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Biology Faculty Articles
Title
A Solution to the Generalized Birthday Problem with Application to Allozyme Screening for Cell Culture Contamination
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.
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
Comments
©1979 Applied Probability Trust