Chapter 3, Problem 103SE

Consider a disease whose presence can be identified by carrying out a blood test. Let p denote the probability that a randomly selected individual has the disease. Suppose n individuals are independently selected for testing. One way to proceed is to carry out a separate test on each of the n blood samples. A potentially more economical approach, group testing, was introduced during World War II to identify syphilitic men among army inductees. First, take a part of each blood sample, combine these specimens, and carry out a single test. If no one has the disease, the result will be negative, and only the one test is required. If at least one individual is diseased, the test on the combined sample will yield a positive result, in which case the n individual tests are then carried out. If p = .1 and n = 3, what is the expected number of tests using this procedure? What is the expected number when n = 5? [The article “Random Multiple-Access Communication and Group Testing” (IEEE Trans, on Commun., 1984: 769-774 ) applied these ideas to a communication system in which the dichotomy was active/ idle user rather than diseased/nondiseased.]