Sekiyu

Genetic fingerprinting and lab errors

Hi Sekiyu, I see that you have been contributed to the article on Genetic fingerprinting, and your user page indicates that you work in this field. I was wondering if you know anything about the related problem of laboratory error; the article touches on this, and I remember hearing some discussions about this in the past, but don't have much reference or documentation. Do you know anything ? Has there been any study about this ? Aside from the "encyclopedic" point of view, I'd interested in hearing what you personaly think about this, because I felt at the time that the point was quite valid (what is the point of quoting probabilities of 1 over a billion, if the laboratory error rate is several orders of magnitude larger, even if it is only 1 over 100,000). Schutz 14:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Gee, thanks for the excellent, comprehensive and fast answer ! Sample contamination and sample switching are the "lab errors" that I had in mind, indeed, and you are right, it is more general than just laboratory error. But this was the point of my "back of the envelope" calculation above: if you can expect one such error at least once every 100,000 cases, then your final probability is bounded by this value, however small the actual match probability is. But this is probably not specific to DNA testing. Back to the encyclopedic discussion, you mention that there has been cases where these kind of problems (switching or contaminant) happenend in the past; do you have any references ? In the meantime, keep up the good work -- this article is getting very interesting. Schutz 16:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Much Belated Welcome

Hi! I was looking for a chemist or two to clarify or elaborate a phrase in methanol (and it's history), and you probably aren't 'them', but trying to ascertain something more about you, I felt I ought to encourage you to be a bit more active. Generally there are welcome comittee members who greet a new editor and offer to lend a hand, but you seem to have slipped through the cracks. Apologies on behalf of wikiP.

For example, your user page suggests you need a bit more guidance on where to begin learning the wiki markup language and other help features, so someone would normally greet you and place this or a similar template for your future reference:

Welcome!

Hello, Sekiyu, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

Then another one or two on the welcome committee would have wandered by and introduced themselves as well, and generally, when you post to a 'contacts' talk page, it is not infrequent to find yourself being both 'snooped' and answered by another 'old-hand' at WikiP. As a rule, the culture is a helpful, friendly group. Amazingly, you've gone a long time without any such interactions. So I'm stepping in. I'm available frequently mornings and mid-to-late night in the GMT-5 time zone (Outside Boston), and am frequently working on the computer with my email up and giving new messages audible-alerts even when not working wikiP, so feel free to try and get me whenever.

For some editorial tricks of the trade and such, I like to help users create their first sub-page, so here it is: user:sekiyu/Some Tricks. Both the contents (advice and explainations) and techniques should be of some help on your learning curve. Best regards, FrankB 01:59, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Southside Strangler

When ya can, see this case for your thoughts. Thanks. (Me | The Article) 18:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)