Theory and ExamplesGroup blood testing During World War II

Chapter 4, Problem 26AAE

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Problem 26AAE

Theory and Examples

Group blood testing During World War II it was necessary to administer blood tests to large numbers of recruits. There are two standard ways to administer a blood test to N people. In method 1, each person is tested separately. In method 2, the blood samples of x people are pooled and tested as one large sample. If the test is negative, this one test is enough for all x people. If the test is positive, then each of the x people is tested separately, requiring a total of x + 1 tests. Using the second method and some probability theory it can be shown that, on the average, the total number of tests y will be

With q = 0.99 and N = 1000, find the integer value of x that minimizes y. Also find the integer value of x that maximizes y. (This second result is not important to the real-life situation.) The group testing method was used in World War II with a savings of 80% over the individual testing method, but not with the given value of q.

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