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Aim: To compare the amount of extruded debris with three endodontic NiTi engine driven systems, Protaper Next, Hyflex CM and EdgeFile X7. Material and Methods: A total number of 42 freshly extracted human premolars were selected. Teeth were divided randomly into three equal groups (14 teeth each group) according to type of Ni-Ti rotary file system; (A) Protaper Next, (B) Hyflex CM and (C) EdgeFile X7. Standard Access cavity prepared and checked for patency using K file #10 and #15. Root canal instrumentation on the single canal lower premolars was done. Debris was collected after root canal instrumentation in pre-weighed Eppendorf tubes. The Eppendorf tubes were weighed 2 times on the analytical balance. First weight: Before instrumentation. Second weight: After evaporation of moisture and irrigant and incubation. Welch test was used for comparison between the three groups. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the amounts of debris extrusion of the three groups Conclusion: All endodontic rotary instruments tested produced apical extrusion of debris.

PurposeTo characterize the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), symptoms, and risk factors among ophthalmologists.MethodsAn online survey was distributed to ophthalmologist members of the Maryland Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons. The survey consisted of 34 questions on respondent demographics, practice characteristics, pain, and effects of MSD on their practice patterns. Participants were excluded if they were not ophthalmologists or if they had MSD symptoms prior to the start of their ophthalmology career. Demographics and practice patterns were compared for those with or without MSD symptoms using the Welch t test and the Fisher exact test.ResultsThe survey was completed by 127 of 250 active members (response rate, 51%). Of the 127, 85 (66%) reported experiencing work-related pain, with an average pain level of 4/10. With regard to mean age, height, weight, years in practice, number of patients seen weekly, and hours worked weekly, there was no difference between respondents reporting pain and those without. Those reporting MSD symptoms spent significantly more time in surgery than those who did not (mean of 7.9 vs 5.3 hours/week [P < 0.01]). Fourteen percent of respondents reported plans to retire early due to their symptoms.ConclusionsA majority of respondents experienced work-related MSD symptoms, which was associated with time spent in surgery. Modifications to the workplace environment focusing on ergonomics, particularly in the operating room, may benefit ophthalmologists.

Objective: The aim of the study was to compare and evaluate Hyflex CM files and M-Pro files versus Protaper Next files regarding the amount of apically extruded debris in the mesial root canals of mandibular molars.Methodology: Sixty three human permanent mandibular molars were utilized in the study. Empty Eppendorf tubes were weighed using an analytical balance three times and an average weight was calculated (W1). Then, a hole was created in the stopper of the Eppendorf tubes and mesial roots were inserted. The roots were randomly assigned into 3 groups according to the instrumentation technique used: Group I: Protaper Next (n=21), Group II: Hyflex (n=21) and Group III: M-Pro (n=21). Distilled water was used as an irrigant in all groups. After instrumentation, the vials were placed in an incubator for 3 days and the apically extruded debris collected in the Eppendorf tubes were weighed again (W2) after instrumentation. Welch test was used for comparison between the three groups.Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the amount of debris extrusion of the three groups (P=0.204). Conclusion: Within the limitation of this study it was concluded that all systems were associated with extrusion of debris.

The current study aims at discriminating cotton and woolen textile fibers from dye using UV-Vis spectroscopy and chemometrics methods. For extraction of the dye from fibers, seven solvent systems have been used, and different extraction conditions have also been tested. Two different approaches, i.e., a visual comparison of peaks and chemometric analysis, have been proposed to differentiate between the textile fibers. The comparison of peaks obtained through UV-Vis spectra provides the discrimination power of 83.6% for cotton fibers and 94.3% for the woolen fibers. However, the incorporation of chemometrics has further improved the discrimination power to 100% for cotton and 98.1% for woolen fibers. The discrimination of 100% is achieved with nonsignificant values of the Welch's t-test, which illustrates that all samples are discriminated.

Background: On February 26, 2020, the first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was detected in Israel. The Ministry of Health (MoH) instructed people to take isolation measures and restrict their movement. Similarly, there was a gradual decrease in the number of visits to our emergency department (ED). Objectives: To describe the decline in the referrals to the ED and in-hospital beds occupancy during the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare it to the H1N1 2009 pandemic. Methods: Employing a cross-sectional epidemiologic study, the pattern of visits to the ED during the COVID-19 was compared with the pattern of visits during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, as well as a year without a pandemic. The data was adjusted to consider changes in population size. The Welch t test for unpaired, unequal samples was used to analyze the data. Results: Within 2 months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the average number of visits to the ED dropped by 30.2% and the hospital occupancy by 29.2% (a minimum of 57%), compared to the same period, the year before. In comparison to the same period during the H1N1 outbreak, we witnessed a significant decline in the number of visits to the ED during the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusion: The behavior of people during the COVID-19 pandemic was different from their behavior during the H1N1 pandemic. People seemed to avoid visiting the ED. The boundary between precaution and panic in the generation of the media could be very thin. Decision-makers must take this into account.

Objective To evaluate public's interest in contraceptive options following heightened focus on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) since the 2016 United States presidential election. Study design We monitored the fraction of Google searches emerging from the United States for the three most popular reversible contraceptive methods — oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and condoms — from January 1, 2004, through October 31, 2017 (1 year after the presidential election). Results IUD searches were cumulatively 15% (95% CI: 10 to 20) higher than expected the year following the 2016 election, reflecting 10 to 21 million excess searches. IUD searches were statistically significantly higher in all states, except NV, and were consistent across states won by Trump or Clinton (Welch t test=0.60, p=.548). Conversely, searches for oral contraceptives and condoms remained stable (0%; 95% CI: −2 to 1) or declined (−4%; 95% CI: −5 to −2), respectively, following the election. Conclusions The etiology of increased searches for IUDs is likely multifaceted. However, it may largely be because IUDs will confer continued protection even after an ACA repeal, thereby providing a medical hedge against a possible repeal. Regardless, these data suggest the heightened focus on an ACA repeal is a concern to the record number of Americans seeking out information about IUDs.

Purpose: To assess the impact of COVID-19 on the overall volume of IR outpatient-based evaluation and management encounters (E&M) and to demonstrate the role of telehealth in offsetting the loss of volume caused by COVID-19 Materials and Methods: A retrospective review of IR E&M in a large academic health system between January 6, 2020 and August 23, 2020, was conducted using the same time period in 2019 as a historical control. IR encounters were collected by gathering the weekly volume of submitted E&M current procedural technology (CPT) codes from the IR division. IR encounters were classified as outpatient or telehealth E&M. The E&M volume in 2019 was used as a historical control. Data were divided into three periods: pre-surge (January 6–March 15, 2020), surge (March 16–June 7, 2020), and recovery (June 8–August 23, 2020). The mean encounters per week during the surge and recovery periods were compared to the pre-surge baseline using a Welch t test for 2020 data, and the same comparison was made for 2019 data for a historical control. Results: During the surge period, outpatient E&M volume, inclusive of telemedicine, fell by 55.8% relative to the pre-surge 2020 baseline. The volume grew steadily during the recovery period but remained 19.8% below pre-surge 2020 levels. The surge and recovery mean weekly E&M volume was significantly different from the equivalent periods in 2019 (P < 0.001 and P = 0.02, respectively). During the surge, telemedicine comprised 44.6% of the total outpatient E&M. The contribution of telemedicine gradually fell over the recovery period, comprising just 11.5% in the final week of the study, and 16.7% during the recovery. Outpatient E&M reached a nadir during the week of April 13th, reflecting a 70.6% decline relative to the same period in 2019. The recovery period demonstrated a gradual increase in outpatient E&M with a decline in telehealth encounters balanced by a growth of in-person visits. During the last week of the recovery period (week of 8/17), outpatient in-person E&M had recovered to 2019 levels, and with the inclusion of telehealth exceeded E&M in 2019 for the same period by 93.3%. Conclusions: Telemedicine becomes an important way to maintain outpatient E&M volume in the event of a pandemic when social distancing and stay-at-home orders preclude face-to-face visits. Revenue from outpatient E&M may help bridge the gap until resumption of elective procedures and recovery of procedural case volume.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The role of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) for preoperative grading and treatment planning of high-grade gliomas (HGG) is still debated since the assumption of inverse correlation between ADC and cellularity is not completely coherent with the results of some studies. It has been recently hypothesized that restricted diffusivity in HGG may be related to hypoxic/ischemic changes inside the tumor. We therefore investigated the differences of ADC values between areas with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) markers of hypoxia and necrosis (lactate and lipid compounds) and regions with lack of both metabolites. METHODS The MRS datasets and the corresponding ADC maps of 28 patients with HGG were retrospectively reviewed. Circular regions of interest (ROIs) were placed on ADC maps by means of spectral characteristics, considering the solid portions of gliomas. One-way ANOVA or Welch test were performed for multiple comparison of the Mean ADC, minimum ADC (minADC), and standard deviation of pixel-by-pixel ADC measurements (ADC SD) values among the groups of ROIs with lactate, lipids, and lack of both metabolites (LAC, LIP, and NEG group, respectively). RESULTS The minADC values in LAC group (908 ± 161 × 10−6 mm2s−1) were found to be significantly (P = .03) higher than in NEG group (792 ± 122 × 10−6 mm2s−1). We did not find other significant differences by the multiple comparison tests. CONCLUSIONS HGG areas with MRS markers of hypoxia and necrosis are not associated with restricted diffusivity. To explain the trend to diffusion facilitation in HGG lactate-expressing regions, we hypothesize a possible hypoxia-induced volume reduction of glioma cells with extracellular shift of cytoplasmic water.

Urban trees are generally considered to be a public asset and are an important part of a city’s heritage. The aim of this work is to analyse the influence of season on the economic appraisal of various trees in Madrid. Photographs were taken of 43 individual tree specimens in summer and winter. The survey was designed to compare differences of opinion in the economic assessment of trees. The trees were assessed by eight valuation methods used worldwide. A total of 78 agroforestry engineering students answered a written survey, and the variables considered were: percentage of students who always evaluated the tree equally (%0), percentage of students who assigned more value to the summer photograph (%S), and percentage of students who assigned more value to the winter photograph (%W). The results were analysed by the statistical test of equal proportions and ANOVA to detect differences according to tree type (evergreen or deciduous), species, and other groupings made by the authors in previous works. W and S percentages are similar. The ANOVA analysis rejects the equality of percentages of S and W between groups. The Welch test rejects the equality of the percentage of S, W, and O between species.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Pretreatment diagnosis for the location of shunts and arterial feeders of spinal arteriovenous fistulas is crucial. This study aimed to evaluate the utility of subtracted CT angiography imaging by using nonrigid registration (R-CTA) in patients with spinal arteriovenous fistulas compared with conventional CTA imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The records of 15 consecutive subjects (mean age, 65 years; 2 women) who had undergone CTA and digital subtraction angiography for clinically suspected spinal arteriovenous fistula were reviewed. From CTA images obtained at the arterial and late arterial phases, warped images of the late arterial phase were obtained by using nonrigid registration that was adjusted to the arterial phase images. R-CTA images were then obtained by subtracting the warped images from the arterial phase images. The accuracies of using nonrigid registration and conventional spinal CTA and the time required for detecting arterial feeders in spinal arteriovenous fistulas were analyzed for each patient with DSA results as a standard reference. The difference between R-CTA and conventional spinal CTA was assessed by the Welch test and the McNemar χ2 test. RESULTS: R-CTA had a higher accuracy compared with conventional spinal CTA (80% versus 47%, P = .025). The time for interpretation was reduced in R-CTA compared with conventional spinal CTA (45.1 versus 97.1 seconds, P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: Our subtracted CTA imaging by using nonrigid registration detects feeders of spinal arteriovenous fistulas more accurately and quickly than conventional CTA.

Objective: To compare the effects of extraction, non-extraction and air-rotor stripping treatments on mandibular dental arch dimensions, lower incisor positions and evaluate their effects on the stability of the treatment. Study design: The sample consisted of 44 patients with Class I malocclusion and moderate crowding including 15 patients treated with extraction, 13 with air-rotor stripping (ARS), and 16 with non-extraction treatment. The records were taken at pretreatment (T0), end of active orthodontic treatment (T1), minimum 3 years post-treatment (T2). The model and cephalometric measurements were evaluated. For statistical analyses ANOVA and Welch test was applied. Results: At post-retention period Little's irregularity indices were increased to 1.96 mm, 2.38 mm and 3.59 mm for extraction, ARS and non-extraction groups respectively (p0.05). The lower incisors were retroclined with treatment and slightly proclined at post-retention period in extraction group. In ARS and non-extraction group, lower incisors proclined with treatment and remained the same at post-retention. Conclusion: At all groups the irregularity indices relapsed but did not return to pretreatment values. Although significant increase at intercanine width was only observed in non-extraction treatment, at post-retention phase, intercanine widths were significantly decreased at all groups. The changes at lower incisor inclinations relapsed slightly in extraction group but remained the same in the other groups.

Purpose: This cross-sectional study included 653 children aged 2–18 years located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2015–2016). This study aimed to determine the association between dietary intake (daily, weekly and rarely) and anthropometric measurements. Method: Both child and family questionnaire was given, followed by weight and height measurements. The questionnaire consisted of general demographic information, anthropometric measurements, analysis of various nutritional element of daily intake. Using one-way ANOVA test after checked all assumptions. Also, Welch test was using whiles the assumption of homogeneity of variance not satisfied by levene test. Results: Higher mean BMI in children consuming legumes daily than weekly and rarely and also higher BMI mean in children drinking milk rarely than daily and weekly. While lower mean BMI in children drinking soft drinks rarely. For children height, the means among eating proteins, vegetables and drinking milk daily have lower heights mean than weekly and rarely. Height means in children who eating and drinking daily fat, fast food, and soft drinks have higher heights mean than weekly and rarely. Weight SDs with various nutrition elements shows no significant relation. Conclusion: Different type of nutritional elements and its effect on children’s growth so further studies should be made to identify the values of the level of food intake and its benefit on the child growth.

Methods to detect covert timing channels (CTCs) can be categorized into three broad classes: shape tests which include the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, entropy tests which include first order entropy test, corrected conditional entropy (CCE) test, and Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence test, and regularity tests. This paper contributes towards understanding and advancing the state-of-the-art of CTC detection methods. First, we present a detailed analysis of the performance of the well-known tests that are used to detect three main types of CTCs, namely, JitterBug, model-based CTC (MB-CTC) and time-replay CTC (TR-CTC). The performance analysis is carried out in an enterprise-like setting, employing large traffic traces. The detection methods are compared with respect to their applicability, computational complexity, and the classification rates for the three types of CTCs. In addition to evaluating the existing methods, we propose a new shape test based on the Welch's t-test and compare its performance with existing detection methods. We show that the classification rate of Welch's t-test is at least at par with other existing detection methods while having a relatively lower computational cost. The results also show that the Welch's t-test outperforms the CCE test in detecting JitterBug, while the CCE test has a better performance in detecting the TR-CTC. Furthermore, both tests perform comparably on the MB-CTC. Finally, we study the feasibility of using a multi-feature SVM classifier to increase the classification rate. We show that by combining the Welch's t-test we are able to increase the classification rate of MB-CTCs from 0.67 (using a single regularity measure) to 0.94.

Objective This study aimed to compare the accuracy of maxillary positioning after bimaxillary orthognathic surgery, using 2 sequences. Study Design A total of 80 cephalograms (40 preoperative and 40 postoperative) from 40 patients were analyzed. Group 1 included radiographs of patients submitted to conventional sequence, whereas group 2 patients were submitted to inverted sequence. The final position of the maxillary central incisor was obtained after vertical and horizontal measurements of the tracings, and it was compared with what had been planned. The null hypothesis, which stated that there would be no difference between the groups, was tested. Results After applying the Welch t test for comparison of mean differences between maxillary desired and achieved position, considering a statistical significance of 5% and a 2-tailed test, the null hypothesis was not rejected (P > .05). Thus, there was no difference in the accuracy of maxillary positioning between groups. Conclusions Conventional and inverted sequencing proved to be reliable in positioning the maxilla after LeFort I osteotomy in bimaxillary orthognathic surgeries.

Statement of problem Shade matching natural teeth with ceramic restorations is still an esthetic, clinical challenge. Purpose The purpose of this prospective clinical study was to evaluate the influence of color-related factors on the color variation of ceramic restorations based on spectrophotometric analysis. Material and methods Color records were obtained from 11 participants who received 38 lithium disilicate restorations. CIELab color coordinates were measured with a spectrophotometer on the ceramic restoration, tooth (baseline), prepared tooth, and luted ceramics. Color variation (ΔE 00 ) was calculated for each variable (luting agent and restoration type, tooth substrate shade, ceramic thickness, and translucency parameters) measured at baseline on the prepared tooth and after cementation of the restorations. Confidence intervals (CI) for the means (95% CI) were calculated, and the ΔE 00 values and CIELab individual color coordinates were compared for each pair of variable by using the Student t test or Welch test (α=.05). Results Greater color variation values were observed between measurements obtained on the prepared tooth and luted restoration. The lower ΔE 00 values were observed over darker tooth substrate measured at baseline and after luting ( P =.007). Conclusions The 3 conditions evaluated presented clinically visible color differences, highlighting the importance of clinical evaluations on the visual color acceptability limits for restorations, which are usually defined in laboratory studies. The lithium disilicate ceramic showed lower masking ability over darker tooth substrate, whereas the coordinates L*, a*, and b* were cementation-dependent.

The radionuclide bone scan is the basis of skeletal nuclear medicine imaging. Bone scintigraphy is a highly sensitive method for indicating disease in bone. Mechanical stimulation in the manner of whole-body vibration (WBV) appears beneficial to the maintenance and/or enhancement of skeletal mass in individuals. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of WBV on the biodistribution of the radiopharmaceutical [99mTc]methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) in Wistar rats.In the biodistribution analysis, animals were anesthetized with sodium thiopental, the radiopharmaceutical (99m)Tc-MDP was administered via ocular plexus and after 10 min the animals were submitted to vibration of 20 Hz (1 min) in an oscillatory platform. Following, the animals were sacrificed, the organs were isolated, the radioactivity determined in a well counter, and the percentages of radioactivity per gram (%ATI/g) in the organs were calculated. An unpaired t-test following Welch test (p0.05) was done for statistical analysis of the results.The biodistribution was significantly (p0.05) decreased in kidney, bone, lung, stomach, prostate and bowel.The analysis of the results indicates that the vibration could produce metabolic alterations with influence in the uptake of the radiopharmaceutical 99mTc-MDP in bone, stomach, bowel, prostate, kidney and bladder.

In order to objectively evaluate the systematic differences in the area of annual disaster relief before and after the scientific implementation of artificial flood control in the Akesu area of Xinjiang, the effect of artificial flood control in the area was analyzed. This paper uses the data of the annual disaster area of the Akesu area from 1978 to 2013, and starts the year of artificial flood control operation in 1996 as a science. Using the statistical methods such as sequence test, unpaired rank sum test and Welch test, artificial prevention of science The systematic differences in the annual disaster area of each 18a before and after the operation were analyzed. The results show that the hail disasters in the Akesu area are significantly reduced after the artificial anti-mite operation. The non-parametric unpaired rank sum test has a significance level of 0.05, the parametric Welch test has a significance level of 0.01, and the average annual disaster area is reduced by 15063 hm2. The reduction rate was 43.14%. Combined with agricultural economic data, the annual average reduction of disaster relief losses is 281.09 million yuan, the annual input-output ratio is 1:6, and the statistical significance level reaches 0.1. Therefore, after the scientific implementation of artificial flood control operations in the Akesu area, the hail disaster losses are significantly reduced, and the social and economic benefits of disaster reduction are significant.

Purpose: Early diagnosis or detection of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from the normal elder control (NC) is very important. However, the computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) was not widely used, and the classification performance did not reach the standard of practical use. We proposed a novel CAD system for MR brain images based on eigenbrains and machine learning with two goals: accurate detection of both AD subjects and AD-related brain regions. Method: First, we used maximum inter-class variance (ICV) to select key slices from 3D volumetric data. Second, we generated an eigenbrain set for each subject. Third, the most important eigenbrain (MIE) was obtained by Welch's t-test (WTT). Finally, kernel support-vector-machines with different kernels that were trained by particle swarm optimization, were used to make an accurate prediction of AD subjects. Coefficients of MIE with values higher than 0.98 quantile were highlighted to obtain the discriminant regions that distinguish AD from NC. Results: The experiments showed that the proposed method can predict AD subjects with a competitive performance with existing methods, especially the accuracy of the polynomial kernel (92.36 ± 0.94) was better than the linear kernel of 91.47 ± 1.02 and the radial basis function (RBF) kernel of 86.71 ± 1.93. The proposed eigenbrain-based CAD system detected 30 AD-related brain regions (Anterior Cingulate, Caudate Nucleus, Cerebellum, Cingulate Gyrus, Claustrum, Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Inferior Parietal Lobule, Insula, Lateral Ventricle, Lentiform Nucleus, Lingual Gyrus, Medial Frontal Gyrus, Middle Frontal Gyrus, Middle Occipital Gyrus, Middle Temporal Gyrus, Paracentral Lobule, Parahippocampal Gyrus, Postcentral Gyrus, Posterial Cingulate, Precentral Gyrus, Precuneus, Subcallosal Gyrus, Sub-Gyral, Superior Frontal Gyrus, Superior Parietal Lobule, Superior Temporal Gyrus, Supramarginal Gyrus, Thalamus, Transverse Temporal Gyrus, and Uncus). The results were coherent with existing literatures. Conclusion: The eigenbrain method was effective in AD subject prediction and discriminant brain-region detection in MRI scanning.

Purpose: The role of early stage functional assessment of muscle blood flow response (MFR) by dynamic muscle blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is unknown. We investigated the effect of smoking on vascular function according to MFR derived from dynamic muscle BOLD MR imaging during postocclusive reactive hyperemia in young smokers and nonsmokers. Methods: Sixteen healthy male volunteers (8 smokers, 8 nonsmokers; mean age, 30.4 « 4.6 years) underwent BOLD MR imaging of the left calf muscle. During reactive hyperemia provoked by a cuff-compression technique, we measured muscle BOLD (mB) using a 3-tesla single-shot multi-echo gradient-echo echo-planar imaging sequence. The 2 key mB variables in the reactive hyperemic phase that we studied were times to half hyperemic peak (T1/2peak) and peak (TTP), each measured from cuff deflation. We used the Welch test to assess differences in these between smokers and nonsmokers. Results: T1/2peak and TTP were significantly longer in smokers (P < 0.05) in reactive hyperemia. T1/2peak was 13.8 « 5.4s in smokers and 7.6 « 1.5s in nonsmokers, and TTP was 67.5 « 18.8s in smokers and 45.4« 7.1s in nonsmokers. Conclusion: Dynamic BOLD MR imaging of calf muscle during postocclusive reactive hyperemia demonstrated statistically significant differences in T1/2peak and TTP between young smokers and nonsmokers, indicating th ep resence of early stage smoking-related deterioration in MFR.

Our study aimed at evaluating age- and gender-specific references describing lower-limb alignment in a large population of children using an accurate and reliable method (EOS 2D/3D). From our database, we selected 523 EOS records suitable for 3D modelling representing age groups between two and 16 years in which no relevant deviation influencing lower-limb biomechanics could be observed (the majority of the examined population had mild scoliosis). We performed reconstruction of both lower limbs, thus obtaining the value of the mechanical tibiofemoral angle (mTFA) and the femoral mechanical axis–femoral shaft angle (FM-FS) and calculated the anatomical tibiofemoral angle (aTFA) from previous parameters. Statistical analysis was carried out using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Spearman correlation, regression analysis and Welch test. The aTFA reaches its maximum by the age of three years: 13.07° in boys and 10.73° in girls; it then varies ∼4.44° in both genders. By the age of three years, the mTFA reaches 8.04° in boys and 4.85° in girls; it starts to decrease to −1.47° in boys and 0.13° in girls. By the age of three years, FM-FS increases to 5.02° in boys, then fluctuates at ∼4.08°, while in girls, it increases to 5.87°, then fluctuates at ∼4.24°. The pattern found in this study confirms the results of previous publications investigating Caucasian populations; however, absolute values differ significantly in several cases.

Objective The aim of this prospective study was to analyze the efficacy of a new alar base cinch suture by comparing it with the commonly used cinch suture described by Schendel and Delaire in Dr. William Bell's book. Study design Thirty-five patients submitted to maxillary impaction and/or advancements of ≥3 mm were randomly divided into 2 groups. Group 1 received an extra oral alar base cinch suture, and patients from group 2 received the classic intraoral suture. Alar and alar base width were measured before and after surgery in digital photographs, with the patient's head in a submental oblique view. Data were reported as means and standard deviations, and difference between groups were determined using Welch t test. A P value of Results Mean alar base widening was 1.38 mm in group 1 and 2.5 mm in group 2, and mean alar widening was 1.40 mm in group 1 and 2.31 mm in group 2. The difference was statistically significant ( P Conclusion Extraoral alar base cinch suture was more effective in maintaining preoperative Alar and alar base width compared with classic intraoral nasal suture.

This paper presents a computer-aided diagnosis technique for the diagnosis of Alzheimer type dementia. The proposed methodology is based on the selection of voxels which present a Welch's t-test between both classes, Normal and Alzheimer images, greater than a given value. The mean and standard deviation of intensity values are calculated for selected voxels. They are chosen as feature vectors for two different classifiers: support vector machines with linear kernel and classification trees. The proposed methodology reaches an accuracy greater than 98 % in the classification task.

In this paper, we establish an effort prediction modelusing an artificial neural network (ANN) for complementingmissing values. We add missing values to the data viacollaborative filtering using the method of Tsunoda et al.’smethod[14]. In addition, we perform an evaluation experimentto compare the accuracy of the ANN model with that ofthe MRA model using Welch’s t-test[16]. The results showthat the ANN model is more accurate than the MRA model,since the mean errors of the ANN are statistically significantlylower.

To verify the accuracy and reliability of the computational fluid dynamics simulation of sludge anaerobic digester, fluid flow visualization experiment is a reliable approach. However, it cannot be used for anaerobic digester due to the opaque nature of sludge. Xanthan gum (XG) aqueous solution was selected as the analog fluid of the digested sludge (DS) due to its good optical clarity and good stability. The rheological properties of DS and the XG aqueous solution were measured by applying a rotational viscometer and the measuring results qualitatively and quantitatively compared by graphics and mathematical statistics analysis. The experimental results revealed the rheological behaviour of XG aqueous solution was similar to DS. They were both typical pseudo-plastic non-Newtonian fluid and showed the same trend in the rheological curves with similar curvatures. Carreau model (R 2 =0.9578) was proposed to describe the rheological behaviour and calculate the rheological parameters of the analog fluid. The limiting viscosity of the XG aqueous solution linearly increased with the increases of the concentration within the concentration range of 0.20g/L∼1.60g/L. According to the linear relationship, 0.50g/L, 1.00g/L and 1.50g/L XG aqueous solution were selected to compare with DS. The result of Welch's t-test demonstrated that there is no significant difference in the rheological parameters of DS and the 1.00g/L XG aqueous solution at the significant level of α=0.05, which indicated the feasibility of choosing the 1.00g/L XG aqueous solution as transparent analog fluid of DS, and build a foundation for visualization experiment in anaerobic digester.