Introduction to group testing design matrices

The point of group testing is to reduce the cost of finding defective items in a population by testing pools if items rather than testing each item one at a time. In the basic group testing model, we have a population of items of which a small number is defective. We wish to identify the subset of defective items, and are allowed to test pools (subsets) from the population, with a positive test outcome if and only if the pool tested contains a defective item.

We define separable and disjunct matrices, give various examples and tables of good matrices for small parameters, and describe two recent constructions of the speaker and G. Balint for producing new matrices from old.

Event Topic

Discrete Applied Math Seminar