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The identification of genes and genetic variants that predispose individuals to common complex diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neuropsychiatric conditions, is plagued by the relatively small effects contributed by any one gene or variant.These small effects result from each gene or variant having incomplete and/or low penetrance;i.e., they are neither likely to be sufficient nor necessary for a disease or phenotype to manifest, but rather only contribute to susceptibility via a collective effect that can be quantified only in the population at large.One way to accommodate this phenomenon in genetic association studies is to model the overt heterogeneity that results from having so many genes and variants contribute to disease susceptibility.