May 14th 2008, 5pm, Room E32, John Dalton Building,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Road (opposite
BBC). Tea and coffee from 4.30 pm.
PHILIP DAWID (University of
Cambridge)
Interpreting DNA
profile evidence in complex disputed paternity cases: Bayesian
networks to the rescue
In the simplest cases of disputed paternity we will have
evidence in the form of DNA profiles from the child, mother and
putative father: it is then relatively straightforward to
determine the strength of the evidence bearing on paternity.
But often the putative father is unavailable for testing, and
instead we have to make do with DNA from one or more of his
relatives. Other features, such as mutation, silent alleles,
laboratory and handling errors, etc., introduce additional
complications. The task of interpreting the forensic evidence
in such cases can become extremely challenging, both logically
and computationally. Recently it has been shown how the
technology of Bayesian networks -- especially in its
"object-oriented" version -- can be used to represent and solve
such problems. I will describe the basics of this approach,
present a collection of fundamental networks that can be
flexibly combined (like a child's construction kit) to
represent a very wide range of problems arising in forensic
genetics, and illustrate their use in some real cases.
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