On 6-sparse Steiner triple systems

We give the first known examples of 6-sparse Steiner triple systems by constructing 29 such systems in the residue class 7 modulo 12, with orders ranging from 139 to 4447. We then present a recursive construction which establishes the existence of 6-sparse systems for an infinite set of orders. Observations are also made concerning existing construction methods for perfect Steiner triple systems, and we give a further example of such a system. This has order 135,859 and is only the fourteenth known. Finally, we present a uniform Steiner triple system of order 180,907.     

On the core of the minimum cost steiner tree game in networks

A cost allocation problem arising from the Steiner Tree (ST) problem in networks is analyzed. This cost allocation problem is formulated as a cost cooperative game in characteristic function form, referred to as theST-game. The class ofST games generalizes the class of minimum cost spanning tree games which were used in the literature to analyze a variety of cost allocation problems. In general, the core of anST-game may be empty. We construct an efficient Core Heuristic to compute a good lower bound on the maximum fraction of the total cost that can be distributed among users while satisfying the core constraints. Based on the Core Heuristic, we also provide a sufficient condition for a givenST not to be optimal for the linear programming relaxation of an integer programming formulation of theST problem. The Core Heuristic was implemented and tested on 76 data sets from the literature (Wong's, Aneja's and Beasley's Steiner tree problems). Core points were found for 69 of these cases, and points close to the core were computed in the others.     

Some constructions for block sequences of Steiner quadruple systems with error correcting consecutive unions

In this article, we investigate a block sequence of a Steiner quadruple system which contains the blocks exactly once such that the collection of all blocks together with all unions of two consecutive blocks of the sequence forms an error correcting code with minimum distance four. In particular, we give two recursive constructions and obtain infinitely many such sequences by utilizing individual sequences as starters of the recursions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 152–163, 2008     

Fast heuristics for the Steiner tree problem with revenues,budget and hop constraints

This article describes and compares three heuristics for a variant of the Steiner tree problem with revenues, which includes budget and hop constraints. First, a greedy method which obtains good approximations in short computational times is proposed. This initial solution is then improved by means of a destroy-and-repair method or a tabu search algorithm. Computational results compare the three methods in terms of accuracy and speed.     

Minimal Networks on the Regular n-Dimensional Simplex

The paper gives the proof of the following fact: all simple, i.e., having no nodes of degree 2, trees that span the vertices of the regular n-dimensional simplex can be realized as nondegenerate minimal parametric networks.     

On Yau's problem of evolving one curve to another: Convex case

A revised Yau's Curvature Difference Flow is considered to deform one convex curve $X_0$ to another one $\stackrel{?}{X}$. It is proved that this flow exists globally on time interval $[0,+\infty )$ and the evolving curve, preserving its convexity and bounded area A, converges to a fixed limiting curve $X_{\infty }$ (congruent to $\sqrt{A/\stackrel{?}{A}}\stackrel{?}{X}$) as time tends to infinity, where $\stackrel{?}{A}$ is the area bounded by the target curve $\stackrel{?}{X}$.     

Dimension of the space generated by Steiner systems

To every Steiner system with parameters on and blocks , we can assign its characteristic vector , which is a ‐vector whose entries are indexed by the ‐subsets of such that for each ‐subset of if and only if . In this paper, we show that the dimension of the vector space generated by all of the characteristic vectors of Steiner systems with parameters is , provided that and there is at least one such system.     

Translation groups of Steiner loops

If the order of any product of two different translations of a finite Steiner quasigroup of size n>3 is odd, then the group G generated by the translations of the corresponding Steiner loop of order n+1 contains the alternating group of degree n+1.