2005 Volume 17 Issue 3 Pages 209-214
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to confirm that finger pressure values just after finger calibration (post-calibration) converge toward a target value and that their variance after calibration narrows statistically.
Methods and Subjects: Twenty-nine dentists participated in this study as volunteers. Finger pressures of 1.5kg that they felt right by one were recorded on a PC under the conditions that the monitor of the calibration equipment was off, and without any exercise. Subsequently, for one minute, they calibrated their finger pressure while monitoring 1.5kg. They then re-measured 1.5kg with the monitor off. They carried out each measurement five times.
Statistical Examination: The Bartlett analysis for homoscedasticity was used to confirm a statistical significance betweenthe data of preand post-calibration, and Bayes statistics were used for a posteriori probability distribution.
Results: The mean values were 1.61±0.56kg in the pre-calibration and 1.74±0.23kg in the post-calibration. The Bartlett analysis showed a significance (p<0.001) between pre-and post-calibration. In the Bayes statistics, the 95% confidence interval of the post-calibration narrowed to 1/24 of the prior distribution, and that of the posteriori distribution (1.72±0.018) narrowed to 1/27 of the prior distribution.
Conclusions: It was shown that the variance of post-calibration narrowed more than that of pre-calibration statistically. Although the mean of post-calibration was larger than the target value, it was suggested that finger pressure neared the target value by repeating the calibration.
