Opinions of American and Swedish orthodontists about the role of erupting third molars as a cause of dental crowding.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the opinions of Swedish orthodontists and American orthodontists regarding the association between third molar eruption and dental crowding. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A survey was distributed to Swedish orthodontists (n = 230) asking their views on the force exerted by erupting third molars, its relationship to crowding, and their recommendations for prophylactic removal. Results were compared with those from a similar study conducted in the United States. Chi square analysis was used to determine differences in responses to questions between Swedish and American orthodontists. P < or = .05 was considered significant. RESULTS: Both Swedish and American orthodontists believed that lower third molars were more likely than upper third molars to cause force (65% and 58% for Swedish and American orthodontists, respectively) and crowding (42% and 40%, respectively). No statistically significant differences were seen between the answers of American and Swedish orthodontists regarding the role of upper and lower third molars in causing crowding. Although only 18% of Swedish orthodontists "generally" or "sometimes" recommended prophylactic removal of mandibular third molars, 36% of American orthodontists "generally" or "sometimes" recommended removal (P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: Most orthodontists in the United States and Sweden do believe that erupting lower third molars exert an anterior force; however, they also believe that these teeth "rarely" or "never" cause crowding of the dentition. The reason that more American orthodontists recommend prophylactic removal of mandibular third molars remains unexplained.

Asymptotic step profiles from a nonlinear growth equation for vicinal surfaces

We study a recently proposed nonlinear evolution equation describing the collective step meander on a vicinal surface subject to the Bales-Zangwill growth instability [O. Pierre-Louis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4221 (1998)]. A careful numerical analysis shows that the dynamically selected step profile consists of sloped segments, given by an inverse error function and steepening as sqrt[t], which are matched to pieces of a stationary (time-independent) solution describing the maxima and minima. The effect of smoothening by step-edge diffusion is included heuristically, and a one-parameter family of evolution equations is introduced that contains relaxation by step-edge diffusion and by attachment-detachment as special cases. The question of the persistence of an initially imposed meander wavelength is investigated in relation to recent experiments.

Phylogenetic relationships of Rutaceae: a cladistic analysis of the subfamilies using evidence from RBC and ATP sequence variation.

Sequence data for plastid rbcL and atpB from members of Anacardiaceae, Burseraceae, Cneoraceae, Meliaceae, Ptaeroxylaceae, Rutaceae, and Simaroubaceae were analyzed cladistically to evaluate the familial and subfamilial circumscriptions of Rutaceae. Taxa representing all subfamilies and tribes were sampled. The analysis shows that Rutaceae are paraphyletic, with Spathelia and Dictyoloma (Rutaceae), Harrisonia (Simaroubaceae), Cneorum (Cneoraceae), and Ptaeroxylon (Ptaeroxylaceae) forming a clade sister to all other Rutaceae. Circumscription of Rutaceae to include all of these taxa is recommended. This analysis indicates that Simaroubaceae and Meliaceae are the outgroups closest to Rutaceae. Correlation of the molecular phylogenies with biochemical data indicates that chemotaxonomic information is more reliable than fruit type as an indicator of familial and subfamilial circumscriptions. The subfamilial classification needs revision; none of the subfamilies of more than one genus is monophyletic.