong cytotoxic effects both in vitro and in vivo  always triggered apoptosis in all the cells tested, it seemed appropriate to determine the cellular effects induced by [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] and compared with those obtained with cisplatin. On the other hand, a recent report showed that [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] was able to induce autophagy pathway in neuroblastoma cells [[Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] inducing cytotoxicity faster and greater than that induced by cisplatin. The different and important observation in renal cells was that the high mortality rate associated with [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] was not due to apoptotic processes  was not degraded, nor were DNA degradation or formation of condensed chromatin observed). Instead, the Caki-1 cells incubated with [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] underwent a remarkable autophagic process that is not seen with the use of cisplatin. This conclusion is based on evidence that several autophagic markers are activated in the presence of [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)]. Autophagy does not always produce the same cellular effect, especially when it is triggered by antitumor drugs. Indeed, sodium selenite, . This data suggests that autophagy triggered in Caki-1 cells is a process fostering cell death. The MAPK JNK1/2 is known to be involved in the regulation of autophagy of cancer cells in response to pharmacological stress -treated cells and that its inhibition blocked the [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)]-induced Beclin-1 increase. Beclin-1, a key component of the autophagosome nucleation complex, can interact with Bcl-2 to form Beclin-1/Bcl-2 complex, which functions as an inhibitor of autophagy  in inducing Caki-1 cell death. Several studies demonstrated that autophagy was often triggered by the inhibition of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR/p70S6K pathway concomitantly with the activation of the JNK pathway . Cisplatin cytotoxicity was scarce, probably because Caki-1 cells are intrinsically able to resist and inhibit apoptosis  was strong compared to that observed in other cancer cell lines, due to autophagy through a mechanism mediated by JNK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR/p70S6K pathways. [Pt(γ-acac)(DMS)] may therefore represent an alternative approach to reducing renal cancer mass. However, to assess the general applicability of these findings on renal cell cancer patients, further experiments performed on more renal cancer cell lines are required.In conclusion, we have shown a drastic difference in Caki-1 cell response to cisplatin and [Pt(poptosis ,48. The


GNSS) offers a solution adapted to outdoor testing, but the relationship between the point where the antenna is attached and the real centre of mass (CoM) position is still unknown. This article proposes to compare different points of the body used to quantify the performance of alpine skiers. 3D models of seven elite skiers performing giant slalom (GS) were built using multiple camera system and dedicated motion tracking software. CoM as well as pelvis, head and feet trajectories were deduced from the data. The potential and kinetic energies corresponding to these points were calculated, as well as the evolution of the turn radius during the turn cycle. Differences between values given by the CoM and the other morphological points were analyzed. The pelvis offered the best estimation of the CoM: No differences were found for the biomechanical parameters, except for the kinetic energy, where 2% of the turn cycle had significant different values. The head was less accurate compared to the pelvis, showing significant differences with CoM between 7 and 20% of the turn cycle depending on the parameter. Finally, the feet offered the worst results, with significant differences between 16 and 41% of the turn cycle. Energies and turn radius calculated by using pelvis in place of CoM offered similar patterns, allowing the analysis of mechanical and dissipation energy in GS. This may potentially enable easier testing methods to be proposed and tested.Alpine ski analysis has always been very challenging, mainly due to the environmental conditions, large field and rapid and dynamic skiers’ movements. Global navigation satellite system ( Mechanics of different sports have widely been studied, showing the necessity to calculate the CoM with a good accuracy to perform precise analysis  participated in the study. All participants were healthy males without any joint motion problems  were positioned around the GS run, about 35 m from the center of the zone of acquisition . Each camera was mounted on a special tripod head, especially built to always keep the sensor center of the camera at the same 3D coordinate, even when the camera was rotated to track the skier. Reference markers mounted on poles were positioned around the run to act as calibration and reference points for the panning and tilting reconstruction. The capture volume was around 60 ∗ 20 ∗ 2 m . The cameras’ 3D coordinates were calculated as the median of two points on either side of the tilting axis of the camera. Each camera was connected with Gigabit Ethernet to a dedicated laptop which directly recorded the frames in the RAM memory of the computer, using a software developed for this specific purpose . Cameras were also connected to battery packs and dedicated synchronization boxes . The selected runs were processed with SIMI motion software , using the panning and tilting modules. The camera’s internal  and external  parameters needed for the analysis were determined using the DLT 11 calibration method  were also defined: The Pelvis position was defined as the middle point between the 2 trochanters’ markers, the Feet position as the middle point between the 2 ankle-bone markers and the Head position as the center of the helmet.Participants had to wear a white racing suit previously equipped with 14 black markers, a black helmet, and black gloves. t Figure . The CoMThe accuracy of the reconstruction method was measured in two different ways. First, the positions of three gates as given by the total station were compared with the positions calculated by the software. Second, the error in the length of each body segment was determined.Epot (J/kg), Ekin (J/kg), and Trad (1/m), were calculated for the CoM and the three morphological points . For analysis purposes, each trial was normalized to fit a 100% temporal turn cycle, where 0 and 100% were the time points when the projection of the CoM was between the two skis. A cubic B-splines interpolation method was used to achieve the normalization , the acceleration due to gravity (g) and the delta height (ΔHi(t)) of the analyzed point in a global reference system:As the different morphological points are positioned at different heights of the body, the ΔEkini evolution during the turn was calculated using the speed (Vi) of the analyzed points  and M, using the following equation:The Ekin (Ekinm) was also calculated over the whole turn cycle, to show the overall error when using a morphological point instead of the CoM.The mean Tradi were calculated directly with SIMI motion, using the Frenet-Serret formula ((Tentryi) was defined as the instant where the Tradi dropped below the natural radius of the skis  and the turn exit (Texiti) as the instant where the turn radius went over 25 m again.The  formula . The turSPM) was used on paired Student T-Tests . Paired Student T-tests were also used to assess statistical differences between the CoM and the morphological points for the Ekinm, Tentry, and Texit, given as mean ±SD. For all statistical analyses, significance was accepted at p < .05.Statistical parametric mapping .Using the Pelvis was used instead of the CoM to calculate ΔEpot, no significantly different values were obtained. Figure Epot between the CoM and the Pelvis with the corresponding SPM curve on Figure tt threshold at ±6.16).When the Feet to estimate the ΔEpot, 41% of the measures during the turn cycle had significantly different values (tt threshold at ±6.33) compared to the values obtained using the CoM, as seen in Figures Concerning the use of the Ekin calculation, it can be seen that the Head induced significantly different values for 20% of the measures during the turn cycle compared to the results obtained using the CoM. Figure tt threshold at ±5.99). Compared to the CoM, the Head induced a significant underestimation of −2.57 ± 1.22 J/kg (p < 0.001) when calculating Ekinm.From the CoM, The Pelvis induced significantly different values for only 2% of the Ekin measurement during the turn cycle . No significant difference were found between the CoM and the Pelvis for Ekinm .Compared to the  Figures  . The Feet induced a significant overestimation of Ekinm [5.77 ± 4.00 J/kg (p < 0.001)] compared to the result obtained with the CoM.For the Head instead of the CoM for the calculation of Trad indicated significant differences for 7% of the turn cycle. Evolution of Trad is described in Figure tt threshold at ±6.67).The results obtained using the Trad using the Pelvis instead of the CoM induced no significant differences during the whole turn cycle (tt threshold at ±6.79). The corresponding curves are plotted on Figures The calculation of Feet instead of the CoM to estimate Trad revealed that 16% of the measures had significantly different values during the turn cycle. Figures Trad curve and SPM results for the comparison of the CoM and the Feet during the turn cycle (tt threshold at ±6.76).Using the Tentry and Texit between the CoM and the morphological points can be found in Table Comparison of Pelvis and the CoM. Indeed, when looking at the different parameters analyzed, the Pelvis offered the best estimation for the ΔEpot, Ekin and Trad calculation. No significant differences were found for the ΔEpot and Trad during the whole turn whilst only 2% of the turn cycle significantly differed in the case of the Ekin. The difference was encountered only at the beginning of the turn.The most important finding of this study was the high level of agreement between the Feet and the Head as extreme points of the skier, while the Pelvis is more centered and near the CoM. Nevertheless, the Head allowed slightly better estimations than the Feet for the analyzed parameters showing more similar patterns of the CoM. The angulation of the hips during the second half of the turn can probably explain this result, as the Head is more centered vertically on the CoM while the Feet follow an external trajectory. The best morphological point to estimate ΔEpot and Ekin is therefore the Pelvis, followed by the Head and finally by the Feet that offer poor reliability.As a global observation, it is quite intuitive to see the Epot is directly correlated to vertical displacement, the curves of ΔEpot obtained in this study can be compared to the work proposed by CoM compared to the ground. As expected, the CoM was higher during transitions between turns and lower at gate crossings. This corresponds well to the interpretation of ΔEpot curves calculated using the CoM and the Feet in the present study.As Ekin values depend on the square power of the speed, the shape of the curves obtained in this study can also be compared to those obtained by As the (Emech), which involved addition of the Ekin and the Epot. They also calculated the corresponding dissipated energy (Edissip) as the change in mechanical energy per change of vertical distance  d’éthique de la recherche sur l’être humain.” The protocol was approved by the “Commission cantonale (VD) d’éthique de la recherche sur l’être humain.” All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.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.


Phased energy storage technologies are highly advantageous and feasible for storing and utilizing clean renewable energy resources, for instance, solar energy and waste heat, and it is an effective method to improve energy efficiency and save energy. However, phase change energy storage has some problems, for example, low thermal conductivity and phase change leakage, which lead to limited application. In this paper, anisotropic graphene aerogels were prepared by ice crystal template method with high thermal conductivity of graphene, and silver was attached to the pore wall graphene sheets and the graphene sheet boundaries of the aerogels. The results show that anisotropic graphene aerogels were successfully prepared, and SEM and EDS indicate that up to 9.14 at % silver was successfully attached to the graphene sheets and boundaries. The anisotropic thermal conductivity of the PArGO phase change composites after adsorption of the paraffin is significant, with a maximum axial thermal conductivity of PArGO of 1.20 W/(mK) and radial thermal conductivity of 0.54 W/(mK), compared to the pure paraffin (0.26 W/(mK)) increased by 362% and 108%, respectively. The enthalpy of the composite has been reduced to 149.6 J/g due to the silver particles attached, but the thermal properties have been greatly improved. In experiments simulating real temperature changes, PArGO achieves phase transitions very fast, with a 74% improvement on thermal efficiency of storage and discharge over the pure paraffin. With the growing demand of energy consumption, the problem of shortages of common fossil fuels and the accompanying environmental pollution has become more serious. The need to find renewable and clean energy sources is becoming urgent. Thermal energy storage technology is one of the ideal solutions that offers clear economic advantages in terms of reducing energy wastage and costs. Moreover, it is also a clean and reusable technology. Phased energy storage technologies are highly advantageous and feasible for storing and utilizing clean renewable energy sources, such as solar energy and waste heat, and it is one of effective methods to improve energy efficiency and save energy. Phase change material (PCM) is a key factor in phase change energy storage technology.There are many types of PCMs, including organic PCMs such as paraffin ,2,3 and The emergence of graphene provides a good idea to solve both problems. Graphene has an ultra-high thermal conductivity, which is up to 5300 W/(mK) . Thus, i. Although anisotropic graphene aerogels can better decrease the thermal resistance and enhance the thermal conductivity, the thermal conductivity in the normal direction of the pore wall is still low, and the thermal resistance of the graphene sheet boundaries in contact with the PCM is still high.Many researchers have prepared graphene aerogels by oxidation-reduction method to adsorb PCMs and study their improvement effects on the thermal properties of composite phase change materials. It is found that graphene aerogel alone does not improve the thermal conductivity of phase change composites well, mainly because the random contact conduction of the graphene sheets increases the contact thermal resistance of the graphene sheets in the thermal conductivity pathway, while a large number of the graphene sheet boundaries also increase the boundary thermal resistance of the thermal conductivity pathway. Therefore, many researchers have proposed anisotropic graphene aerogels, in which the pore walls are relatively thick and the graphene sheets are regularly arranged so that the previously haphazard graphene sheets are tightly assembled into a single unit, thus reducing the contact thermal resistance and the boundary thermal resistance. Peng et al. used the ice crystal template approach to prepare anisotropic graphene aerogels, and the thermal conductivity was as high as 8.87 W/(mK) after adsorbing paraffin . AlthougSilver nanoparticles are of great importance owing to its high thermal conductivity of 429 W/(mK) at room temperature. They are expected to have good thermal properties preferably suitable for heat transfer applications ,20 and pThe ice crystal template method, using cold source directed freezing of graphene wet gels, was used to prepare anisotropic graphene aerogels. Silver is attached to the graphene sheets and the boundaries, thereby greatly reducing the normal thermal conductivity of the pore wall and the contact thermal resistance between the graphene sheet boundaries and the PCM.2SO4 solution on an ice bath below 5 °C after cooled to room temperature. During dilution, the temperature of the solution should not exceed 5 °C. Subsequently, H2O2  was added, the solution turned bright yellow, stirred reaction for 1 h before centrifugation. Following the solid was centrifugal washed with 10 vol % HCl for several times, then washed with 2 vol % HCl. Finally, the precipitate was washed with distilled water several times and freeze-dried to obtain graphene oxide (GO).A modified Hummers′ method  was usedObtained GO (0.4 g) and 50 mL of water were added into the glass bottle in the reaction kettle, and then the solid–liquid mixture was placed in an ultrasonic bath with a cold-water circulating system. After 1 h, added concentrated ammonia (500 µL) and stirred evenly, and then the reaction kettle was placed into the oven for 3 h at 90 °C. Next, the reactor was taken out and put in deionized water for two days, during which the water was changed every eight hours, followed by 3 h of directional freezing at −45 °C, and then freeze-dried for two days. Finally, the reduced graphene oxide aerogel (rGO) was obtained after being microwaved under vacuum. The obtained rGO samples were immersed into the heated and melted paraffin  and absorbed by vacuum for 30 min, and then taken out and cooled naturally to obtain paraffin/rGO composite material, denoted as PrGO.3 ethanol (20%) solution slowly until a large amount of precipitation occurred. After a small amount of acetaldehyde was added in the solution and stirred well, the obtained rGO samples were immersed into this solution at 40 °C for a period of time to obtain a graphene wet gel with silver attached. Then the wet gel was freeze-dried to obtain a graphene aerogel with silver attached (Ag-rGO). The prepared aerogel was immersed in the heated and melted paraffin  and absorbed by vacuum for 30 min, and then taken out and cooled naturally to obtain paraffin/Ag-rGO composite material, denoted PArGO.2% ammonia solution was added dropwise into 20 mL of 2 wt % AgNOScanning electron microscopy (SEM) images were acquired on an EVO18 microscope . Aerogel samples were pasted on a conductive adhesive without spraying Au and directly observed, but the composite PCM was surface sprayed with gold  before observation.X-ray energy dispersion (EDS) analysis was performed using chemical microanalysis INCA 350  for the elemental analysis after surface treatment of the samples (ethanol rinsed and vacuum dried).2 protection, 50 mL/min, and a temperature rise rate of 10 °C/min.A differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) instrument was used to analyze the thermal properties of the PCM-adsorbed composite material samples using Q2000 , with the following detection conditions: NThe thermal conductivity of PCM composite material samples was measured using the transient hot wire method on a thermal conductivity meter TC3100 .Anisotropic graphene aerogels were prepared by directional freezing. Further characterization by EDS verified the silver attachment on the graphene aerogel pore walls. From After the prepared aerogel adsorbed paraffin, a composite phase change material was obtained, and its appearance and morphology were investigated as well as thermal properties. The thermal properties of the composite PCM were also tested. In The thermal conductivity of the composite has a significant anisotropy, with a significant difference between radial and axial thermal conductivity. As shown in The phase change behavior of the PCM was investigated in an environment simulating actual temperature changes. As in In this research, anisotropic graphene aerogels were prepared by directional freezing, and then silver particles were attached on the sheet layers and boundaries of graphene by silver mirror reaction to improve the thermal conductivity of the phase change material. The samples were subjected to apparent morphology and thermal properties studies. The results show that anisotropic graphene aerogels were successfully prepared, and SEM and EDS results indicate that up to 9.14 at % silver was successfully attached to the graphene sheets and boundaries. The anisotropic thermal conductivity enhancement of the PArGO phase change composites after silver attached is significant, with a maximum axial thermal conductivity of PArGO of 1.20 W/(mK) and radial thermal conductivity of 0.54 W/(mK), compared to the pure paraffin (0.26 W/(mK)), which increased by 362% and 108% respectively. The enthalpy of the composite has been reduced to 149.6 J/g due to the silver particles attached, but the thermal performance has been greatly improved. In the experiments simulating real temperature changes, PArGO achieves phase transitions very fast, with a 74% improvement on thermal efficiency of storage and discharge over the pure paraffin.


Scanning electron microscopy and Raman tests showed that decorating with multilayer graphene and amorphous boron promoted the dispersion of Al3Mg2 alloy. The results showed that decorating with 1% boron and 2% multilayer graphene improved the combustion heat of Al3Mg2 alloy to 32.8 and 30.5 MJ/kg, respectively. The coexistence of two phases improved the combustion efficiency of the matrix Al3Mg2 alloy.To improve the engine-driven performance of propellants, high-energy alloys such as Al and Mg are usually adopted as annexing agents. However, there is still room for improvement in the potential full utilization of alloy energy. In this study, we investigated how to improve combustion efficiency by decorating Al Different researchers have studied how to remove aluminum-based oxide on the surface. One study showed that a CuF2 solution can simultaneously remove the Al2O3 layer on Al particles and form the Cu–Al nanocomposite [−1, which is approximately 1.8 times that of raw Al. Energetic materials have been widely used in propellants. With increased demand for high-energy-density materials, more metals, such as Al, Mg, and Ti, have been investigated ,2. Al-baomposite . The max3)3 and Cu(IO3)2 have been adopted to modify the Al powder [3)x for the combustion of solid composite propellants. To enhance the combustion performance of aluminum, ultra-fine iron and amorphous boron additives have been added to Al-based propellants [In addition to the high purity Al powder, Al-based alloys such as Al–Mg binary alloys have been investigated as additive materials for propellants. To improve the combustion performance of Al–Mg-based micron particles, zirconium particles are modulated to the matrix . The resl powder . The respellants . When Al2 have also been employed to fully use the Al-based materials in propellants [The aluminothermic reactions of Al/CuO and Al/MnOpellants ,10,11,12pellants . The compellants . Based oIn addition to Al-based materials, boron-based materials have also been widely investigated by researchers. Boron is usually used in amorphous states . The com3Mg2 alloys. The results show that the Al3Mg2 particles can be encapsulated by multilayer graphene, which promotes the combustion of the alloys and enhances combustion heat. Boron particles can also be mounted on the surface to decorate the Al3Mg2 particles and enhance the combustion heat of the Al3Mg2 alloy.In this paper, we report the structure and combustion heat of multilayer graphene and boron particles modulated with AlThe Al and Mg powders and amorphous boron were obtained from the Aladdin Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd. . The diameters of the Al and Mg were distributed in the range of 3~5 µm. The particles of amorphous boron were about 100 nm in diameter. The multilayer graphene was obtained through improved Hummers’ methods in our laboratory . It was 3Mg2 alloy was prepared by induction melting in a water-cooled copper crucible  in an argon atmosphere. The ingot was re-melted three times to ensure the homogeneity of the alloy. Then the alloy was mechanically milled in an argon atmosphere by a high energy grinding machine  and sieved to obtain a grey powder with particle diameter less than 50 nm. The amorphous boron-decorated and multilayer graphene-decorated Al3Mg2 alloys were also obtained by high-energy ball milling methods in an argon atmosphere with a weight ratio of ball to materials of 10:1. The ground materials were heat to 600 °C at a rate of 5 °C/min in a cylinder oven  and kept 1 h in an argon atmosphere. Then the heated materials were cooled down to ambient temperature naturally.The Al−1 in an argon atmosphere. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm measurements were performed using a Micromeritics ASAP 2020 analyzer  to investigate the specific surface area. Before analysis, the multilayer graphene was pretreated by degassing at 200 °C for 8 h to remove any adsorbed species. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) tests were conducted using a Bruke D8 focus instrument  with graphite-filtered Cu-Kα radiation. The scanning speed was 5 degrees per minute, with a step of 0.02 degrees from 10 to 80 degrees. SEM tests were conducted using a Hitachi (S-4800) scanning electron microscope (SEM)  equipped with an energy-dispersive spectroscopy analyzer with charges of 15 kV and 10 pA. The combustion heat was examined with oxygen bomb equipment with an oxygen pressure of 10 MPa. The combustion heat tests were conducted 5 times and the average value of the tests was provided to eliminate the differences caused by the test system.Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis and synchronously differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) tests were carried out using a TA SDT 2960 thermoanalyzer  with a heating rate of 5 °C min2 adsorption-desorption curve is clearly a type III curve [2g−1. The pore size distribution of the multilayer graphene was also obtained and is displayed in 3Mg2 particles to be loaded into the interlayer space of the multilayer graphene.II curve . The tes3Mg2 alloy was first examined via the metallography method. The results are shown in The structure of the Al3Mg2 alloy with different magnifications. The grain boundary of the alloy can be clearly observed. There were no obvious impurities in the alloy. To further investigate the structure of the alloy, an X-ray diffraction (XRD) test was also conducted on the alloy, the results of which are shown in 3Mg2 alloy was easily indexed as 29-0048, which clarified that the alloy had a cubic structure and a space group of Fd-3m(227). A similar structure was observed by other researchers [3Mg2 alloy, respectively. There were no impurities on the crystal particle, which is consistent with the results from the XRD tests. The EDS in  of Fd-3m7. A simi2O and certain gases. However, the weight of the sample slightly increased with the increase in temperature. This can be attributed to the oxidation of boron by trace oxygen in the argon carrier gas.Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) tests were conducted on amorphous boron. The results are shown in Correspondingly, the DSC curve increased slightly at first due to the evaporation of materials on the surface of the boron. The curve then decreased with an increase in temperature, which can be attributed to the exothermal reaction caused by the oxidation of trace oxygen in the argon carrier gas.3Mg2 alloy and multilayer graphene, Raman tests were conducted on the multilayer graphene and the composite of the multilayer graphene-decorated Al3Mg2 alloy. The results are shown in To investigate the mutual interaction between the Al1g zone-edge phonon mode induced by the disorder of finite crystal-sized effects and the high-frequency E2g first-order mode, respectively. 3Mg2 alloy decorated with multilayer graphene and clearly shows that compared to the spectra in 3Mg2 alloy and the graphene. The structure of the multilayer graphene was destroyed during the high-energy ball milling and heat treatment process. The intensity ratio of the D band and G band (ID/IG) in the two samples was also obtained. The ID/IG of the multilayer graphene was much lower than that of the Al3Mg2 alloy decorated with multilayer graphene. The strong D peak suggests that there are more nanocrystalline structures and defects such as distortion, vacancies, and strain on graphitic lattices—which are prevalent features in carbon—in the ball-milled graphene [−1 are also displayed in 3Mg2 alloy [3Mg2 alloy.graphene . The Ramg2 alloy , which c3Mg2 alloys are supplied in The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) test results from the boron-decorated and multilayer graphene-decorated Al3Mg2 alloy had an aggregated structure, caused by the high-energy ball milling. All of the Al3Mg2 alloy particles were ground and the amorphous boron particles were eventually distributed onto the Al3Mg2 alloy surface. After grinding for a long period of time, all of the boron particles were implanted into the Al3Mg2 alloy particles. All the elements were evenly distributed. The elemental mapping test results in 3Mg2 alloy are supplied in 3Mg2 alloy particles were uniformly loaded onto the surface of the multilayer graphene. This can be attributed to the large specific surface area of the multilayer graphene. The amorphous boron particles were evenly distributed onto the layer space of the multilayer graphene after grinding for a certain amount of time. The SEM test results also showed that some particles cohered together, which could be connected by the multilayer graphene. The close contact in the interface between the multilayer graphene and the Al3Mg2 alloy could promote the combustion characteristics [The SEM test results from multilayer graphene-decorated Aleristics .3Mg2 alloy, B-doped Al3Mg2 alloy, and multilayer graphene-decorated Al3Mg2 alloy were tested with the oxygen bomb method. The results showed that the combustion heats of the materials were 27.4 ± 0.20, 32.8 ± 0.18, and 30.5 ± 0.15 MJ/kg, respectively, which means that decoration with both boron and multilayer graphene promoted the combustion of the Al3Mg2 alloy. Studies on the combustion of the B–Fe system also found that the combustion reactions were altered when boron was doped with iron, which was attributed to the catalytic performance of iron for boron oxidation [3Mg2 alloy was catalyzed by the doped boron and the multilayer graphene. It has also been reported that a multiwall carbon nanotube accompanied by Al powder was adopted to improve the combustion performance of hydroxyl ammonium nitrate [3Mg2 alloy. As for the boron-decorated Al3Mg2 alloy, the combustion of the boron was improved by the high-energy ball milling and the subsequent heat treatment [3Mg2 alloys were eventually improved with a modified combustion zone width by the decoration of boron and multilayer graphene.The combustion heats of the Al nitrate . The homreatment ,30. Shabreatment . It can 3Mg2 alloys decorated with multilayer graphene and boron particles. The results showed that high-energy ball milling can evenly set boron particles into the Al3Mg2 alloy. The distance between the layers in multilayer graphene can also provide enough space for Al3Mg2 alloy particles. The even dispersion and appropriate distance between the two phases promoted the combustion of the materials, which eventually resulted in the combustion heat increasing by more than 10 percent.This paper mainly reported on the structure and combustion heat of Al


The politically charged nature of many of these communities suggests their activity is migrated to other Twitter hashtags . Future analysis of Twitter activity might focus on tracking communities across topics and time.Social Media platforms in Cyberspace provide communication channels for individuals, businesses, as well as state and non-state actors  to conduct messaging campaigns. What are the spheres of influence that arose around the keyword  On July 22, 2016, a mass shooting occurred in a shopping mall in Munich, Germany. The attacker was quickly identified by local police as an 18 year old German-Iranian dual national resident of Munich  The general analysis of the cumulative network of retweets for this incident. (3) The evolution of the influence flow-based communities in temporal network of timeslices by day. In section 2 we discuss related work. Section 3 covers the problem definition and the details of the collected dataset. In sections 4 and 5, we discuss the methodology and results, respectively. The paper concludes with several future directions.The main contributions of the paper are: (1) The collection of the hashtaged In the current era of social networking, information sharing has been easier by posting microblogs  Every unique Twitter account that occurred in our data is represented by a node,u to node v if user u retweets the tweet that was initially posted by user v,(2) A directed edge is placed from node u retweeted user v's tweets, and(3) Edge weights represent the number of times user G0 did not contain any temporal information.(*) Edges in G0 has 147, 116 nodes, 191, 002 edges. To this graph we apply a standard community detection algorithm called Louvain  add an edge between communities if they have a shared user. Let Ut be the set of users comprising community U on day (t), and Vt+1 be the set of users comprising community V on day (t + 1). We then compute the similarity between two communities as,We further propose a metric to compare leader-centric communities across time, computed in two steps: (1) run Louvain community detection on sub-graphs Similarity metric assigns the value while considering the sizes of the communities, as community sizes may vary a lot due to their sphere of influence. Next, we present the analysis results using the discussed metrics.#Munich, we notice that about 80% of the Tweets were individuals retweeting other users. This dynamically captures the influence of a very small portion of the overall accounts, because these tweets include content that a large number of other users identify with as they get retweeted.In exploring the data set of all the Tweets with The distribution of retweets vs. day is shown in G* from G0 by selecting the 20 largest communities in G0. G* contains less than 1% of the communities, but it still accounts for over 70% of the nodes and 75% of the edges in G0. G* using the ForceAtlas visualization from Gephi : socially conservative communities, politically neutral communities/news sources, socially liberal communitiesVertically (top to bottom): English language communities, French language communities, Spanish language communities.Note that the FC Bayern Munich community might be outside the scope of the study of the July 22nd attack, rather tweets on football using the same hashtag(#Munich). Since the data captured it anyway, we have shown it in the analysis.The partitioning of communities along language and political views reinforces the findings of the Pew study  attach themselves to a particular hashtag  and form topic communities. This creates the following cases for followers and leaders.A user exists in the fundamental community but not in the topic communityA user exists in both the fundamental community and the topic communityA user exists in a topic-specific community but not in the underlying fundamental community.u agrees with the sentiment of leader v's Tweet on the topic of the #Munich and retweets v's message. Users u and v are in the same topic community, but not necessarily in the same fundamental communities if in general their views do not coincide.For example, user k, if any node is ended up having degree k or less, will also be removed in the same iteration. The method is stopped once each node has been assigned a k-shell value. k-core of a network contains all the nodes having k-shell value equal to or higher than k. To understand the influential hierarchy of the network, we first apply the core-periphery analysis of the network using K-shell decomposition method Seidman, . The k-sIn this section, we study the evolution of the communities found in the cumulative graph for the first 4 days succeeding the attack. This subset is deemed adequate by examining the frequency of retweets in each day for the whole period. As seen in In this multilayer network, the nodes represent each of the top 20 communities, and a single layer is created for each day. The nodes are sized by the number of users in that community and colored by the communities they belong to in the cumulative graph. The label of each node corresponds to the leader in that community as defined by Equation (1). We then add an edge from a node in one layer to a node in another layer if there are any shared users between the two communities. This captures the continuity of community membership. The weight of the edge is then computed using Equation (2) as described in the methodology.The resulting network provides significant insight into the evolution of communities over time. We further observe that a significant amount of users retweet from the same community. Although this observation is prevalent in the data, it is most evident in the community labeled as French conservative social commentary. We observe that a high amount of users that retweeted from @tprincedelamour on July 23, 2016, did so again on the next day.Following communities from left to right we see how they can merge from several nodes to one or split from one over each day, as is the case with the English conservative social commentary (USA based) community. Lastly, the @jazayerli community is seen to grow from the 24 to 25 of July with no connecting edge. The lack of an edge between these two nodes is because the community consists of just one Twitter message generated by @jazayerli that is retweeted several times over the 2 days.#Munich retweets on July 25.The cumulative and temporal graphs of the Twitter data complement each other by providing overlapping insight into the communities described. #Munich July 2016 attack corresponding to a month-long period after the July 22 shootings in Munich. We study the community structure in the cumulative dataset as well as daily partitions and classify each community based on the nature of its leaders and their tweets. This study provides insight on how information spreads on Twitter in case of an event, and we observe how the important leaders disappear from the network of #Munich retweets after a week of the attack. The leaders in the first week tended to be news organizations or social leaders with strong or extreme views. Communities expressing strong opinions were the most active; however, as mentioned, the collected data is unable to account for passive users . One can further study the impact of the event on other users who are not directly involved in tweeting and retweeting, however, have been affected by the event. The analysis can also be extended to different social media platforms for better understanding.In this work, we collect and analyze the Twitter data of This research opens up several questions to be studied for a better understanding of the evolution of the network in case of terrorist attacks. One can identify the leaders and follow them across multiple hashtags to determine topic communities of leaders for each hashtag. By comparing a leader's topic networks and identifying users that retweet the leader across multiple different topics, we can understand the development of the fundamental and topic-based communities represented by that leader. These communities can be further classified based on different parameters, such as is the community passive where the leader has many followers, but few retweets; or is it active where the majority of users following a leader actively retweet the leader across many different topics.All these approaches will be fruitful in a deeper understanding of how communities generate influence in social media networks. Given the increasing use of online social media, the implications for how corporations, organizations, and nation states conduct influence campaigns will continue to grow as part of future information operations.The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.IB, DC, EK, and TN collected the dataset, discussed the research methodology, implemented the project, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. RG and AS contributed to the research methodology and its implementation, analysis of the results, and writing of the manuscript.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.


In this prospective study, radiation dermatitis severity of 142 Caucasian early breast cancer patients undergoing whole-breast irradiation was evaluated by physicians, the patients themselves and objective technical measurements. The primary aim and a substantial novelty of this study was to identify patient- and treatment-related risk factors for radiation dermatitis by using objective spectrophotometry: 24 patient or radiotherapy related parameters were evaluated as potential risk factors. Objective and significant risk factors for radiation dermatitis were the breast volume and the applied irradiation technique; a boost radiotherapy administration also showed a trend towards a slightly more severe radiation dermatitis. These results can help to identify those patients at increased risk of developing a severe radiation dermatitis, as susceptible patients may require special monitoring and timely treatment.Background: Radiation-induced dermatitis (RID) is frequent in breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy (RT). Spectrophotometry (SP) is an objective and reliable tool for assessing RID severity. Despite intensive research efforts during the past decades, no sustainable prophylactic and treatment strategies have been found. Estimation of new and reevaluation of established risk factors leading to severe RID is therefore of major importance. Methods: 142 early breast cancer patients underwent whole-breast irradiation following breast-conserving surgery. RID was evaluated by physician-assessed Common Terminology Criteria of Adverse Events (CTCAE v4.03). Spectrophotometers provided additional semi quantification of RID using the L*a*b color-space. A total of 24 patient- and treatment-related parameters as well as subjective patient-assessed symptoms were analyzed. Results: Values for a*max strongly correlated with the assessment of RID severity by physicians. Breast volume, initial darker skin, boost administration, and treatment technique were identified as risk factors for severe RID. RID severity positively correlated with the patients’ perception of pain, burning, and reduction of everyday activities. Conclusions: Physician-assessed RID gradings correlate with objective SP skin measurements. Treatment technique and high breast volumes were identified as objective and significant predictors of RID. Our data provide a solid benchmark for future studies on RID with objective SP. Radiation-induced dermatitis (RID) is one of the most common side effects during and following radiation therapy (RT) . RID canIn early breast cancer, breast-conserving therapy is standard of care as it facilitates improved cosmetic results . To prevDespite the frequency of radiation dermatitis in WBI patients, there is still no comprehensive and, importantly, objective severity classification. Two of the most widely used severity gradings are the Common Terminology Criteria of Adverse Events (CTCAE) and RTOG/EORTC systems which are based on the visible skin color and integrity defined by erythema and desquamation . These gSuch a technical approach to assess RID is spectrophotometry (SP) with which the skin color can be evaluated objectively and reliably by three distinct numerical parameters, the L*, a*, and b* value: together, these parameters define the so-called L*a*b color space in which every color in every lightness can be precisely depicted. In clinical routines and also in clinical trials it is, of course, desirable that the technical effort as well as the time spent on such measurements is reasonable . SpectroIn this prospective study, RID severity of 142 early breast cancer patients undergoing WBI was evaluated by CTCAE gradings and SP. The primary aim and a substantial novelty of this study were to identify patient- and treatment-related risk factors for RID by using objective SP skin measurements. We also investigated the correlation of the subjective CTCAE score with the objective SP measurements; these subjective and objective data were additionally correlated with patient-reported symptoms using the Radiation-Induced Skin Reaction Assessment Scale (RISRAS) providing new insights into the relationship between subjectively experienced RID symptoms and objective, semi-quantitative skin measurements.142 women were prospectively enrolled from October 2017 to July 2019 and participated in this study. Patient data were gathered in our comprehensive academic cancer center, participating clinics, and radiation oncology community practices. The study design was previously approved by the local ethics committee (186/2016). Written informed consent was obtained by all participants. All analyzed patients completed WBI as intended. Patient characteristics are summarized in Inclusion criteria: WBI dose-fractionation regimen of 50 Gy in 25 fx (CF) or 40.05 Gy in 15 fx (HF), breast-preserving surgery, >18 years, nonsmoker. Exclusion criteria: neoadjuvant/adjuvant/concomitant chemotherapy, previous irradiation of the ipsilateral breast, nodal irradiation indicated, mastectomy, breast implants, any prior surgical procedures in the irradiation area, use of corticosteroids, active dermatitis or chronic dermatological disorders, tattoos within the treated integument, and patient refusal.2 = 0.4437; p < 0.0001). SP revealed a proportional decrease in skin lightness   D and an  values) E. Howeve values) F. A detap = 0.005 and R2 = 0.06. For spectrophotometrically obtained a*maximum values, the linear regression yielded a p = 0.051 and R2 = 0.05. Taking the strong positive correlation between CTCAE gradings and a*maximum values into account, the comparably low R2 values for the linear regressions with breast volumes were indicative of a skewed distribution pattern: consequently, subgroups were established allowing to draw more clinically relevant conclusions  with p = 0.82 and R2 = 0.0004; HI(D2-D98)/D50 with p = 0.71 and R2 = 0.001; L* (baseline) with p = 0.28 and R2 = 0.018; a* (baseline) with p = 0.29 and R2 = 0.017; b* (baseline) with p = 0.37 and R2 = 0.012; b* (maximum) with p = 0.52 and R2 = 0.004; rel. D2% with p = 0.5635 and R2 = 0.002; rel. D50% with p = 0.5532 and R2 = 0.002; rel. D98% with p = 0.5595 and R2 = 0.002. Detailed results on all investigated parameters in relation to the CTCAE scoring, maximum L* value and maximum a* values are provided in The following patient-related factors did not correlate linearly with the severity of physician-assessed RID: patient age with A sequential boost RT led to a tendentially more severe RID A with anp < 0.0001 and inversely correlated with symptoms measured by RISRAS : pain (p = 0.0115); burning (p = 0.025) and reduction in activities of daily living (p = 0.0011). Maximum L* values did not correlate with the subjective perception of “Itching” (p = 0.8369). This finding is similar to RID assessments via maximum a* values and CTCAE. Similar to the maximum a* values and CTCAE v4.03 ratings, itching did not correlate with the maximum L* values (p = 0.8369).To quantify the impact of RID severity on distinct subjective symptoms, patients enrolled in this study filled the RISRAS questionnaire. We performed statistical analyses based on CTCAE as well as maximum values for the green-red-axis within the L*a*b color-space . With both assessment approaches, we found that an increasing RID severity proportionally increases the perception of pain and burning sensation A,B,E,F. An important and frequent adverse reaction of adjuvant WBI is RID, often considerably impairing the patients’ quality of life during the course of WBI and up to weeks thereafter ,2. GenerFor decades, radiation oncologists used to rely on visually assessed and thus subjective criteria such as the CTCAE for the assessment of RID. Owing to the simple and quick application, these subjective gradings are widely accepted. However, such visual assessments were shown to be prone to considerable biases due to substantial intra- and inter-evaluator differences ,11,16,17While initially developed for the dye and textile industry, SP was consequently utilized in the objective and reliable assessment of skin color differences. Feasibility studies showed that SP can determine even slight skin luminance and color differences which may not be perceived by a human observer or photographs ,16,17,18Along with objectivity, a continuous scale enumerating even slight changes in the skin color also allows us to draw precise conclusions on both the development of RID and the efficacy of specific treatments ,11,22,23So far, our series yields the largest WBI patient cohort investigated by SP for dermatitis evaluation. As expected , physiciSuch an objective assessment of RID also serves an exact estimation of possible RID risk factors, as susceptible patients may require special monitoring and timely treatment . Back beOur series complies with this recommendation and is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to evaluate potential risk factors associated with RID in WBI based on objective SP. We found the breast volume to be a positive predictor of a more severe RID during WBI and confirmed this correlation by objective SP. Subgroup analyses revealed a significantly increased risk of a more severe RID in breasts exceeding 800 mL , whilst SP already indicated significant erythema differences in breasts with more than 400 mL. A sequential tumor bed boost also induced a more severe RID, as measured by CTCAE and SP alike, while the aspired significance level was slightly exceeded. Large breast volumes and a boost administration have already been suggested as such predictors ,26, but Unexpectedly, a significant difference in RID severity was observed for different WBI treatment approaches: patients benefited from VMAT as compared with SW-IMRT. Conventional tangents or forward-planned 3D-conformal RT techniques were explicitly not used in our study since it was shown that modern techniques offer better dose conformity and homogeneity, and deliver lower doses to the ipsilateral lung and breast . Up to nAnother finding was that the pre-treatment skin color was not predictive of final RID severity in this Caucasian cohort. However, following stratification for pre-treatment skin lightness, objective SP indicated that those patients with darker skin developed significantly more intense erythema. Our objective measurements stand in contrast to previous, non-objective studies describing a relationship between light skin and RID susceptibility ,26.Additionally, we evaluated the impact of objective and subjective dermatitis severity on patient-experienced symptoms caused by RID. We determined whether higher objective skin color differences or physician-assessed severity gradings would affect the patients’ symptoms or vice versa. This may sound trivial at first glance and was thus not investigated yet, but it is highly relevant since substantial differences between patients’ and clinicians’ toxicity evaluations have been reported ,31. PainIdeally, future objective studies in the field of RID research should also reflect patients’ genetic, epigenetic, and molecular profiles, since several promising relationships of tissue sensitivity towards radiotherapy have been described. Even though this kind of research is still in its infancy, we expect it to provide further clinically relevant insights into risk factors for radiotherapy-induced side effects ,33,34.After 3D planning, patients were randomly assigned to either 50 Gy in 25 fractions (fx) or 40.05 Gy in 15 fx using 6 MV photons or a combination with 10 MV photons. Treatments were performed as sliding-window intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) via photon beams or via volumetric  arc therapy (VMAT). The selection of the irradiation technique was based on the individual patient anatomy, with due consideration of the target volume coverage, dose homogeneity, and sparing of organs at risk. A sequential tumor bed boost of 16 Gy with 2 Gy/fx was performed in those patients up to the age of 50 years, with close or positive resection margins or with high-grade tumors. WBI was performed in a supine position on a Varian True-Beam STx  linear accelerator. Treatment of left-sided breasts was administered using deep-inspiration breath-hold. For skin-care purposes, patients were instructed to use 5% urea lotion  two times daily during the WBI treatment period.Radiation-induced dermatitis (RID) assessments were reported corresponding to the CTCAE v4.03 at treatment completion and in the first follow-up visit after two weeks. To prevent a potential grading variability between different observers, only the treating radiation oncologist visually assessed the skin toxicity in his/her patients. Additionally, patients completed a questionnaire on their most severe experience of itching, burning, pain, pigmentation changes, incapacity for work, and limitations in everyday activities related to their acute skin reactions. Therefore, we designed a modified version of the Radiation-Induced Skin Reaction Assessment Scale (RISRAS); patients scored the symptom severity as follows: 0 = not at all, 1 = a little, 2 = quite a bit, 3 = very much.One day after the last WBI fraction and again after two weeks, ten erythema readings were obtained within the treatment area (two in each breast quadrant and one at the center intersection points of the upper and lower quadrants including the inframammary folds). The CR-10 Plus reflectance spectrophotometer  was used, which was applied to the skin region of interest avoiding any pressure. The measurement is initiated by illuminating the skin and detecting the reflecting light. Postprocessing using multiple photocells and a build-in microcomputer concludes the procedure and provides a distinct value within the L*a*b color space. The output data is based on the CIE  system of tristimulus values using the L*a*b* coordinate system. The brightness of the skin is described by the L* parameter ranging from 0 (dark) to 100 (light). a* values enumerate the skin color from green (negative) to red (positive), whereas the b* value provides precise information regarding the blue (negative) to yellow (positive) color axis.2 and the statistical slope deviance from zero was described by the according p-value. For comparison between two groups of non-intraindividual distinct numeric parameters, unpaired t-tests (univariate) were performed resulting in P values. This approach was chosen, omitting the Welch or Mann–Whitney approach, as the identified data presumably yielded comparable standard deviations and normal distributions. For intraindividual distinct numeric parameters, paired t-tests (univariate) were conducted when applicable. If a statistical analysis was preceded by the grouping of data according to discrete or non-discrete parameters, subsequent t-tests must be considered bivariate. For breast volumes, a skew value-to-effect pattern (with the effect being RID severity) was identified using FlowJo 10 (Beck and Dickenson) leading to arbitrary categorization for breast volumes into (1) <400 mL (2) 400–800 mL (3) >800 mL. A depiction of the skew value-to-effect distribution pattern is provided in p < 0.05, ** for p < 0.01, *** for p < 0.001 and **** for p < 0.0001.For bivariate correlations, simple linear regressions were calculated for pairs of distinct parameters. The goodness of fit of the linear regression line was determined by RThe portrayed series yields the largest objective data analysis of SP-assessed RID during WBI. SP measurement values were correlated with physician-assessed CTCAE and, for the first time, with a total of 24 RT parameters, patient characteristics, and patient-reported symptoms. We were thus able to scrutinize prior works conducted in this field of research.Objective and significant risk factors for RID were the breast volume and the use of SW-IMRT instead of VMAT; a sequential boost administration also showed a trend towards a slightly more severe RID. Due to the fact that these results are based on both physician-evaluated and objective RID measurements, they may contribute to the inconsistent or even contradictory debate on possible risk factors for RID.Although CTCAE gradings strongly correlated with objective SP measurements, future RID research should endeavor to meet the requirement for a more objective approach in the RID evaluation process to augment visual examinations and overcome intra- and inter-evaluator bias in RID assessments. Our set up reference values may, therefore, serve as a solid benchmark and facilitate further work on this important research topic.


During the growth at a few mbar, there is no external carbon gas precursor introduced. The carbon atoms and/or carbon containing particles as a result of the plasma etching are emitted in the chamber, some of which undergo gas phase scattering and deposit onto the metallic catalyst substrates  as graphene sheets. It is found that high quality monolayer graphene can be synthesized on Cu foil at 900 °C. On Cu-Ni, under the same growth condition, somewhat more bilayer regions are observed. It is observed that the material quality is almost indifferent to the gas ratios, which makes the optimization of the deposition process relatively easy. Detailed study on the deposition procedure and the material characterization have been carried out. This work reveals the possibility of producing thin film graphene by a gas discharge based process, not only from fundamental point of view, but it also provides an alternative technique other than standard chemical vapor deposition to synthesize graphene that is compatible with the semiconductor planar process. As the process uses solid graphite as a source material that is rich in the crust, it is a facile and relatively cheap method to obtain high quality graphene thin films in this respect.Arc discharge is traditionally used to synthesize randomly arranged graphene flakes. In this paper, we substantially modify it into a glow discharge method so that the discharge current is much more reduced. The H Since its appearance, graphene has been applied to solar cells, sensors, composite materials, photocatalysis, and other fields due to its outstanding characteristics such as high carrier mobility, high mechanical strength, high specific surface area, high transmittance, and high thermal conductivity . The gra2 and/or Ar gas, we ignited the plasma, and it slightly etches the graphite electrode that is used to start the plasma. Because of this, we were able to grow graphene on the surface of metal catalysts even without using any carbon precursor gas. The possible deposition mechanism is explained by the plasma-based physical and/or chemical etching of the graphitic electrode, followed by gas phase scattering of the produced carbon atoms and carbon based particles, which are in part transported towards the catalytic surfaces of the metallic substrates situated on the heater. After the catalytic graphitization on the metal surface, the prepared graphene/metal is unloaded, and the graphene can be transferred to insulators using a wet etching-based technique [In this paper, we have substantially modified the traditional AD method, based on which we introduce a new graphene synthesis technique that is called the glow discharge (GD) deposition method. The equipment used in this work is actually a standard PECVD (plasma enhanced CVD) system that was not originally intended for the GD use. In the chamber, which is filled with Hechnique ,15. The In order to verify and benchmark the quality of the graphene obtained by the new GD graphene production mode proposed in this paper, we first grow standard graphene thin films by CVD using two kinds of conventional catalytic metals  ,17 as co2 is grown by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (ICP-CVD). This is because, later, the Cu-Ni will be removed and the grown graphene will “land” on the SiO2, and 300 nm silicon dioxide is known to facilitate the observation of graphene under an optical microscope after growth, due to the optical interference effect [2/Si wafers to study the effect of catalyst thickness on the quality of graphene. (1) Cu-Ni alloy thin films. After the Si wafer is cleaned by standard procedure, 300 nm SiOe effect . Magnetr(2) Copper foils. High purity polycrystalline copper foils are purchased commercially.The growth system used in this work is a graphene PECVD of the model Black Magic, produced by Aixtron Nanoinstruments Ltd. The outwall of the growth chamber is made of stainless steel with a quartz shield as the inwall. As shown in −3 kPa, we introduce Ar and/or H2 gases  into the chamber, and the pressure reaches 5 × 10−1 kPa. The procedure is repeated three times and then the gas input is turned off. This is because we have found that without a flowing gas, the plasma power during the initiation is more stable than is the case with a gas flow. The heating rate is 5 °C/s, at which we increase the heater temperature to the desired growth temperature . The samples are held at this temperature for ten minutes for annealing to increase the crystallinity of the metals [We place the as-prepared Cu-Ni alloy thin film or copper foil samples on the graphite plate heater in the equipment see  for the e metals , which i4:HCl:H2O = 5 g:25 mL:50 mL) is prepared. The copper-nickel sample is placed at the bottom of the beaker, whereas the copper foil sample is floating on the surface of the solution. The copper foil grown graphene is transferred to another 300 nm SiO2/Si substrate by the standard wet transfer process [2/Si substrate through the etching mechanism that is shown in 2/Si complex in deionized water for 30 min to clean up the residual chemicals. In order to improve the adhesion between the graphene and the substrate, it is baked at 150 °C for 15 min on a hot plate. Then, it is placed in acetone for 1 h to remove the PMMA from graphene. Finally, the sample is placed in a ventilated place for 10 min to dry the acetone. During the experiment, nevertheless, after the metal etching the van der Waals force between the SiO2/Si substrate and the PMMA/graphene is relatively weak, and the rinsing process in deionized water might cause the PMMA/graphene to float on the surface of solution. Applying a little PMMA to the edges of the sample helps hold the film, and can increase the success rate of the graphene transfer.After growth, the copper-nickel alloy and the copper foil samples are all spin-coated (4000 rpm for 30 s) with a layer of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) with about 70 nm thickness. Then, it is heated on a 150 °C hot plate for 10 min. A metal etching solution  is used to examine the morphology of the metals after the annealing and after the graphene deposition.2 gas ratios are used, we can always obtain thin film graphene conformally coating on the metal catalysts, provided that other conditions are optimized . Since there is no carbon containing gas introduced in the machine, the only explanation is that the graphene grows from the etched graphite. Note that we have found the graphene thin films do not form when no plasma is present. Thus, we can conclusively exclude the possibility that the graphene’s carbon source comes from unintentionally introduced carbon species in the chamber such as carbon contamination, oil vapor from the pump, etc. In our experiment, the etching mechanisms of H2 and Ar plasmas are different. The former (H2 plasma) is mainly a chemical process, where the etching of graphite is achieved through hydrogenation (forming C-H bonds) and the subsequent releasing of hydrocarbons such as CH4 [λ of the particles can be approximately estimated by the ideal gas formula d is the effective diameter of the particle, and n is the number of particles per unit volume. Using that equation, the mean free path of the carbon-based particles is in the order of a few millimeters, which is much shorter than the distance between the plasma electrode and the samples on the heater (~4 cm). Therefore, the particles undergo many scatterings in the chamber and some particles will have chances to be directed toward the samples, as depicted in The schematic illustration of the graphene deposition procedure is shown in h as CH4 . Some auh as CH4 . The lath as CH4 ,24. So, 2 and/or Ar gases are required in the chamber. As can be seen later, the quality of graphene is insensitive to the H2 to Ar ratio. According to our experiment, the material quality can be optimized by adjusting parameters such as the type of catalytic metals and the deposition temperature. Finally, after the GD growth, we have measured the 300 μm thick plasma electrode and could not detect any weight loss. Therefore, the process is indeed very gentle, and the consumption of the graphite material is tiny. In our practice, the same graphite electrode can be used for hundreds of runs.The introduction of the GD production mode in the PECVD chamber makes it feasible to grow thin film graphene under our conditions, which is not possible in the traditional AD method, which can only produce chaotic flakes. That is a new feature in graphene synthesis by gas phase discharge, both from fundamental and application points of view. Furthermore, in the GD method, the graphene is grown from cheap graphite and not an expensive carbon precursor gas, reducing the cost in this regard. Also, because there is no carbon precursor gas, it makes the process optimization much easier, without the need to monitor the precursor gas ratios. Only H2 hybridized graphitic carbon structure. As the temperature rises from 600 °C to 1000 °C, the characteristic 2D peaks of the graphene Raman spectroscopy gradually appear. Meanwhile, the D peak eventually decreases. These features indicate that the number of defects or disorders in the graphene decreases. The Raman characterization results of the samples at 800 °C–1000 °C are more or less similar to each other. The Raman results are also comparable with standard CVD graphene grown in the same type of machine , whi2/Si substrates. It is well established that the number of layers in graphene with good crystallinity can be estimated through the 2D/G ratio, and the shape and width of the peaks [In order to examine the structural uniformity of the graphene along the sample, more detailed characterizations are carried out. he peaks . It can he peaks , becausehe peaks  . Theref2/Si) grown on a 300 nm Cu-Ni alloy with different gas ratios at 900 °C. The gas mixture is varied from pure Ar, Ar:H2 = 5:1, Ar:H2 = 5:3, Ar:H2 = 5:5, to pure H2. It can be seen that the graphene quality almost does not change, which proves that the GD mechanism does not depend much on the Ar-H2 composition of the gas. No matter whether it is a large atom Ar gas or a small molecule H2 gas, the GD can etch the graphite electrode and supply carbon source anyway . Therefore, in future experiments, cheaper gas can be selected to prepare the graphene by this method. However, because the reaction temperature is typically above 800 °C, oxygen or air cannot be selected as the plasma gas so as to avoid the burning of the graphite.2/Si) grown at 900 °C with a different thicknesses (from 20 to 300 nm) of Cu-Ni alloy and an Ar:H2 = 5:1 gas ratio. The original idea of this experiment was to reduce the amount of absorbed carbon (hence reducing the number of produced graphene layers) through reducing the thickness of the Cu-Ni alloy. However, the experimental results show that even if the 20 nm Cu-Ni alloy is used, it still can produce bilayer and multilayer graphene. On the other hand, as the thickness decreases, the D peak rises and more defects appear. This article considers that the graphene quality gets worse at reducing thickness of the alloy because during the growth, the metals of the 20 nm and 50 nm samples sublimate from the surface under high temperature and low pressure conditions, which gradually leads to the loss of the graphene catalysis effect. If we continue to test the growth on even thinner metals, the graphene quality will be even worse, and the alloy will melt due the lowering of the melting point with the reduction of the thickness. Towards the other end, when the thickness of the Cu-Ni alloy reaches 100 nm and above, the quality of graphene has gradually stabilized.2/Si substrate. The ratio of ID to IG is less than 0.35, and the ratio of IG/I2D is mostly around 0.5. This proves that the uniformity of the number of graphene layers is very good across the sample and the graphene is mainly single layer. As indicated earlier, we have also grown graphene on copper foils by the GD method in order to boost the monolayer ratio. The corresponding Raman measurement results are demonstrated in 2 and/or Ar plasma environment, and high-quality graphene thin films can be synthesized at about 900 °C on catalytic metals e.g., Cu-Ni alloy and pure Cu. The graphene production mechanism is a plasma etching of the graphite, followed by a carbon containing particle emission, where the particles are scattered towards the catalytic metal surfaces for graphene thin film formation. To our knowledge, this graphene production mode has never been reported before. It reveals that graphene sheets (not irregular flakes) can be obtained by gaseous discharge-based technology. The as-grown graphene is transferrable, and is characterized by Raman spectroscopy, SEM, and other means to prove the feasibility of the GD. It is found that the major factors during the graphene synthesis that can determine the material quality are the growth temperature and the type of catalytic metals, but not the gas ratios. This work shows that the GD graphene production model can be used to prepare graphene thin films without using carbon-containing gases such as methane and ethylene, which provides a new technology and a new insight for graphene synthesis. In future work, we will continue to improve the quality of graphene and increase the sample size. We will apply the graphene in semiconductor devices, such as current spreading layers of light-emitting diodes [In this paper, we report a new type of graphene synthesis technology called GD deposition, using a standard PECVD machine. Compared to the traditional AD method, the GD technique uses a much smaller current, and the etching process of the graphite electrode that is used to ignite plasma is very gentle. The graphite electrode can be directly used as the carbon source for the graphene growth in a Hg diodes . We willg diodes  or carbo


Two distinct cases we considered: (i) the Au NPs sit with their (111) facets on graphene and (ii) the NPs are oriented with a vertex on graphene. In both cases, we compare the binding energies with and without a graphene vacancy under the NP. We find that in all cases, the presence of the graphene vacancy enhances the bonding of the NPs. Significantly, in the vertex-on-graphene case, the binding energy is considerably increased by several eVs and becomes similar to the (111) facet-on-graphene case. The strain in the NPs is found to be minimal and the displacement of the carbon atoms in the immediate neighborhood of the vacancy is on the 0.1 Å scale. The work suggests the creation of stable NP-graphene systems for a variety of electronic, chemical and photonic applications.Hybrid nanostructures of size-selected nanoparticles (NPs) and 2D materials exhibit striking physical and chemical properties and are attractive for many technology applications. A major issue for the performance of these applications is device stability. In this work, we investigate the bonding of cuboctahedral, decahedral and icosahedral Au NPs comprising 561 atoms on graphene sheets via 10 The unique physical and chemical properties of 2D materials—graphene being the primary example—and of nanoparticles (NPs) can be further enhanced by combining the two in hybrid nanostructures. Indeed, NP-graphene composites show promise for electrochemical energy applications such as lithium batteries, supercapacitors and catalysts for various reactions including oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution and hydrogen evolution reactions  and a vaThe triangular lattice of the 111) surface of the face-centered cubic (fcc) metals is a good match for the hexagonal honeycomb lattice of graphene, and the metals are accommodated on graphene with minimal strain depending on their lattice constant. An ab initio investigation reported weak bonding between graphene and Al, Ag, Cu, Au and Pt, with a binding energy of 0.03 eV per carbon atom for Au 1 surface. A deepe2700 clusters produced via a magnetron sputtering, gas aggregation cluster beam source were deposited on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) predecorated with surface defects created by Ar+ sputtering. The subsequent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) investigation revealed a stable, randomly dispersed array of the clusters. The effect of surface modifications on the anchoring of Au NPs on carbon surfaces was showcased in Ref. [The bonding of noble-metal nanoclusters on carbon surfaces has been shown to be enhanced by surface modifications. In Ref. , Ag2700  in Ref.  where sm in Ref.  using mo in Ref.  researchIn this work, we aim to overcome previous theoretical studies in terms of completeness and size. We employ ab initio calculations of a scale not previously reported in the literature with realistic models to examine and quantify from first principles, the effect of surface modifications, specifically vacancy defects, on the bonding, energetics and structure of Au NP-graphene hybrid nanostructures. We attempt a thorough examination of the system and check for three highly ordered NP structural motifs and two different cluster orientations. We take into account both spin-polarization and van der Waals interactions. Our results show that the creation of vacancies strengthens the bonding of the Au NPs on graphene, particularly when the NPs sits with a vertex on the support. The resulting nanostructures show a symmetrical displacement of the C atoms surrounding the vacancy and minimal strain in both the NPs and the graphene sheet. The results of this work can be expanded to other NP sizes and cluster materials and exploited for the creation of stable and efficient NP-graphene devices.The spin-polarized DFT calculations were performed using the Vienna Ab initio Simulation Package  ,19 underWe focus on 561-atom nanoclusters that lie in the catalytically active regime. Such clusters are routinely produced by cluster deposition methods such as the gas-phase condensation method. Choosing a “magic number” for the nanoclusters also allows for a ready comparison between the three highly ordered structural motifs, the cuboctahedral, the Ino-decahedral, and the icosahedral, which are shown to be dominant for Au NPs of this size . We placa lattice constant of the graphene unit cell was found to be 2.468 Å. The choice of the correction method was made based on the results of Ref. [Van der Waals interactions were taken into account through the DFT-D3 method  with Bec of Ref.  on the c of Ref. , the cat of Ref. , the ele of Ref. , and to  of Ref. . The imaging of the results was performed with the VESTA 3.4 visualization program  . The dataset generated during the current study is available online at the Zenodo repository .The (111) facets of the NPs were interfaced with graphene following the energetically favorable configuration of according to Ref. : the atoThe most common and energetically favorable point defect of graphene is the single vacancy. We calculated the formation energy  studies . The C a561 clusters. To this end, we ran a set of relaxations for three distinct locations of the vacancy under the triangular (111) facet of a cuboctahedral NP: (i) vacancy under one edge of the triangle, (ii) vacancy under a vertex of the triangle and (iii) vacancy near the center of the triangle. These positions are shown in After the initial set of relaxations of the three isomers on pristine graphene, we investigated the energetically preferred position of the vacancy under the (111) facet of the AuThe binding energies In pristine graphene, all C atoms present the same charge with only minimal changes in the scale of 0.01 In the case where the cluster vertex points at the graphene substrate, we initially investigated the bonding site of the NPs with a vertex on pristine graphene and ran relaxations for two distinct positions: (i) the vertex of the NP sits on top of a C atom and (ii) the vertex of the NP lies in the center of the C-atom hexagon . We founWe explored two different symmetrical orientations for each NP isomer with a vertex on a vacancy, as shown in The corresponding binding energy results after relaxation are shown in The addition of the NP at the vacancy site was found to remove the Jahn-Teller distortion in the C atoms surrounding the vacancy. An example of a vertex-on-graphene case is shown in The charge density difference Where The electronic properties of graphene are affected by the presence of the NPs. In Finally, the energetic ordering of the NPs is unchanged by the interaction with the graphene sheet. The stability of the bare NPs follows the icosahedral > decahedral > cuboctahedral trend reported previously in previous theoretical studies of regular clusters in the literature , with an3 atoms in ab initio calculations that took into account spin-polarisation and van der Waals interactions. Our results showed that defects enhance the bonding of Au561 clusters with three atomic structures on graphene, particularly when the clusters sit with a vertex on the vacancy. The resulting binding energies in the last case were similar to the facet-on-graphene case, despite the involvement of only 1 Au atom in the bond with graphene, compared with 21 in the parallel-facet case. All of the resulting nanostructures showed a small strain, a symmetrical displacement of the C atoms in the immediate neighborhood of the vacancy, a uniform distribution of the charge between these C atoms, and a minimal strain on the NPs. The increased binding energy and the competition between facet-down and vertex-down are expected to be even more pronounced in clusters smaller than 561 atoms, since fewer atoms belong to the (111) facets. In contrast, the number of atoms in the vertex is independent of the NP size. We generally expect the vertex-on-graphene binding energies to remain constant with the size of the NPs, and the facet-on-graphene binding energies to increase with the size of the NPs.We investigated the energetics and the electronic, magnetic, and structural effects of graphene vacancies on Au NP-graphene hybrid nanostructures in this work. To do so we used large-scale models consisting of more than 10We believe that a closer look into the electronic properties of these nanostructures would be of great interest for future studies and critical for their application in electronic devices. The methodology of this paper can also be applied for the examination of the properties of another novel hybrid nanostructure of NPs and graphene: graphene-covered gold NPs ,38. Such