d-separable
Definition: A
x
matrix
is
-separable if and only if
where
such that
Decoding algorithm
First we will describe another way to look at the problem of group testing and how to decode it from a different notation. We can give a new interpretation of how group testing works as follows:
Group Testing: Given input
and
such that
- Take
to be the
column of 
- Define
if and only if 
- This gives that
![{\displaystyle S_{\mathbf {r} }=\bigcup _{j\in [n],\mathbf {x} _{j}=1}S_{M_{j}}}](/media/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/d9e6136fa2aa347cfa19156a1f24d3312acdbc76)
This formalizes the relation between
and the columns of
and
in a way more suitable to the thinking of
-separable and
-disjunct matrices. The algorithm to decode a
-separable matrix is as follows:
Given a
x
matrix
such that
is
-separable:
- For each
such that 
This algorithm runs in time
.
d-disjunct
In literature disjunct matrices are also called super-imposed codes and d-cover-free families.
Definition: A
x
matrix
is d-disjunct if
such that
,
such that
but
.
Denoting
is the
column of
and
where
if and only if
gives that
is
-disjunct if and only if
Claim:
is
-disjunct implies
is
-separable
Proof: (by contradiction) Let
be a
x
-disjunct matrix. Assume for contradiction that
is not
-separable. Then there exists
and
with
such that
. This implies that
such that
. This contradicts the fact that
is
-disjunct. Therefore
is
-separable.
Decoding Algorithm
The algorithm for
-separable matrices was still a polynomial in
. The following will give a nicer algorithm for
-disjunct matrices which will be a
multiple instead of raised to the power of
given our bounds for
. The algorithm is as follows in the proof of the following lemma:
Lemma 1: There exists an
time decoding for any
-disjunct
x
matrix.
- Observation 1: For any matrix
and given
if
it implies
such that
and
where
and
. The opposite is also true. If
it implies
if
then
. This is the case because
is generated by taking all of the logical or of the
's where
.
- Observation 2: For any
-disjunct matrix and every set
where
and for each
where
there exists some
where
such that
but
. Thus, if
then
.
Proof of Lemma 1: Given as input
use the following algorithm:
- For each
set 
- For
, if
then for all
, if
set 
By Observation 1 we get that any position where
the appropriate
's will be set to 0 by step 2 of the algorithm. By Observation 2 we have that there is at least one
such that if
is supposed to be 1 then
and, if
is supposed to be 1, it can only be the case that
as well. Therefore step 2 will never assign
the value 0 leaving it as a 1 and solving for
. This takes time
overall.
Upper Bounds for Non-Adaptive Group Testing
The results for these upper bounds rely mostly on the properties of
-disjunct matrices. Not only are the upper bounds nice, but from Lemma 1 we know that there is also a nice decoding algorithm for these bounds. First the following lemma will be proved since it is relied upon for both constructions:
Lemma 2: Given
let
be a
x
matrix and:
![{\displaystyle \forall j\in [n]{\text{, }}|S_{M_{j}}|\geq w_{min}}](/media/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/6062a71064fd3cc35fe245aff4136c9a29035af7)
![{\displaystyle \forall i\neq j\in [n]{\text{, }}|S_{M_{i}}\cap S_{M_{j}}|\leq a_{max}}](/media/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/c9f69166d8ad2e58bd8fd65e18931e12dba17075)
for some integers
then
is
-disjunct.
Note: these conditions are stronger than simply having a subset of size
but rather applies to any pair of columns in a matrix. Therefore no matter what column
that is chosen in the matrix, that column will contain at least
1's and the total number of shared 1's by any two columns is
.
Proof of Lemma 2: Fix an arbitrary
and a matrix
. There exists a match between
if column
has a 1 in the same row position as in column
. Then the total number of matches is Failed to parse (unknown function "\textless"): {\displaystyle \leq a_{max} \cdot d \leq a_{max} \cdot (\frac{w_{min} - 1}{a_{max}}) = w_{min} - 1 \textless \text{ } w_{min} }
, i.e. a column
has a fewer number of matches than the number of ones in it. Therefore there must be a row with all 0s in
but a 1 in
.
We will now generate constructions for the bounds.
Randomized Construction
This first construction will use a probabilistic argument to show the property wanted, in particular the Chernoff bound. Using this randomized construction gives that
. The following lemma will give the result needed.
Theorem 1: There exists a random
-disjunct matrix with
rows.
Proof of Theorem 1: Begin by building a random
x
matrix
with
(where
will be picked later). It will be shown that
-disjunct. First note that
and let
independently with probability
for
and
. Now fix
. Denote the
column of
as
. Then the expectancy is
. Using the Chernoff bound, with
, gives Failed to parse (unknown function "\textless"): {\displaystyle \mathrm{Pr}[ |T_j| \textless \frac{t}{2d}] \leq e^{\frac{-t}{12d}} = e^{\frac{-cd\log{n}}{12}} \leq n^{-2d} \text{ [if } c \geq 24 \text{]}}
. Taking the union bound over all columns gives Failed to parse (unknown function "\textless"): {\displaystyle \mathrm{Pr}[\exists j \text{, } |T_j| \textless \frac{t}{2d}] \leq n \cdot n^{-2d} \leq n^{-d}}
. This gives
. Therefore
with probability
.
Now suppose
then
. So
. Using the Chernoff bound on this gives Failed to parse (unknown function "\textless"): {\displaystyle \mathrm{Pr}[ |T_j \cap T_k| \textless \frac{2t}{d^2}] \leq e^{\frac{-t}{3d^2}} = e^{-2\log{n}} \leq n^{-4} \text{ [if } c \geq 12 \text{]}}
. By the union bound over
pairs Failed to parse (unknown function "\textless"): {\displaystyle \mathrm{Pr}[\exists (j,k) \text{ such that } |T_j \cap T_k| \textless \frac{2t}{d^2}] \leq n^2 \cdot n^{-4} = n^{-2}}
. This gives that
and
with probability
. Note that by changing
the probability
can be made to be
. Thus
. By setting
to be
, the above argument shows that
is
-disjunct.
Note that in this proof
thus giving the upper bound of
.
Strongly Explicit Construction
It is possible to prove a bound of
using a strongly explicit code. Although this bound is worse by a
factor it is preferable because this produces a strongly explicit construction instead of a randomized one.
Theorem 2: There exists a strongly explicit
-disjunct matrix with
rows.
This proof will use the properties of concatenated codes along with the properties of disjunct matrices to construct a code that will satisfy the bound we are after.
Proof of Theorem 2:
Let
such that
. Denote
as the matrix with its
column being
. If
can be found such that

,
then
is
-disjunct. To complete the proof another concept must be introduced. This concept uses code concatenation to obtain the result we want.
Kautz-Singleton '64
Let
. Let
be a
-Reed-Solomon code. Let
such that for
,
where the 1 is in the
position. Then
,
, and
.
---
Example: Let
. Below,
denotes the matrix of codewords for
and
denotes the matrix of codewords for
, where each column is a codeword. The overall image shows the transition from the outer code to the concatenated code.
File:Https://wiki.cse.buffalo.edu/cse545/files/26/example 0.png
---
Divide the rows of
into sets of size
and number them as
where
indexes the set of rows and
indexes the row in the set. If
then note that
where
. So that means
. Since
it gives that
so let
. Since
, the entries in each column of
can be looked at as
sets of
entries where only one of the entries is nonzero (by definition of
) which gives a total of
nonzero entries in each column. Therefore
(so
is
-disjunct).
Now pick
and
such that
(so
). Since
giving that
. Since
and
it gives that
.
Thus we have a strongly explicit construction for a code that can be used to form a group testing matrix and so
.
For non-adaptive testing we have shown that
and we have that (i)
(strongly explicit) and (ii)
(randomized). As of recent work by Porat and Rothscheld they presented a explicit method construction (i.e. deterministic time but not strongly explicit) for
[4], however it is not shown here. There is also a lower bound for disjunct matrices of
[2][3][4] which is not shown here either.
See Also
References
- Atri Rudra's course on Error Correcting Codes: Combinatorics, Algorithms, and Applications (Spring 2010), Lectures 28, 29.
- Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "http://localhost:6011/en.wikipedia.org/v1/":): {\displaystyle \text{D\'yachkov}}
, A. G., & Rykov, V. V. (1982). Bounds on the length of disjunctive codes. Problemy Peredachi Informatsii [Problems of Information Transmission], 18(3), 7-13.
- Failed to parse (syntax error): {\displaystyle \text{D\'yachkov}}
, A. G., Rashad, A. M., & Rykov, V. V. (1989). Superimposed distance codes. Problemy Upravlenija i Teorii Informacii [Problems of Control and Information Theory], 18(4), 237-250.
- Porat, E., & Rothschild, A. (2008). Explicit Non-adaptive Combinatorial Group Testing Schemes. In Proceedings of the 35th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP) (pp. 748-759).
- Zoltan Furedi, On r-Cover-free Families, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, Volume 73, Issue 1, January 1996, Pages 172-173, ISSN 0097-3165, DOI: 10.1006/jcta.1996.0012. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WHS-45NJMVF-39/2/172ef8c5c4aee2d85d1ddd56b107eef3)