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Medical Definition of Selection coefficient
1. The proportion of progeny or potential progeny not surviving to sexual maturity; usually defined artificially by expressing the fitness of a phenotype as a fraction of the mean or optimal fitness to give the relative fitness, and subtracting this fraction from unity. If the mean size of family in the population is 3.2 and that for a particular genotype is 2.4 then the fitness of the phenotype is 2.4/3.2 =0.75 and the selection coefficient =1-0.75 =.25 = 5 (05 Mar 2000)