Title

A Solution to the Generalized Birthday Problem with Application to Allozyme Screening for Cell Culture Contamination

Authors

M. H. Gail, National Cancer Institute at Bethesda
G. H. Weiss, National Institutes of Health at Bethesda
N. Mantel, George Washington University
Stephen J. O'Brien, National Cancer Institute at BethesdaFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1979

Publication Title

Journal of Applied Probability

Keywords

Generalized birthday problem, Occupancy, Recursive solution, Probability approximations

ISSN

0021-9002

Volume

16

Issue/No.

2

First Page

242

Last Page

251

Abstract

This paper gives the probability that no common allozyme signature is found among n randomly selected cell culture lines when the s mutually exclusive and exhaustive signatures have arbitrary known probabilities. This result is useful in detecting cell culture contamination by a single cell line. This problem is a generalization of the classic problem of finding the probability of no common birthday among n individuals when it is assumed that each individual has a chance 1/s = 1/365 of a birthday on a given day. Both an exact recursive solution and an approximate solution are given for the general problem.

Comments

©1979 Applied Probability Trust

NSUWorks Citation

Gail, M. H.; G. H. Weiss; N. Mantel; and Stephen J. O'Brien. 1979. "A Solution to the Generalized Birthday Problem with Application to Allozyme Screening for Cell Culture Contamination." Journal of Applied Probability 16, (2): 242-251. doi:10.2307/3212893.

ORCID ID

0000-0001-7353-8301

ResearcherID

N-1726-2015

DOI

10.2307/3212893