April 27, 1998

DNA·VIEW NEWSLETTER #11

NEW IN DNA·VIEW 18.42

Allele Resolution Filters

Allele Resolution Filters (ARF's) is a mechanism definable for each PCR locus that simultaneously

a) defines the legal alleles, and,

b) permits the program to "call" alleles from the measured base pair sizes -- i.e. data collected via Read or Import.

The ARF's are defined using an intuitive and user-friendly screen. Incidentally, the ARF facility can also be used to define "fixed bins" in the FBI sense for RFLP loci.

Concomitant with the allele resolution filters are these related advances:

ABD Genescan import is vastly rewritten to be both easier to use, and more general. The input data can be limited to a peak-height range (locus-by-locus), and colored bar graphs show the user the available importable data at each step.

Most significant, though, is the interaction with ARF's, which permits the Genescan data to be treated as exact allele sizes.

PCR Read has been modified so that it also is linked to the ARF's. The alleles listed in the ARF of the locus selected to be read are used as the ladder on the input screen. As an important benefit, the same membrane/roster can be used to read several different loci, because the allelic ladder no longer needs to be built into the membrane.

More developments

Plot now does a nice job with STR systems. It draws bar graphs, and puts several variously colored sets of bars side-by-side when several databases are graphed together.
VWA New York Caucasion 107 people
VWA ABI Black 195 people
VWA Japanese 205 people

Multiple race calculation. A new Paternity Case option, edit race code allows the user to specify several races for computation in a paternity case. The program will use the largest frequency locus by locus.

Paternity Case, Reconstruction labels the columns with letters a, b, c, etc. for convenience of use with Kinship. The rows are still not labeled, but I'm thinking of ways to introduce row labels.

NEW IN PATER 9.71

Add an allele

The new command Add an allele allows modifying a system previously created by Create genetic system. Data previously entered for the system (that used only the earlier, smaller set of possible alleles) remains valid and understandable by the program.


Please let me know if you would like any new version. You can download from the web (then you will need a password), or I can send you a disk.
  1. Download upgrades
  2. Click on DNA1904.EXE or similar file, and save it on your computer in some location such as

    C:\DNA1904.EXE
  3. Ask me for the password to explode the file.
  4. Explode the file onto an empty floppy disk in drive A: by typing (at a DOS prompt or at Windows' "Run" dialogue):

    C:\DNA1904.EXE -spassword A:

    This creates a normal DNA·VIEW or PATER update disk.

  5. Type A:INSTALL as usual to install it.