PURPOSE This study aimed to determine whether upgrade cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) shows better outcomes than de novo CRT. To do so, we compared the efficacy of CRT between de novo and upgrade groups, focusing particularly on the effect of upgrade CRT on patients with pacing-induced cardiomyopathy (PiCM). MATERIALS AND METHODS PiCM was defined as new-onset dilated cardiomyopathy fo...

The first neutron spectrometer of ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) was installed in November 2008. It is a compact neutron spectrometer (CNS) based on a BC501A liquid scintillating detector, which can simultaneously measure 2.45-MeV and 14-MeV neutrons emitted from deuterium (D) plasmas and γ radiation. The scintillating detector is coupled to a digital pulse shape discrimination data acquisition (DPSD) sys...

At ASDEX Upgrade (AUG), a new compact solid-state detector has been installed to measure the energy spectrum of fast neutrals based on the principle described by Shinohara et al. [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75, 3640 (2004)]. The diagnostic relies on the usual charge exchange of supra-thermal fast-ions with neutrals in the plasma. Therefore, the measured energy spectra directly correspond to those of co...

JEL Classification J33, L85, M52. This study investigated the effects of salary structure, performance requirements, and type of business on the performance of housing agents. The participants in the study survey consisted of the employees of real estate firms in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Restricted and unrestricted regression models were used to compare the goodness-of-fit of the regression models. A...

Enterprise-system upgrades are unreliable and often produce downtime or data-loss. Errors in the upgrade procedure, such as broken dependencies, constitute the leading cause of upgrade failures. We propose a novel upgrade-centric fault model, based on data from three independent sources, which focuses on the impact of procedural errors rather than software defects. We show that current approach...