Numerical Method for Electromagnetic Wave Propagation Problem in a Cylindrical Inhomogeneous Metal Dielectric Waveguiding Structures

The propagation of monochromatic electromagnetic waves in metal circular cylindrical dielectric waveguides filled with inhomogeneous medium is considered. The physical problem is reduced to solving a transmission eigenvalue problem for a system of ordinary differential equations. Spectral parameters of the problem are propagation constants of the waveguide. Numerical results are found with a projection method. The comparison with known exact solutions (for particular values of parameters) is made

Mathematical theory of normal waves in an open metal-dielectric regular waveguide of arbitrary cross section

The problem of normal waves in an open metal-dielectric regular waveguide of arbitrary cross-section is considered. This problem is reduced to the boundary eigenvalue problem for longitudinal components of electromagnetic field in Sobolev spaces. To find the solution, we use the variational formulation of the problem. The variational problem is reduced to study of an operator-function. Discreteness of the spectrum is proved and distribution of the characteristic numbers of the operatorfunction on the complex plane is found

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Computational design of acoustic materials using an adaptive optimization algorithm

We consider the problem of design of the acoustic structure of arbitrary geometry with prescribed desired properties. We use optimization approach for the solution of this problem and minimize the Tikhonov functional on adaptively refined meshes. These meshes are refined locally only in places where the acoustic structure should be designed. Our special symmetric mesh refinement strategy together with interpolation procedure allows the construction of the symmetric acoustic material with prescribed properties. Efficiency of the presented adaptive optimization algorithm is illustrated on the construction of the symmetric acoustic material in two dimensions

Computational design of acoustic materials using an adaptive optimization algorithm

We consider the problem of design of the acoustic structure of arbitrary geometry with prescribed desired properties. We use optimization approach for the solution of this problem and minimize the Tikhonov functional on adaptively refined meshes. These meshes are refined locally only in places where the acoustic structure should be designed. Our special symmetric mesh refinement strategy together with interpolation procedure allows the construction of the symmetric acoustic material with prescribed properties. Efficiency of the presented adaptive optimization algorithm is illustrated on the construction of the symmetric acoustic material in two dimensions

Nonlinear propagation of leaky TE-polarized electromagnetic waves in a metamaterial Goubau line

Propagation of leaky TE-polarized electromagnetic waves in the Goubau line (a perfectly conducting cylinder covered by a concentric dielectric layer) filled with nonlinear metamaterial medium is studied. The problem is reduced to the analysis of a nonlinear integral equation with a kernel in the form of the Green function of an auxiliary boundary value problem on an interval. The existence of propagating nonlinear leaky TE waves for the chosen nonlinearity (Kerr law) is proved using the method of contraction. For the numerical solution, a method based on solving an auxiliary Cauchy problem (a version of the shooting method) is proposed. New propagation regimes are discovered

Mathematical Theory of Normal Waves in Radially Inhomogenous Dielectric Rod

The problem on normal waves in a radially inhomogeneous dielectric rod is consid- ered. This problem is reduced to the boundary eigenvalue problem for longitudinal components of electromagnetic field in Sobolev spaces. To find the solution, we use the variational formulation of the problem. The variational problem is reduced to study of an operator- function. Discreteness of the spectrum is proved and distribution of the characteristic numbers of the operator-function on the complex plane is found

Complex Waves in Dielectric Layer

The propagation of monochromatic TE-polarized waves in a partially shielded dielectric layer is considered. The existence of infinitely many complex leaky waves is proved as well as the absence of complex surface waves

Computational Design of Acoustic Materials Using an Adaptive Optimization Algorithm

We consider the problem of design of the acoustic structure of arbitrary geometry with prescribed desired properties. We use optimization approach for the solution of this problem and minimize the Tikhonov functional on adaptively refined meshes. These meshes are refined locally only in places where the acoustic structure should be designed. Our special symmetric mesh refinement strategy together with interpolation procedure allows the construction of the symmetric acoustic material with prescribed properties. Efficiency of the presented adaptive optimization algorithm is illustrated on the construction of the symmetric acoustic material in two dimensions

Numerical Study of the Spectrum of TE-Polarized Electromagnetic Waves of a Goubau Line Coated with Graphene

The problem of TE-polarized waves in a Goubau line (a perfectly conducting cylinder covered by a concentric layer) coated with graphene is studied. The classification of the waves existing in a Goubau line is carried out. The physical problem is reduced to solving a transmission eigenvalue problem for an ordinary differential equation. The conjugation conditions contain the conductivity of graphene. In this work, we take into account the nonlinearity of graphene. Spectral parameters of the problem are the propagation constants of the waveguide. The article proposes a numerical method for calculating the propagation constants of such waves. A number of numerical experiments were carried out with a Goubau line filled with a dielectric, inhomogeneous dielectric, dielectric with losses, and metamaterial