Strong light‐matter coupling between a molecular vibrational mode in a PMMA film and a low‐loss mid‐IR microcavity

Microcavity devices exhibiting strong light‐matter coupling in the mid‐infrared spectral range offer the potential to explore exciting open physical questions pertaining to energy transfer between heat and light and can lead to a new generation of efficient wavelength tunable mid‐infrared sources of coherent light based on polariton Bose‐Einstein Condensation. Vibrational transitions of organic molecules, which often have strong absorption peaks in the infrared and considerably narrower linewidths than organic excitonic resonances, can generate polaritonic states in the mid‐infrared spectral range using microcavity devices. Here, narrow linewidth polaritonic resonances are exhibited in the mid‐infrared by coupling the carbonyl stretch vibrational transition of a polymethyl methacrylate film to the photonic resonance of a low optical‐loss mid‐infrared microcavity, which consisted of two Ge/ZnS dielectric Bragg reflectors. Rabi‐splitting of 14.3 meV is observed, with a 4.4 meV polariton linewidth at anti‐crossing. The large Rabi‐splitting relative to linewidth indicates efficient impedance‐matching between the bare vibrational and photonic states, and suggests molecular‐vibration polaritons incorporated in dielectric microcavities can be an enabling step towards realizing polariton optical switching and polariton condensation in the mid‐infrared spectral range.     

Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogel Microcapsules Harnessing the COVID-19 Immune Response for Cancer Therapeutics

The combination of gene therapy and immunotherapy concepts, along recent advances in DNA nanotechnology, have the potential to provide important tools for cancer therapies. We present the development of stimuli-responsive microcapsules, loaded with a viral immunogenetic agent, harnessing the immune response against the Coronavirus Disease 2019, COVID-19, to selectively attack liver cancer cells (hepatoma) or recognize breast cancer or hepatoma, by expression of green fluorescence protein, GFP. The pH-responsive microcapsules, modified with DNA-tetrahedra nanostructures, increased hepatoma permeation by 50 %. Incorporation of a GFP-encoding lentivirus vector inside the tumor-targeting pH-stimulated miRNA-triggered and Alpha-fetoprotein-dictated microcapsules enables the demonstration of neoplasm selectivity, with approximately 5,000-, 8,000- and 50,000-fold more expression in the cancerous cells, respectively. The incorporation of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the gene vector promotes specific recognition of the immune-evading hepatoma by the COVID-19-analogous immune response, which leads to cytotoxic and inflammatory activity, mediated by serum components taken from vaccinated or recovered COVID-19 patients, resulting in effective elimination of the hepatoma (>85 % yield).     

Comments on the variational modified-hypernetted-chain theory for simple fluids

The variational modified-hypernetted-chain (VMHNC) theory, based on the approximation of universality of the bridge functions, is reformulated. The new formulation includes recent calculations by Lado and by Lado, Foiles, and Ashcroft, as two stages in a systematic approach which is analyzed. A variational iterative procedure for solving the exact (diagrammatic) equations for the fluid structure which is formally identical to the VMHNC is described, featuring the theory of simple classical fluids as a one-iteration theory. An accurate method for calculating the pair structure for a given potential and for inverting structure factor data in order to obtain the potentialand the thermodynamic functions, follows from our analysis.     

On a generalization of the Gallai-Sylvester theorem

It is shown that ifS ^d , affS=aff ^d , and every hyperplane spanned by (a subset of)S misses fewer thank points ofS(k2), then (a) #Skm ifd=2m–1 is odd and (b) #Skm+1 ifd=2m is even. We also fully describe the extreme sets for which equality holds in (a) or in (b). For oddd the proofs are later modified to purely algebraic ones, and carry over to , where is an arbitrary field. For evend, (b) is generally not true when , but we prove some weaker inequalities that do hold over arbitrary fields.This is part of a Ph.D. thesis, supervised by Professor Micha A. Perles at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This research was supported in part by the Landau Center for Mathematical Research.     

The homogeneity of the ball inR 3 and special relativity

Einstein's velocity addition formula ofspecial relativity (SR) defines a transformation _v of the ballB _c of radiusc inR ³, representing all possible velocities in an inertial systemK, onto identical ballB _c , which represents the velocities in another systemK, moving with velocity v relative toK. Since _v maps the zero velocity ofB _c into arbitrary vector v ofB _c ,B _c is homogeneous under all possible _v.A similar homogeneity of the unit ballB inL(G, H) under a set of maps _a, a B, arises also in theLine Transmission Theory (TLT) for a lossless line. HereL(G, H) is the space of all linear operators between Hilbert spacesG,H, representing the signals on the line in the two directions. The explicit form of _a is obtained naturally in TLT.     

Stochastic Precedence and Minima Among Dependent Variables

Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability - The notion of stochastic precedence between two random variables emerges as a relevant concept in several fields of applied probability. When one...     

Bottleneck analysis in multiclass closed queueing networks and its application

Asymptotic behavior of queues is studied for large closed multi-class queueing networks consisting of one infinite server station with K classes and M processor sharing (PS) stations. A simple numerical procedure is derived that allows us to identify all bottleneck PS stations. The bottleneck station is defined asymptotically as the station where the number of customers grows proportionally to the total number of customers in the network, as the latter increases simultaneously with service rates at PS stations. For the case when K=M=2, the set of network parameters is identified that corresponds to each of the three possible types of behavior in heavy traffic: both PS stations are bottlenecks, only one PS station is a bottleneck, and a group of two PS stations is a bottleneck while neither PS station forms a bottleneck by itself. In the last case both PS stations are equally loaded by each customer class and their individual queue lengths, normalized by the large parameter, converge to uniformly distributed random variables. These results are directly generalized for arbitrary K=M. Generalizations for K≠M are also indicated. The case of two bottlenecks is illustrated by its application to the problem of dimensioning bandwidth for different data sources in packet-switched communication networks. An engineering rule is provided for determining the link rates such that a service objective on a per-class throughput is satisfied. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.