ANALYSIS OF AGOMELATINE TREATMENT WITH DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS

Objective: Agomelatine is a new mechanism of antidepressants, which is approved by Taiwan Food and Drug Administration and available in Taiwan.Agomelatine behaves both as a potent agonist at melatonin MT1 and MT2 receptors and as a neutral antagonist at 5-HT2C receptors. The structuresof agomelatine are similar to melatonin with not only the effects to maintain depression symptoms but also can help patients who have insomnia.Methods: This is a retrospective study. In a mental hospital in Taoyuan, we analyzed the prescriptions of the outpatients who were prescribedagomelatine to realize the effects of agomelatine and whether the prescriptions were prescribed appropriately.Results: Catastrophic illnesses were found to be associated with significantly used multiple hypnotics (χ2 =22.02, p<0.001). When patients’ ageincreased by 1 year, multiple hypnotics used increased by 1.013 times (Exp(B)=1.013, p<0.01). Catastrophic illnesses were found to be associatedwith significantly used augmentation with other antidepressants (χ2=54.07, p<0.001).Conclusions: Doctors should be evaluating the benefits and risks when they prescribe a medicine to patients, and they should be written in medicalrecord. This study is the hope to provide relevant units as a reference for formulating health policies

Performance Evaluation for Stacked-Layer Data Bus Based on Isolated Unit-Size Repeater Insertion

The data bus of a stacked-layer chip always supports that data of a program are frequently running on the bus at different timing periods. The average data access time of a data bus to the timing periods dominates the program performance. In this paper, we proposed an evaluated approach to reconstruct a 3D data bus with inserted unit-size repeaters to motivate that the average data access time of the bus on a complete timing period can speed up at least 10%. The approach is trying to insert a number of unit-size repeaters into bus wires along the path of a source-sink pair for isolating extra capacitive loadings at each timing period to reduce their access time. The above process is repeated until no any improvement for each access time. Each inserted repeater with just one unit size due to the limited space of a chip area and the minor reconstruction of a data bus in practical. The approach has the advantages of uniform repeater insertion, less extra area occupation, and simplified time-to-space tradeoff. Experimental results show that our approach has the rapid capable evaluation for a stacked-layer data bus within one millisecond and the saving in average access time is up to 50.81% with the inserted repeater sizes of 70 on average

Stepwise Increases in Left Ventricular Mass Index and Decreases in Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction Correspond with the Stages of Chronic Kidney Disease in Diabetes Patients

Aims. Patients with diabetic nephropathy are reported to have a high prevalence of left ventricular structural and functional abnormalities. This study was designed to assess the determinants of left ventricular mass index (LVMI) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in diabetic patients at various stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods. This cross-sectional study enrolled 285 diabetic patients with CKD stages 3 to 5 from our outpatient department of internal medicine. Clinical and echocardiographic parameters were compared and analyzed. Results. We found a significant stepwise increase in LVMI (P < 0.001), LVH (P < 0.001), and LVEF <55% (P = 0.013) and a stepwise decrease in LVEF (P = 0.038) corresponding to advance in CKD stages. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that increases in LVMI and decreases in LVEF coincide with advances in CKD stages in patients with diabetes

Stability evaluation of inactivated influenza H7N9 vaccines derived from adhesion and suspension MDCK cells

In recent years, cell-based manufacturing processes for influenza vaccine production has gained a great interest over the egg-based process. We have adapted MDCK cells to grow in chemical-defined medium and found this newly suspension MDCK cell line (sMDCK cells) is very suitable for the production of influenza virus. However, the property of purified antigens from sMDCK cells remains unclear. In this study, a stability program of influenza H7N9 vaccine (NIBRG268 vaccine strain) produced by sMDCK cells was investigated, and the data were compared with the vaccine derived from adhesion MDCK (aMDCK) cells in serum-free medium. The H7N9 bulks (with different storage time) derived from sMDCK and aMDCK cells were stored at 2-8°C for some times, and a number of parameters were used to monitor the H7N9 vaccine antigen stability was evaluated at different periods (1, 2, 3 and 6 months). The monitoring parameters are including virus structure, HA titer, HA content, total protein level, antigenicity, and immunogenicity. The sMDCK-derived H7N9 bulk showed similar virus structure to that aMDCK-derived H7N9 bulk, and there was no obvious change after further 6 months of storage. Furthermore, HA titer, HA content and total protein level of sMDCK- and aMDCK-derived H7N9 bulks were stable after 6 months of storage. sMDCK- and aMDCK-derived H7N9 bulks displayed similar antigenicity detected by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test using standard serum. Finally, the results of HI and neutralization tests showed that sMDCK- and aMDCK-derived H7N9 vaccines were similar in immunogenicity in BALB/c mice vaccinated with 0.2 μg of H7N9 vaccine with an adjuvant of aluminum hydroxide. These results indicate that sMDCK-derived H7N9 bulk has good stability data similar to the aMDCK-derived H7N9 bulk. Thus, the newly developed suspension MDCK cells show a great market potential over the traditional vaccine manufacturing methods