Alan H. Kvanli

Reliability of Third Molar Development for Age Estimation in a Texas Hispanic Population: A Comparison Study

Abstract:  Evaluating third molars from 950 Hispanic individuals aged 12–22 years using Demirjian’s schematic for crown and root formation found that Hispanic third molar development was 8–18 months faster than American Caucasians as reported by Mincer, Harris and Berryman in 1993. This represents a statistically significant increase. Earlier development was more apparent in the later stages F through H. Hispanic males reach developmental stages faster than Hispanic females and maxillary third molars reach developmental stages faster than mandibular third molars in both sexes. The earliest age observed for stages B–H (e.g., Stage H first observed at age 13.92 years in females) and the oldest age observed for Stages B–G were developed to facilitate age prediction of unknown individuals. Prediction tables for minimum and maximum age for an observed stage (e.g., if a female maxillary third molar is stage F it means she is older than 13 years) for each sex‐jaw group were calculated.

A comparison of the accuracy of the Box-Jenkins method with that of automated forecasting methods

Abstract The focus of the research described in this paper is on presenting an automated forecasting system that encompasses an objective ARIMA method with the Holt-Winters procedure in a weighted averaging scheme. The system is applied to M-Competition data and the results are compared to the subjective Box-Jenkins forecasts as well as to results from two other automated methods, CAPRI and SIFT. The comparison reveals that especially for one-step ahead forecasting, the automated system competes favorably with both automated methods and the individualized Box-Jenkins analysis.

Construction of confidence intervals for the mean of a population containing many zero values

The likelihood ratio method is used to construct a confidence interval for a population mean when sampling from a population with certain characteristics found in many applications, such as auditing. Specifically, a sample taken from this type of population usually consists of a very large number of zero values, plus a small number of nonzero values that follow some continuous distribution. In this situation, the traditional confidence interval constructed for the population mean is known to be unreliable. This article derives confidence intervals based on the likelihood-ratio-test approach by assuming (1) a normal distribution (normal algorithm) and (2) an exponential distribution (exponential algorithm). Because the error population distribution is usually unknown, it is important to study the robustness of the proposed procedures. We perform an extensive simulation study to compare the percentage of confidence intervals containing the true population mean using the two proposed algorithms with the perc...

On the use of u-shaped penalty functions for deriving a satisfactory financial plan utilizing goal programming

Abstract This paper stresses the use of goal programming as a what-if device and examines two methods of applying goal programming to a financial planning problem. Traditional goal programming ranks the competing goals by assigning preemptive priority factors to the corresponding deviations; another approach is to provide more flexible penalty functions and to modify the penalties for missing the various goals during subsequent what-if sessions. Examples are provided that illustrate that 1) the user is provided with more potential solutions in the search for a satisfactory one if the latter method is used, and 2) this method produces a better mix of deviations-from-goal. This procedure was applied by corporate financial planners at Texas Instruments, Inc. and was found to be a very flexible and powerful planning instrument.

Minimal sufficient statistics for incomplete block designs with interaction under an Eisenhart model III

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to derive minimal sufficient statistics for the balanced incomplete block design and the group divisible partially balanced incomplete block design when the Eisenhart Model III (mixed model) is assumed. The results are identical to Hultquist and Graybills (1965) and Hirotsus (1965) for the same model without interaction, except for the addition of a statistic, ∑ijY2ij•.