We're hearing about the problem daily: There aren't enough test kits available to accurately track the new Coronavirus. It's a global problem, although some countries-including the United States-are doing a worse job of testing than others. ¶ More testing, epidemiologists say, would give us a better understanding of how the virus is moving through the population and whether it's waxing or waning. And more testing is essential to allow us to safely return to any semblance of normal life. ¶ Part of the solution to the testing shortage, however, may come not from making more kits but from algorithms. Computer scientists and engineers who study ways to compress data, decode video, and process medical images say that biological samples from groups of people could be pooled for testing, and the results decoded by cleverly designed algorithms. This sample pooling could go a long way toward addressing the test-kit shortage, with one test kit being able to determine the health status of 5, 10, or even more people.¶ I spoke with Dror Baron, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University and an IEEE Senior Member, about his work developing algorithms for this kind of coronavirus test processing.

中文翻译：

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研究人员正在使用算法来解决冠状病毒测试短缺问题：争先恐后地开发可提供更快结果的新测试套件 - [谱线]

我们每天都在听到这个问题：没有足够的测试套件来准确追踪新的冠状病毒。这是一个全球性问题，尽管包括美国在内的一些国家在测试方面的表现比其他国家差。¶ 流行病学家说，更多的检测将使我们更好地了解病毒是如何在人群中传播的，以及它是在增强还是减弱。更多的测试对于让我们安全地恢复正常生活至关重要。¶ 然而，解决测试短缺的部分方法可能不是制造更多的试剂盒，而是算法。研究压缩数据、解码视频和处理医学图像方法的计算机科学家和工程师说，可以汇集来自人群的生物样本进行测试，以及通过巧妙设计的算法解码的结果。这种样本汇集可以大大解决测试套件短缺的问题，一个测试套件能够确定 5、10 甚至更多人的健康状况。¶ 我与电气和计算机副教授 Dror Baron 进行了交谈北卡罗来纳州立大学的工程学和 IEEE 高级会员，关于他为这种冠状病毒测试处理开发算法的工作。