本發明揭露以熱力動力學理論為基礎進行引子之適用性評估的方法,以及實施上述方法之電腦程式或網路介面裝置。本發明亦提供包括引子序列之組合物,以用作為偵測SARS-CoV之引子對或巢式引子組。The invention describes methods based on thermodynamic theory for evaluating the fitness of primers, and a computer program or web-interface apparatus for implementing these methods. The invention also provides compositions comprising ptimer sequences for use as primer pairs or nested primer sets for detecting SARS-CoV.