Can a Procedure for the Growth of Single-layer Graphene on Copper be used in Different Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactors?

In the last decade, catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has been intensively explored for the growth of single-layer graphene (SLG). Despite the scattering of guidelines and procedures, variables such as the surface texture/chemistry of catalyst metal foils, carbon feedstock, and growth process parameters have been well-scrutinized. Still, questions remain on how best to standardize the growth procedure. The possible correlation of procedures between different CVD setups is an example. Here, two thermal CVD reactors were explored to grow graphene on Cu foil. The design of these setups was entirely distinct, one being a “showerhead” cold-wall type, whereas the other represented the popular “tubular” hot-wall type. Upon standardizing the Cu foil surface, it was possible to develop a procedure for cm²-scale SLG growth that differed only by the carrier gas flow rate used in the two reactors.     

In Vivo Biological Behavior of Polymer Scaffolds of Natural Origin in the Bone Repair Process

Autologous bone grafts, used mainly in extensive bone loss, are considered the gold standard treatment in regenerative medicine, but still have limitations mainly in relation to the amount of bone available, donor area, morbidity and creation of additional surgical area. This fact encourages tissue engineering in relation to the need to develop new biomaterials, from sources other than the individual himself. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of an elastin and collagen matrix on the bone repair process in critical size defects in rat calvaria. The animals (Wistar rats, n = 30) were submitted to a surgical procedure to create the bone defect and were divided into three groups: Control Group (CG, n = 10), defects filled with blood clot; E24/37 Group (E24/37, n = 10), defects filled with bovine elastin matrix hydrolyzed for 24 h at 37 °C and C24/25 Group (C24/25, n = 10), defects filled with porcine collagen matrix hydrolyzed for 24 h at 25 °C. Macroscopic and radiographic analyses demonstrated the absence of inflammatory signs and infection. Microtomographical 2D and 3D images showed centripetal bone growth and restricted margins of the bone defect. Histologically, the images confirmed the pattern of bone deposition at the margins of the remaining bone and without complete closure by bone tissue. In the morphometric analysis, the groups E24/37 and C24/25 (13.68 ± 1.44; 53.20 ± 4.47, respectively) showed statistically significant differences in relation to the CG (5.86 ± 2.87). It was concluded that the matrices used as scaffolds are biocompatible and increase the formation of new bone in a critical size defect, with greater formation in the polymer derived from the intestinal serous layer of porcine origin (C24/25).     

Modified gravity on the brane and dark energy

We analyze the dynamics of an AdS₅ braneworld with matter fields when gravity is allowed to deviate from the Einstein form on the brane. We consider exact five-dimensional warped solutions which are associated with conformal bulk fields of weight –4 and describe on the brane the following three dynamics: those of inhomogeneous dust, of generalized dark radiation, and of homogeneous polytropic dark energy. We show that, with modified gravity on the brane, the existence of such dynamical geometries requires the presence of non-conformal matter fields confined to the brane.     

Interface-related effects on confined excitons in GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs single quantum wells

Confined excitons in non-abrupt GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs single quantum wells are studied. The graded interfaces are described taking into account fluctuations in their thickness a and positioning with respect to the abrupt interface picture. Numerical results for confined (0,0),(1,1) and (0,2) excitons in GaAs/Al_0.3Ga_0.7As quantum wells show that while the interfacial fluctuations produce small changes (<0.5 meV) in the exciton binding energies, the confined exciton energies can be red- or blue-shifted as much as 25 meV for wells with mean width of 50 Å and 2 ML wide interfaces.     

The influence of Na<Superscript>+</Superscript> on the anilinepropylsilica xerogel synthesis by using the fluoride nucleophilic catalyst

Anilinepropylsilica xerogel was obtained by using an appropriate organosilane and tetraethyl orthosilicate as precursor reagents. The gelation was carried out using HF and NaF as catalysts. The presence of Na⁺ (when NaF was used) resulted in a decrease in the final organic content of the materials. This effect was interpreted as an inhibition of the organosilane polycondensation possibly due to the Na⁺ interaction with the SiO^- groups of the hydrolyzed organosilane. The presence of Na⁺ also results in morphological changes in the xerogels.     

A greedy algorithm for multicut and integral multiflow in rooted trees

We present an O(min(Kn,n²)) algorithm to solve the maximum integral multiflow and minimum multicut problems in rooted trees, where K is the number of commodities and n is the number of vertices. These problems are NP-hard in undirected trees but polynomial in directed trees. In the algorithm we propose, we first use a greedy procedure to build the multiflow then we use duality properties to obtain the multicut and prove the optimality.     

Wavelets and adaptive grids for the discontinuous Galerkin method

In this paper, space adaptivity is introduced to control the error in the numerical solution of hyperbolic systems of conservation laws. The reference numerical scheme is a new version of the discontinuous Galerkin method, which uses an implicit diffusive term in the direction of the streamlines, for stability purposes. The decision whether to refine or to unrefine the grid in a certain location is taken according to the magnitude of wavelet coefficients, which are indicators of local smoothness of the numerical solution. Numerical solutions of the nonlinear Euler equations illustrate the efficiency of the method.     

T-duality in Affine NA Toda Models

The construction of non-Abelian affine Toda models is discussed in terms of its underlying Lie algebraic structure. It is shown that a subclass of such non-conformal two-dimensional integrable models naturally leads to the construction of a pair of actions, which share the same spectra and are related by canonical transformations.