STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF FORENSIC DNA: COMPUTATIONAL PROBLEMS SOLVED AND TO BE SOLVED
Wing K. Fung · Journal of the Japanese Society of Computational Statistics · 2003
DNA profiling is a highly discriminating method for human identification. In this paper, the background of forensic DNA analysis is introduced. Problems on computational statistics such as Hardy-Weinberg and linkage equilibria, representativeness of population databases, and population substructure and relatedness etc. are addressed. In particular, two problems are discussed in more details, namely the paternity determination and the statistical evaluation of complex forensic DNA mixtures. Some general procedures are suggested for handling the problems. Problems which remain to be solved will also be discussed.