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ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2005/iii/paper-45/2/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 45 2 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-14
The kinship coefficient is the probability that a randomly selected allele copy from individual and an independently selected copy from individual at the same genetic locus are identical by descent. The sampling is of gene copies, not of whole genotypes. For a noninbred individual , sampling its two copies with replacement gives ; in general , where is its inbreeding coefficient.
For two full siblings in an outbred pedigree, the two sampled copies are both paternal with probability , both maternal with probability , and of different parental origin with probability . Given that both are paternal, their independent Mendelian segregation transmissions select the same paternal ancestral copy with probability ; likewise for both maternal. The different-parent case cannot be identical by descent when the parents are unrelated. ThereforeEquivalently, conditional on an IBD-sharing count , the chance that the two random copies match is , so . The expected shared proportion and the usual additive relationship coefficient are twice this kinship coefficient; confusing these conventions would double the subsequent inbreeding coefficient.
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