Related papers: Paternity testing and other inference about relati…
In both criminal cases and civil cases there is an increasing demand for the analysis of DNA mixtures involving relationships. The goal might be, for example, to identify the contributors to a DNA mixture where the donors may be related, or…
Statistical analysis of DNA mixtures is known to pose computational challenges due to the enormous state space of possible DNA profiles. We propose a Bayesian network representation for genotypes, allowing computations to be performed…
In both criminal cases and civil cases there is an increasing demand for the analysis of DNA mixtures involving relationships. The goal might be, for example, to identify the contributors to a DNA mixture where the donors may be related, or…
Many DNA profiles recovered from crime scene samples are of a quality that does not allow them to be searched against, nor entered into, databases. We propose a method for the comparison of profiles arising from two DNA samples, one or both…
The likelihood ratio (LR) is a commonly used measure for determining the strength of forensic match evidence. When a forensic expert determines a high LR for DNA found at a crime scene matching the DNA profile of a suspect they typically…
In Cowell et al. (2007), a Bayesian network for analysis of mixed traces of DNA was presented using gamma distributions for modelling peak sizes in the electropherogram. It was demonstrated that the analysis was sensitive to the choice of a…
Familial Searching is the process of searching in a DNA database for relatives of a certain individual. It is well known that in order to evaluate the genetic evidence in favour of a certain given form of relatedness between two…
Many forensic genetics problems can be handled using structured systems of discrete variables, for which Bayesian networks offer an appealing practical modeling framework, and allow inferences to be computed by probability propagation…
Some methods aim to correct or test for relationships or to reconstruct the pedigree, or family tree. We show that these methods cannot resolve ties for correct relationships due to identifiability of the pedigree likelihood which is the…
Here we present an Italian criminal case that shows how statistical methods can be used to extract information from a series of mixed DNA profiles. The case involves several different individuals and a set of different DNA traces. The case…
In forensic DNA calculations of relatedness of individuals and in DNA mixture analyses, two sources of uncertainty are present concerning the allele frequencies used for evaluating genotype probabilities when evaluating likelihoods. They…
Mixture interpretation is a central challenge in forensic science, where evidence often contains contributions from multiple sources. In the context of DNA analysis, biological samples recovered from crime scenes may include genetic…
Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA profiles have been used as evidence in courts for decades, yet the problem of evaluating the weight of evidence has not been adequately resolved. Both are lineage markers (inherited from just one parent),…
The case-control design is often used to test associations between the case-control status and genetic variants. In addition to this primary phenotype a number of additional traits, known as secondary phenotypes, are routinely recorded and…
Whole and targeted sequencing of human genomes is a promising, increasingly feasible tool for discovering genetic contributions to risk of complex diseases. A key step is calling an individual's genotype from the multiple aligned short read…
We introduce a method to rigorously draw causal inferences---inferences immune to all possible confounding---from genetic data that include parents and offspring. Causal conclusions are possible with these data because the natural…
Network inference is a rapidly advancing field, with new methods being proposed on a regular basis. Understanding the advantages and limitations of different network inference methods is key to their effective application in different…
Genomic imprinting and maternal effects are two epigenetic factors that have been increasingly explored for their roles in the etiology of complex diseases. This is part of a concerted effort to find the "missing heritability." Accordingly,…
The "rare type match problem" is the situation in which the suspect's DNA profile, matching the DNA profile of the crime stain, is not in the database of reference. The evaluation of this match in the light of the two competing hypotheses…
We consider the problem of detecting and estimating the strength of association between a trait of interest and alleles or haplotypes in a small genomic region (e.g. a gene or a gene complex), when no direct information on that region is…