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ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/iii/paper-39/4/iv/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 39 4 iv Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The disease-ascertained transmission probability follows directly from Bayes' theorem. Assume that, given the child's genotype , its disease probability is a common baseline penetrance times the genotype relative risk , with no additional dependence on the parental genotypes. Write for the Mendelian segregation probability. ThenThere are four equally likely labelled parental transmission outcomes. For one specified outcome , this becomes , which is the four-outcome interpretation of the displayed formula.
For an unordered child genotype, let be the number of those outcomes producing it. Its probability is insteadFor example, two heterozygous parents have multiplicities for . A heterozygous child therefore has probability . The four possible outcomes must be counted with multiplicity; treating their unordered genotypes as four distinct equally likely values would be incorrect.
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