Abstract: | Dental arch form is an important part of dental orthodontic practice. Distance-based clustering methods are often used to find standard arch forms. In particular, S-J. Lee, S.I. Lee, J. Lim, H-J. Park, and T. Wheeler Method to classify human dental arch form, Am. J. Orthod. Dentofacial Orthop. (2010), to appear] propose a ![/></span><sub>1</sub>-type distance which is invariant to the location-shift and the rotational transformation. Despite the popularity of the distance-based methods, little attention is given to the choice of the distance which has a great influence on final clusters. We have three goals in this paper. First, we study the properties of the <span class=](/na101/home/literatum/publisher/tandf/journals/content/gscs20/2014/gscs20.v084.i02/00949655.2012.709517/20131112/images/medium/gscs_a_709517_ilg0001.gif) ![/></span><sub>1</sub>-type distance by Lee <i>et al.</i> (2010). Second, we propose a bootstrap-based procedure to evaluate quantitatively how good the clusters are. Finally, we apply the bootstrap procedure to the Korean standard occlusion study and compare the existing distance-based clustering methods in previous literature.</td>
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