Figure for thesis cover

• Status: Closed
• Prize: €40
• Entries Received: 2

Contest Brief

I want help creating the front page of a thesis book.
The whole image should be in a white canvas with a size of 165x242 mm, but the top edge of the picture should be at 10 cm from the top and the bottom of the X axis title at 18 cm from the top. There should also be 2.5 cm right and left margins. Resolution at least 300 dpi (preferably 1200 dpi). Format: TIFF.

The concept is to show the relationship between the “Dose to organ/tissue (Gy)” (horizontal axis) and the “Excess risk of cancer” on the vertical axis.
Above doses of 0.1G this relationship is known to be linear.
Bellow doses of 0,1G this relationship is unknown, but we know that there are three variables that affect the excess risk of cancer: Dose to organ/tissue (Gy), dose rate (Gy/h) and radiation quality. This is the area of investigation of the Thesis and I use different tools to measure it (represented by figures A to K.
The attached drawing is my first graph integrating all these concepts, but it doesn´t look professional so I´d like help to design a graph to better represent the concept

The image will have a graph representing “Excess risk of cancer” on the Y axis, and “Dose to organ/tissue (Gy)” on the X axis. In this graph there is a linear dose response from a dose of 0.1 Gy upwards, represented by a dark blue line. On top of this blue line, there is a group of people, simplified as icons, with each individual icon represented in a different colour to symbolise variation among individuals. Below a dose of 0.1 Gy, there is a gap in knowledge of the dose response. This is represented by a doted area, which corresponds to one quarter of a circle, with the same blue as the abovementioned line). To “fill-in” the gap in knowledge, different biomarkers are used, and each of these biomarkers are simplified with a drawing within the <0.1 Gy area. These biomarkers have been created using biorender and include a 96-well plate (top left) with a horizontal gradient of purple wells, i.e. darker purple on most left columns and increasingly weaker purple towards the right (A), a dicentric chromosome (B), chromatin fibre (C), cell cycle (D), ssDNA (E), mitochondria with ROS (F), DNA double strand break (G), chromosomal aberration (H), micronucleus in binucleated cell (I), purple colonies in a petri dish (J), apoptosis (K). I would like to transmit the idea that, besides dose, there are yet two other variables that affect the excess risk of cancer. These are: dose rate and radiation quality. I am not sure how to represent this in a simple and eye-catchy way. Dose rate is the dose delivered per unit time. Hence my first thought was to use the X and Y axis as if they were clock hands. I attempted this by representing the axis as arrows of different widths, but, as is it now, the message is not very obvious. As for the radiation quality (radiation type) variable, the golden circle represented at the intercept is a picture of a radiation source used in this study. Again, this is not very obviously transmitted. One possibility could be to have three separate axis, i.e. dose, dose rate and radiation quality.
In short, the messages to be transmitted are:
1. Three variables affect the excess risk of cancer: Dose to organ/tissue (Gy), dose rate (Gy/h) and radiation quality.
2. Linear dose response for excess risk of cancer from doses above 0.1 Gy (knowledge acquired by population studies), below that dose, there is a gap in knowledge with respect to the dose response, which is to be filled in by the study of a panel of biomarkers (abovementioned).

Please see attached document for more details. Thank you very much in advance for your help!

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