Advances in immunomodulating therapy of HBV infection

Patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection have a higher risk of developing liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Interferon-α, lamivudine and adefovir dipivoxil are the three approved treatment for chronic HBV infection and offers the only means of preventing the development of these complications. However, the efficacy of these agents, in terms of loss of Hepatitis B e antigen with or without seroconversion to Hepatitis B e antibody, normalization of serum alanine transaminase levels, loss of serum HBV DNA, and improvement in liver histology can only be achieved in 20-30% of those treated. Long-term treatment with either lamivudine or adefovir dipivoxil can result in the development of drug resistant mutants leading to an increased length of treatment with additional nucleoside analogues. These limitations of the current antiviral therapies underline the need for alternative therapies. Specific and nonspecific immunotherapeutic strategies to restore effective virus-specific T cell responses in those with chronic HBV infection offers an interesting alternative approach. These immunotherapeutic therapies include the adoptive transfer of HBV immunity, pegylated interferon and therapeutic vaccine therapies.published_or_final_versio

Reduction of Energy Storage Requirements in Future Smart Grid using Electric Springs

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Printed spiral winding inductor with wide frequency bandwidth

Winding parasitic capacitance is a major factor limiting the bandwidth of an inductor. In this paper, 1) the traditional, 2) the alternating, and 3) the partial alternating winding methods are evaluated for the multilayer printed spiral winding inductors for megahertz operations. The self-capacitances of various winding structures are estimated by the summation of parasitic capacitance among the turns of a winding. The electric field energy distributions in the inductors are derived from the voltage profiles to illustrate the relative magnitudes of winding parasitic capacitances. The results show that parasitic capacitance reduction can be achieved by reducing stored electric field energy. The partial alternating winding method is found to have the widest frequency bandwidth with reduced number of through-hole vias for multilayer printed spiral winding design. The theoretical analysis has been confirmed with practical measurements. The results provide useful information for the optimal design of coreless or core-based high-frequency planar magnetics. © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Heap graph based software theft detection

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A critical review of recent progress in mid-range wireless power transfer

Starting from Tesla’s principles of wireless power transfer a century ago, this critical review outlines recent magneto-inductive research activities on wireless power transfer with the transmission distance greater than the transmitter coil dimension. It summarizes the operating principles of a range of wireless power research into (i) the maximum power transfer and (ii) the maximum energy efficiency principles. The differences and the implications of these two approaches are explained in terms of their energy efficiency and transmission distance capabilities. The differences between the system energy efficiency and the transmission efficiency are also highlighted. The review covers the 2-coil systems, the 4-coil systems, the systems with relay resonators and the wireless domino-resonator systems. Related issues including human exposure issues and reduction of winding resistance are also addressed. The review suggests that the use of the maximum energy efficiency principle in the 2-coil systems is suitable for short-range rather than mid-range applications, the use of the maximum power transfer principle in the 4-coil systems is good for maximizing the transmission distance, but is under a restricted system energy efficiency (< 50%); the use of the maximum energy efficiency principle in relay or domino systems may offer a good compromise for good system energy efficiency and transmission distance on the condition that relay resonators can be placed between the power source and the load.published_or_final_versio

General Steady-State Analysis and Control Principle of Electric Springs With Active and Reactive Power Compensations

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Recent progress in mid-range wireless power transfer

This is a review paper describing recent progress of mid-range applications of wireless power transfer. Starting from Tesla's principles of wireless power transfer a century ago, it outlines magneto-inductive research activities in the last decade on wireless power transfer with the transmission distance in the order of or greater than the coil dimension. It covers the basic characteristics of 2-coil systems, 4-coil systems, systems with relay resonators and the wireless domino-resonator systems. © 2012 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

A design methodology for smart LED lighting systems powered by weakly regulated renewable power grids

The increasing use of intermittent renewable energy sources to decarbonize electric power generation is expected to introduce dynamic instability to the mains. This situation is of particular concern for mini-grids or isolated grids in which wind and/or solar power sources are the dominant or the sole power sources. In this paper, we utilize the photo-electro-thermal theory to develop a design methodology for LED lighting systems for weakly regulated voltage sources, with the objectives of minimizing the fluctuation of the human luminous perception and adopting reliable LED driver with long lifetime and robustness against extreme weather conditions. The proposed LED system, practically verified in a 10 kVA small power grid driven by an ac voltage source and a wind energy simulator, can be considered as a smart load with its load demand following the power generation. A typical swing of 40 V in the mains will cause only 15% actual light variation in a 132 W LED system when compared with 40% change in 150 W high-pressure-sodium lamp system. The design methodology enables future large-scale LED systems to be designed as a new generation of smart loads that can adapt to the voltage and power fluctuations arising from the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources. © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

A privilege escalation vulnerability checking system for android applications

Android is a free, open source mobile platform based on the Linux kernel. The openness of the application platform attracts developers, both benign and malicious. Android depends on privilege separation to isolate applications from each other and from the system. However, a recent research reported that a genuine application exploited at runtime or a malicious application can escalate granted permissions. The attack depends on a carelessly designed application which fails to protect the permissions granted to it. In this research, we propose a vulnerability checking system to check if an application can be potentially leveraged by an attacker to launch such privilege escalation attack. We downloaded 1038 applications from the wild and found 217 potentially vulnerable applications that need further inspection.published_or_final_versionThe 13th IEEE International Conference on Communication Technology (ICCT 2011), Jinan, China, 25-28 September 2011. In Proceedings of 13th ICCT, 2011, p. 681-68

Hardware and Control Implementation of Electric Springs for Stabilizing Future Smart Grid with Intermittent Renewable Energy Sources

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