CTooth+: A Large-scale Dental Cone Beam Computed Tomography Dataset and Benchmark for Tooth Volume Segmentation

Accurate tooth volume segmentation is a prerequisite for computer-aided dental analysis. Deep learning-based tooth segmentation methods have achieved satisfying performances but require a large quantity of tooth data with ground truth. The dental data publicly available is limited meaning the existing methods can not be reproduced, evaluated and applied in clinical practice. In this paper, we establish a 3D dental CBCT dataset CTooth+, with 22 fully annotated volumes and 146 unlabeled volumes. We further evaluate several state-of-the-art tooth volume segmentation strategies based on fully-supervised learning, semi-supervised learning and active learning, and define the performance principles. This work provides a new benchmark for the tooth volume segmentation task, and the experiment can serve as the baseline for future AI-based dental imaging research and clinical application development

From monomers to π stacks, from nonconductive to conductive: Syntheses, characterization, and crystal structures of benzidine radical cations

Salts that contain radical cations of benzidine (BZ), 3,3\u27,5,5\u27- tetramethylbenzidine (TMB), 2,2\u27,6,6\u27-tetraisopropylbenzidine (TPB), and 4,4\u27-terphenyldiamine (DATP) have been isolated with weakly coordinating anions [Al(ORF)4]- (ORF=OC(CF 3)3) or SbF6-. They were prepared by reaction of the respective silver(I) salts with stoichiometric amounts of benzidine or its alkyl-substituted derivatives in CH2Cl2. The salts were characterized by UV absorption and EPR spectroscopy as well as by their single-crystal X-ray structures. Variable-temperature UV/Vis absorption spectra of BZ.+[Al(ORF)4] - and TMB.+[Al(ORF) 4]- in acetonitrile indicate an equilibrium between monomeric free radical cations and a radical-cation dimer. In contrast, the absorption spectrum of TPB.+SbF6- in acetonitrile indicates that the oxidation of TPB only resulted in a monomeric radical cation. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies show that in the solid state BZ and its methylation derivative (TMB) form radical-cation π dimers upon oxidation, whereas that modified with isopropyl groups (TPB) becomes a monomeric free radical cation. By increasing the chain length, π stacks of π dimers are obtained for the radical cation of DATP. The single-crystal conductivity measurements show that monomerized or π-dimerized radicals (BZ.+, TMB.+, and TPB .+) are nonconductive, whereas the π-stacked radical (DATP.+) is conductive. A conduction mechanism between chains through π stacks is proposed