naa a22 4500 528785192 20180924065518.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180924e20131007xx s 000 0 eng 10.3929/ethz-b-000073605 doi 10.1371/journal.pone.0074388 doi (ETHRESEARCH)oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/73605 Comoglio Federico Bayesian Inference from Count Data Using Discrete Uniform Priors [Elektronische Daten] [Federico Comoglio, Letizia Fracchia, Maurizio Rinaldi] PLoS ONE Open access ethresearch We consider a set of sample counts obtained by sampling arbitrary fractions of a finite volume containing an homogeneously dispersed population of identical objects. We report a Bayesian derivation of the posterior probability distribution of the population size using a binomial likelihood and non-conjugate, discrete uniform priors under sampling with or without replacement. Our derivation yields a computationally feasible formula that can prove useful in a variety of statistical problems involving absolute quantification under uncertainty. We implemented our algorithm in the R package dupiR and compared it with a previously proposed Bayesian method based on a Gamma prior. As a showcase, we demonstrate that our inference framework can be used to estimate bacterial survival curves from measurements characterized by extremely low or zero counts and rather high sampling fractions. All in all, we provide a versatile, general purpose algorithm to infer population sizes from count data, which can find application in a broad spectrum of biological and physical problems. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ethresearch Fracchia Letizia joint author Rinaldi Maurizio joint author PLoS ONE San Francisco, CA, USA : Public Library of Science 8 (10), p. e74388 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/73605 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) 1 Journal Article ethresearch ETHRESEARCH 856 40 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/73605 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) ETHRESEARCH 100 1- Comoglio Federico ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Fracchia Letizia joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Rinaldi Maurizio joint author ETHRESEARCH 773 0- PLoS ONE San Francisco, CA, USA : Public Library of Science 8 (10), p. e74388 1932-6203 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH Journal Article Open access