Screening program theory: decision functions and protocols.

Abstract

A screening program is defined to include a set of tests, a decision function, and a protocol. The major characteristics of a screening program are the error rates of the individual tests, the overall error rates of the program, the costs of the individual tests, and the overall program costs. It is shown how to calculate the program error rates for any given decision function. The concept of a screening protocol is developed and a method for enumerating all protocols of a given decision function is given. A given protocol has two calculable costs: the average cost of testing a mutagen and the average cost of calculating a nonmutagen. A method for calculating these costs for any protocol is given. All decision functions utilizing up to five tests are enumerated.