Balanced ternary designs with block size three,any Λ and anyR

A balanced ternary design onV elements is a collection ofB blocks (which are multisets) of sizeK, such that each element occurs 0, 1 or 2 times per block andR times altogether, and such that each unordered pair of distinct elements occurs times. (For example, in the blockxxyyz, the pairxy is said to occur four times and the pairsxz, yz twice each.) It is straightforward to show that each element has to occur singly in a constant number of blocks, say ₁, and so each element also occurs twice in a constant number of blocks, say ₂, whereR= ₁+2 ₂. If ₂=0 the design is a balanced incomplete block design (binary design), so we assume ₂>0, andK<2V (corresponding to incompleteness in the binary case). Necessarily >1 if ₂>0 (andK>2).In 1980 and 1982 the author gave necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of balanced ternary designs withK=3, =2 and ₂=1, 2 or 3. In this paper work on the existence of balanced ternary designs with block size three is concluded, in that necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a balanced ternary design withK=3, any >1 and any ₂ are given.     

Room designs and one-factorizations

The existence of a Room square of order 2n is known to be equivalent to the existence of two orthogonal one-factorizations of the complete graph on 2n vertices, where orthogonal means any two one-factors involved have at most one edge in common. DefineR(n) to be the maximal number of pairwise orthogonal one-factorizations of the complete graph onn vertices.The main results of this paper are bounds on the functionR. If there is a strong starter of order 2n–1 thenR(2n) 3. If 4n–1 is a prime power, it is shown thatR(4n) 2n–1. Also, the recursive construction for Room squares, to obtain, a Room design of sidev(u – w) +w from a Room design of sidev and a Room design of sideu with a subdesign of sidew, is generalized to sets ofk pairwise orthogonal factorizations. It is further shown thatR(2n) 2n–3.     

Quaternion orthogonal designs from complex companion designs

The success of applying generalized complex orthogonal designs as space-time block codes recently motivated the definition of quaternion orthogonal designs as potential building blocks for space-time-polarization block codes. This paper offers techniques for constructing quaternion orthogonal designs via combinations of specially chosen complex orthogonal designs. One technique is used to build quaternion orthogonal designs on complex variables for any even number of columns. A second related technique is applied to maximum rate complex orthogonal designs to generate an infinite family of quaternion orthogonal designs on complex variables such that the resulting designs have no zero entries. This second technique is also used to generate an infinite family of quaternion orthogonal designs defined over quaternion variables that display a regular redundancy. The proposed constructions are theoretically important because they provide the first known direct techniques for building infinite families of orthogonal designs over quaternion variables for any number of columns.     

A survey of pseudo (v,k, λ)-designs

This work is an attempt to give a complete survey of all known results about pseudo (v, k, )-designs. In doing this, the author hopes to bring more attention to his conjecture given in Section 6; an affirmative answer to this conjecture would settle completely the existence and construction problem for a pseudo (v, k, )-design in terms of the existence of an appropriate (v, k, )-design.     

Symmetric balanced ternary designs with ϱ1 = 1 or 2

Summary We prove the following two non-existence theorems for symmetric balanced ternary designs. If ₁ = 1 and 0 (mod 4) then eitherV = + 1 or 4₂ – + 1 is a square and (4₂ – + 1) divides ² – 1. If ₁ = 2 thenV = ((m + 1)/2) ² + 2,K = (m ² + 7)/4 and = ((m – 1)/2)² + 1 wherem 3 (mod 4). An example belonging to the latter series withV = 18 is constructed.     

On the spectrum of resolvable orthogonal arrays invariant under the Klein group K4

It is shown that there exists a resolvablen ² by 4 orthogonal array which is invariant under the Klein 4-groupK ₄ for all positive integersn congruent to 0 modulo 4 except possibly forn {12, 24, 156, 348}.     

Quasi-symmetric 2, 3, 4-designs

Quasi-symmetric designs are block designs with two block intersection numbersx andy It is shown that with the exception of (x, y)=(0, 1), for a fixed value of the block sizek, there are finitely many such designs. Some finiteness results on block graphs are derived. For a quasi-symmetric 3-design with positivex andy, the intersection numbers are shown to be roots of a quadratic whose coefficients are polynomial functions ofv, k and λ. Using this quadratic, various characterizations of the Witt—Lüneburg design on 23 points are obtained. It is shown that ifx=1, then a fixed value of λ determines at most finitely many such designs.     

Constructions for resolvable and related designs

Methods are given for constructing block designs, using resolvable designs. These constructions yield methods for generating resolvable and affine designs and also affine designs with affine duals. The latter are transversal designs or semi-regular group divisible designs with ₁=0 whose duals are also designs of the same type and parameters. The paper is a survey of some old and some recent constructions.     

Sets pooling designs

Pooling desings have previously been used for the efficient identification of distinguished elements of a finite setU. Group testing underlies these designs: For any , a binary result is obtainable, indicating whether or not the number of distinguished elements included inS is zero. The current generalization of pooling designs will enable the efficient identification of distinguished subsets of a finite setU. In this case, for any , a binary result is obtainable, indicating whether or not the number of distinguished subsets included inS is zero. Such designs are called sets pooling designs, comprising standard pooling designs in the special case where all the distinguished subsets are elements. The new designs are similar to the standard designs but are subject to new constraints because the set of subsets included inS is its power set. To illustrate the feasibility of constructing sets pooling designs, random, non-adaptive designs are investigated for the special case where all distinguished subsets have the same size. An optimum probability for including an object in a pool is approximated as a function of the size and number of distinguished subsets, adopting the criterion of minimizing the average number of non-distinguished subsets whose status would not be resolved by the pooling design. Deterministic and adaptive designs are also described.This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36, through a Laboratory Directed Research and Development Grant at Los Alamos National Laboratory.     

A note on partially balanced ternary designs

Two new methods of constructing a series of partially balanced ternary designs are presented. One from a BIB design and a PBIB design, and the second from a PBIB design alone, obtained by method of differences in both the cases.     

Probabilistic nonadaptive group testing in the presence of errors and DNA library screening

We use the subset containment relation to construct a probabilistic nonadaptive group testing design and decoding algorithm that, in the presence of testing errors, identifies many positives in a population. We give a lower bound for the expected portion of positives identified as a function of an upper bound on the number of testing errors.The algorithms contained herein are part of The State University of New York Research Foundation invention C1230-125, Probabilistic and Combinatorial Nonadaptive and Two-Stage Group Testing and DNA Library Screening by A. Macula and K. Anne.     

Optimum two level fractional factorial plans for model identification and discrimination

Model identification and discrimination are two major statistical challenges. In this paper we consider a set of models M_k for factorial experiments with the parameters representing the general mean, main effects, and only k out of all two-factor interactions. We consider the class D of all fractional factorial plans with the same number of runs having the ability to identify all the models in M_k, i.e., the full estimation capacity.The fractional factorial plans in D with the full estimation capacity for k?2 are able to discriminate between models in M_u for u?k^*, where k^*=(k/2) when k is even, k^*=((k-1)/2) when k is odd. We obtain fractional factorial plans in D satisfying the six optimality criterion functions AD, AT, AMCR, GD, GT, and GMCR for 2^m factorial experiments when m=4 and 5. Both single stage and multi-stage (hierarchical) designs are given. Some results on estimation capacity of a fractional factorial plan for identifying models in M_k are also given. Our designs D4.1 and D10 stand out in their performances relative to the designs given in Li and Nachtsheim [Model-robust factorial designs, Technometrics 42(4) (2000) 345-352.] for m=4 and 5 with respect to the criterion functions AD, AT, AMCR, GD, GT, and GMCR. Our design D4.2 stands out in its performance relative the Li-Nachtsheim design for m=4 with respect to the four criterion functions AT, AMCR, GT, and GMCR. However, the Li-Nachtsheim design for m=4 stands out in its performance relative to our design D4.2 with respect to the criterion functions AD and GD. Our design D14 does have the full estimation capacity for k=5 but the twelve run Li-Nachtsheim design does not have the full estimation capacity for k=5.     

On skew-Hadamard matrices

Skew-Hadamard matrices are of special interest due to their use, among others, in constructing orthogonal designs. In this paper, we give a survey on the existence and equivalence of skew-Hadamard matrices. In addition, we present some new skew-Hadamard matrices of order 52 and improve the known lower bound on the number of the skew-Hadamard matrices of this order.     

SUZUKI GROUPS Sz（q） AND 2-（v,k, 1） BLOCK DESIGNS

It is proved that if D be a 2-(v,k,1) design with G≤Aut D block primitive then G does not have a Suzuki group Sz(q) as the socle.     

Symmetric designs with bruck subdesigns

IfP is a finite projective plane of ordern with a proper subplaneQ of orderm which is not a Baer subplane, then a theorem of Bruck [Trans. AMS 78(1955), 464–481] asserts thatn≧m ²+m. If the equalityn=m ²+m were to occur thenP would be of composite order andQ should be called a Bruck subplane. It can be shown that if a projective planeP contains a Bruck subplaneQ, then in factP contains a designQ′ which has the parameters of the lines in a three dimensional projective geometry of orderm. A well known scheme of Bruck suggests using such aQ′ to constructP. Bruck’s theorem readily extends to symmetric designs [Kantor, Trans. AMS 146 (1969), 1–28], hence the concept of a Bruck subdesign. This paper develops the analoque ofQ′ and shows (by example) that the analogous construction scheme can be used to find symmetric designs.     

Incomplete idempotent Schröder quasigroups and related packing designs

Summary In this paper it is proved that, for any positive integern 2, 3 (mod 4),n 7, there exists an incomplete idempotent Schröder quasigroup with one hole of size two IISQ(n, 2) except forn = 10. It is also proved that for any positive integern 0, 1 (mod 4), there exists an idempotent Schröder quasigroup ISQ(n) except forn = 5 and 9. These results completely determine the spectrum of ISQ(n) and provide an application to the packing of a class of edge-coloured block designs.Research supported by NSERC grant A-5320.Research supported by NSFC grant 19231060-2.     

On the existence of super-simple designs with block size 4

Summary We prove that forv = 1 and for allv 1 (mod 3),v 10, there is a (v, 4, 4) design with the property that no triple appears in more than one block. The proof of this result is made more difficult by the non-existence of a GDD (4, 4, 3; 15) with no triple appearing in more than one block. We also show that forv = 1 and for allv 1, 4 (mod 12),v 13, there is a (v, 4, 2) design with this property, and with the additional property that the design is the union of two (v, 4, 1) designs.     

Dichteschätzungen mit gleichverteilungsmethoden

Density estimates with methods of uniform distribution mod 1. Some nonparametric multivariate density estimators for continuous functions, based on the Fejér and Jackson kernel, are presented. Uniform strong consistency results are obtained with methods of uniform distribution mod 1.

     

Designs of ϕ-optimal control for second-order processes

Consider a realization of the process on the intervalT=[0,1] for functionsf ₁(t),f ₂(t),...,f _n (t) inH(R), the reproducing kernel Hilbert space with reproducing kernelR(s,t) onT×T, whereR(s,t)=E[ξ(s)ξt)] is assumed to be continuous and known. Problems of the selection of functions {f _k (t)} _k=1 ⁿ to be ϕ-optimal design are given, and an unified approach to the solutions ofD-,A-,E- andD _s-optimal design problems are discussed.     

Optimal adaptive generalized Pólya urn design for multi-arm clinical trials

A class of optimal adaptive multi-arm clinical trial designs is proposed based on an extended generalized Pólya urn (GPU) model. The design is applicable to both the qualitative and quantitative responses and achieves, asymptotically, some pre-specified optimality criterion. Such criterion is specified by a functional of the response distributions and is implemented through the relationship between the design matrix and its first eigenvector. The asymptotic properties of the design are studied using the existing methods on GPU. Some examples for commonly used clinical designs are given as illustration.