For some genetic mutations, it is thought that the frequency of the mutant gene in men increases linearly with age. If m1 is the frequency at age t1, and m2 is the frequency at age t2, then the yearly rate of increase is estimated by r = (m2 − m1)/(t2 − t1). In a polymerase chain reaction assay, the frequency in 20-year-old men was estimated to be 17.7 ± 1.7 per μgDNA, and the frequency in 40-year-old men was estimated to be 35.9 ± 5.8 per μg DNA. Assume that age is measured with negligible uncertainty.a) Estimate the yearly rate of increase, and find the uncertainty in the estimate.b) Find the relative uncertainty in the estimated rate of increase.
Continuous Probability Distributions
Probability distributions are of two types, which are continuous probability distributions and discrete probability distributions. A continuous probability distribution contains an infinite number of values. For example, if time is infinite: you could count from 0 to a trillion seconds, billion seconds, so on indefinitely. A discrete probability distribution consists of only a countable set of possible values.
Normal Distribution
Suppose we had to design a bathroom weighing scale, how would we decide what should be the range of the weighing machine? Would we take the highest recorded human weight in history and use that as the upper limit for our weighing scale? This may not be a great idea as the sensitivity of the scale would get reduced if the range is too large. At the same time, if we keep the upper limit too low, it may not be usable for a large percentage of the population!
For some genetic mutations, it is thought that the frequency of the mutant gene in men increases linearly with age. If m1 is the frequency at age t1, and m2 is the frequency at age t2, then the yearly rate of increase is estimated by r = (m2 − m1)/(t2 − t1). In a polymerase chain reaction assay, the frequency in 20-year-old men was estimated to be 17.7 ± 1.7 per μg
DNA, and the frequency in 40-year-old men was estimated to be 35.9 ± 5.8 per μg DNA. Assume that age is measured with negligible uncertainty.
a) Estimate the yearly rate of increase, and find the uncertainty in the estimate.
b) Find the relative uncertainty in the estimated rate of increase.
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