Estimating multistate transition rates from population distributions

Estimating multistate transition rates from population distributions

The ability to estimate interstate transition rates (or probabilities) from population distributions has many potential applications in demography. Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) has been used for such estimation, but lacks a meaningful behavioral foundation. Here a new approach, Relative State Attraction (RSA), is advanced. It assumes that states have a greater (or lesser) ability to att...

Rates, intrinsic linkages, and multistate population dynamics

Demographic analyses of multistate populations are commonplace, as are situations where population stocks are known but population flows are not. Still, demographic models for multistate populations with changing rates remain at an early stage of development, limiting dynamic analyses and analytical projections. Here, a new approach, the Intrinsic Linkage-Rate Ratio (IL-RR) model, is presented ...

Estimating Re ombination Rates from Population Geneti

Estimating recombination rates from population genetic data.

We introduce a new method for estimating recombination rates from population genetic data. The method uses a computationally intensive statistical procedure (importance sampling) to calculate the likelihood under a coalescent-based model. Detailed comparisons of the new algorithm with two existing methods (the importance sampling method of Griffiths and Marjoram and the MCMC method of Kuhner an...

Estimating meiotic gene conversion rates from population genetic data.

Gene conversion plays an important part in shaping genetic diversity in populations, yet estimating the rate at which it occurs is difficult because of the short lengths of DNA involved. We have developed a new statistical approach to estimating gene conversion rates from genetic variation, by extending an existing model for haplotype data in the presence of crossover events. We show, by simula...