Expressing Uncertainty in Dental Age Estimation: A Comparison between Two Methods of Calculating the “Average” Standard Deviation

Derek Draft; Victoria S. Lucas; Fraser McDonald; Manoharan Andiappan; Graham Roberts

doi:10.1111/1556-4029.14049

Expressing Uncertainty in Dental Age Estimation: A Comparison between Two Methods of Calculating the “Average” Standard Deviation

Derek Draft, Victoria S. Lucas, Fraser McDonald, Manoharan Andiappan, Graham Roberts^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The expression of uncertainty is defined by the standard deviation and is usually expressed in multiples of the standard deviation (±1sd, ±2sd, and ±3sd). The objective was to use weighting of the sd calculation by the number or count of subjects for each tooth development stage. A comparison shows the difference between the range of uncertainty using the unweighted sd and the weighted sd. The range of uncertainty related to Dental Age Estimation is statistically significantly greater (p < 0.001) for the weighted sd compared to the unweighted sd. It is concluded that the number of subjects for each Tooth Development Stage in the Reference Data set should be included in the calculation for a single Dental Age Estimation using the Simple Average Method when presenting the uncertainty associated with the point estimate of the “mean” for Dental Age Estimation of a single subject of unknown age.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1506-1509
Number of pages	4
Journal	Journal of Forensic Sciences
Volume	64
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.14049
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2019

Keywords

dental age estimation
forensic odontology
forensic science
pooled standard deviation
unweighted average standard deviation
weighted average standard deviation

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10.1111/1556-4029.14049

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abstract = "The expression of uncertainty is defined by the standard deviation and is usually expressed in multiples of the standard deviation (±1sd, ±2sd, and ±3sd). The objective was to use weighting of the sd calculation by the number or count of subjects for each tooth development stage. A comparison shows the difference between the range of uncertainty using the unweighted sd and the weighted sd. The range of uncertainty related to Dental Age Estimation is statistically significantly greater (p < 0.001) for the weighted sd compared to the unweighted sd. It is concluded that the number of subjects for each Tooth Development Stage in the Reference Data set should be included in the calculation for a single Dental Age Estimation using the Simple Average Method when presenting the uncertainty associated with the point estimate of the “mean” for Dental Age Estimation of a single subject of unknown age.",

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Expressing Uncertainty in Dental Age Estimation: A Comparison between Two Methods of Calculating the “Average” Standard Deviation

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Keywords

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