抗原变异可使得多种致病微生物易于逃避宿主免疫应答。表达在感染红细胞表面的恶性疟原虫红细胞表面蛋白1（PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、内皮细胞、树突状细胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作用。每个单倍体基因组var基因家族编码约60种成员，通过启动转录不同的var基因变异体为抗原变异提供了分子基础。

疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Surface plasmons are waves that propagate along the surface of a conductor. By altering the structure of a metal's surface, the properties of surface plasmons--in particular their interaction with light--can be tailored, which offers the potential for developing new types of photonic device. This could lead to miniaturized photonic circuits with length scales that are much smaller than those currently achieved. Surface plasmons are being explored for their potential in subwavelength optics, data storage, light generation, microscopy and bio-photonics.

/pdf/surface-plasmon-subwavelength-optics-5e55p12p4o.pdf

Surface plasmon subwavelength optics

We present experimental scattering data at microwave frequencies on a structured metamaterial that exhibits a frequency band where the effective index of refraction (n) is negative. The material consists of a two-dimensional array of repeated unit cells of copper strips and split ring resonators on interlocking strips of standard circuit board material. By measuring the scattering angle of the transmitted beam through a prism fabricated from this material, we determine the effective n, appropriate to Snell's law. These experiments directly confirm the predictions of Maxwell's equations that n is given by the negative square root of epsilon.mu for the frequencies where both the permittivity (epsilon) and the permeability (mu) are negative. Configurations of geometrical optical designs are now possible that could not be realized by positive index materials.

/pdf/experimental-verification-of-a-negative-index-of-refraction-37hlxn3tta.pdf

Experimental Verification of a Negative Index of Refraction

We show that microstructures built from nonmagnetic conducting sheets exhibit an effective magnetic permeability /spl mu//sub eff/, which can be tuned to values not accessible in naturally occurring materials, including large imaginary components of /spl mu//sub eff/. The microstructure is on a scale much less than the wavelength of radiation, is not resolved by incident microwaves, and uses a very low density of metal so that structures can be extremely lightweight. Most of the structures are resonant due to internal capacitance and inductance, and resonant enhancement combined with compression of electrical energy into a very small volume greatly enhances the energy density at critical locations in the structure, easily by factors of a million and possibly by much more. Weakly nonlinear materials placed at these critical locations will show greatly enhanced effects raising the possibility of manufacturing active structures whose properties can be switched at will between many states.

/pdf/magnetism-from-conductors-and-enhanced-nonlinear-phenomena-2fpnoamwae.pdf

Magnetism from conductors and enhanced nonlinear phenomena

The emerging field of plasmonics has yielded methods for guiding and localizing light at the nanoscale, well below the scale of the wavelength of light in free space. Now plasmonics researchers are turning their attention to photovoltaics, where design approaches based on plasmonics can be used to improve absorption in photovoltaic devices, permitting a considerable reduction in the physical thickness of solar photovoltaic absorber layers, and yielding new options for solar-cell design. In this review, we survey recent advances at the intersection of plasmonics and photovoltaics and offer an outlook on the future of solar cells based on these principles.

Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices

A plant warming system includes a sensor configured to acquire temperature data representative of a temperature of a plant, a heating system including an antenna configured to direct microwaves toward the plant, and a control system configured to control operation of the heating system based on the temperature data.

Systems and methods for warming plants

The ideal balance between theoretical and experimental techniques occurs where comparable amounts of time and money are spent on each side of the problem. In LEED structure analysis this is true to within an order of magnitude for the sorts of structures currently being studied, but in the future we can already see a serious imbalance appearing. Experiments scale linearly in time with N, the number of beams (assuming that all are measured) and theory scales as N3. The moral is that we should be working to increase the speed of computation and if possible to devise new methods that scale in time as N, so that a competitive position, once established, remains so for a wide class of experiments. Clearly N must be the optimum scaling because even the printing of all beams scales as N.

New Perspectives in Surface Crystallography

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/lpor.202000055

Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy of Singular Plasmonic Metasurfaces

When the atoms of simple metals condense from the gas phase to give a solid, the valence electron wavefunctions are strongly modified by their overlap. At first sight this strong overlap might be expected to produce a complex situation, difficult to treat quantitatively. Yet the simple metals are perhaps the best understood of all solids and the reason is that the electron wavefunctions are plane-wave-like to a first approximation and deviations can be treated by perturbation theory.

The properties of helium atoms and as impurities in metals

In this paper, the interaction of a dipole emitter (e.g molecule or quantum dot) with complex plasmonic nanostructures is investigated by means of transformation optics. The fluorescence enhancement as well as the quantum efficiency are derived analytically. Their spectral and spatial properties are analyzed in the perspective of future experiments.

/pdf/fluorescence-enhancement-in-the-vicinity-of-complex-4mhoyi4iba.pdf

John B. Pendry

Papers

Systems and methods for warming plants

New Perspectives in Surface Crystallography

Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy of Singular Plasmonic Metasurfaces

The properties of helium atoms and as impurities in metals

Fluorescence enhancement in the vicinity of complex plasmonic nanostructures: A transformation optics approach