Bounds for Covering Codes over Large Alphabets

Let K_q(n,R) denote the minimum number of codewords in any q-ary code of length n and covering radius R. We collect lower and upper bounds for K_q(n,R) where 6 ≤ q ≤ 21 and R ≤ 3. For q ≤ 10, we consider lengths n ≤ 10, and for q ≥ 11, we consider n ≤ 8. This extends earlier results, which have been tabulated for 2 ≤ q ≤ 5. We survey known bounds and obtain some new results as well, also for s-surjective codes, which are closely related to covering codes and utilized in some of the constructions.AMS Classification: 94B75, 94B25, 94B65Gerzson Kéri - Supported in part by the Hungarian National Research Fund, Grant No. OTKA-T029572.Patric R. J. Östergård - Supported in part by the Academy of Finland, Grants No. 100500 and No. 202315.     

A remark on presentations of certain Chevalley groups

Let Φ be a root system of typeA _ℓ, ℓ ≧ 2,D _ℓ, ℓ ≧ 4 orE _ℓ, 6 ≧ ℓ ≧ 8 andG a group generated by nonidentity abelian subgroupsA _r,r∈Φ, satisfying:

New Linear Codes with Covering Radius 2 and Odd Basis

On the way of generalizing recent results by Cock and the second author, it is shown that when the basis q is odd, BCH codes can be lengthened to obtain new codes with covering radius R=2. These constructions (together with a lengthening construction by the first author) give new infinite families of linear covering codes with codimension r=2k+1 (the case q=3, r=4k+1 was considered earlier). New code families with r=4k are also obtained. An updated table of upper bounds on the length function for linear codes with 24, R=2, and q=3,5 is given.     

Bounds for short covering codes and reactive tabu search

Given a prime power q, c_q(n,R) denotes the minimum cardinality of a subset H in such that every word in this space differs in at most R coordinates from a multiple of a vector in H. In this work, two new classes of short coverings are established. As an application, a new optimal record-breaking result on the classical covering code is obtained by using short covering. We also reformulate the numbers c_q(n,R) in terms of dominating set on graphs. Departing from this reformulation, the reactive tabu search (a variation of tabu search heuristics) is developed to obtain new upper bounds on c_q(n,R). The algorithm is described and conclusions on the results are drawn; they identify the advantages of using the reactive mechanism for this problem. Tables of lower and upper bounds on c_q(n,R), q=3,4, n≤7, and R≤3, are also presented.     

On Projections of Semi-Algebraic Sets Defined by Few Quadratic Inequalities

Let S⊂ℝ ^k+m be a compact semi-algebraic set defined by P ₁≥0,…,P _ℓ ≥0, where P _i ∈ℝ[X ₁,…,X _k ,Y ₁,…,Y _m ], and deg (P _i )≤2, 1≤i≤ℓ. Let π denote the standard projection from ℝ ^k+m onto ℝ ^m . We prove that for any q>0, the sum of the first q Betti numbers of π(S) is bounded by (k+m) ^{O(q ℓ)}. We also present an algorithm for computing the first q Betti numbers of π(S), whose complexity is . For fixed q and ℓ, both the bounds are polynomial in k+m. The author was supported in part by an NSF Career Award 0133597 and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship.     

Zero-sum problems with congruence conditions

For a finite abelian group G and a positive integer d, let s _dℕ(G) denote the smallest integer ℓ∈ℕ₀ such that every sequence S over G of length |S|≧ℓ has a nonempty zero-sum subsequence T of length |T|≡0 mod d. We determine s _dℕ(G) for all d≧1 when G has rank at most two and, under mild conditions on d, also obtain precise values in the case of p-groups. In the same spirit, we obtain new upper bounds for the Erdős–Ginzburg–Ziv constant provided that, for the p-subgroups G _p of G, the Davenport constant D(G _p ) is bounded above by 2exp  (G _p )−1. This generalizes former results for groups of rank two.     

List decodability at small radii

A′(n, d, e), the smallest ℓ for which every binary error-correcting code of length n and minimum distance d is decodable with a list of size ℓ up to radius e, is determined for all d ≥ 2e − 3. As a result, A′(n, d, e) is determined for all e ≤ 4, except for 42 values of n.     

Bivariate spline interpolation with optimal approximation order

Let Δ be a triangulation of some polygonal domain Ω ⊂ R² and let S_q^r(Δ) denote the space of all bivariate polynomial splines of smoothness r and degree q with respect to Δ. We develop the first Hermite-type interpolation scheme for S _q ^r (Δ), q ≥ 3r + 2, whose approximation error is bounded above by Kh ^q +1, where h is the maximal diameter of the triangles in Δ, and the constant K only depends on the smallest angle of the triangulation and is independent of near-degenerate edges and near-singular vertices. Moreover, the fundamental functions of our scheme are minimally supported and form a locally linearly independent basis for a superspline subspace of S _q ^r (Δ). This shows that the optimal approximation order can be achieved by using minimally supported splines. Our method of proof is completely different from the quasi-interpolation techniques for the study of the approximation power of bivariate splines developed in [7] and [18].     

Lower bounds on covering codes via partition matrices

Let Kq(n,R) denote the minimal cardinality of a q-ary code of length n and covering radius R. Let σq(n,s;r) denote the minimal cardinality of a q-ary code of length n, which is s-surjective with radius r. In order to lower-bound Kq(n,n−2) and σq(n,s;s−2) we introduce partition matrices and their transversals. Our approach leads to a short new proof of a classical bound of Rodemich on Kq(n,n−2) and to the new bound Kq(n,n−2)?3q−2n+2, improving the first iff 5?n<q?2n−4. We determine Kq(q,q−2)=q−2+σ₂(q,2;0) if q?10. Moreover, we obtain the new powerful recursive bound Kq+1(n+1,R+1)?min{2(q+1),Kq(n,R)+1}.     

On some extremal problems of different metrics for differentiable functions on the axis

For an arbitrary fixed segment [α, β] ⊂ R and given r ∈ N, A _r , A ₀, and p > 0, we solve the extremal problem

The non-existence of Griesmer codes with parameters close to codes of Belov type

Hill and Kolev give a large class of q-ary linear codes meeting the Griesmer bound, which are called codes of Belov type (Hill and Kolev, Chapman Hall/CRC Research Notes in Mathematics 403, pp. 127–152, 1999). In this article, we prove that there are no linear codes meeting the Griesmer bound for values of d close to those for codes of Belov type. So we conclude that the lower bounds of d of codes of Belov type are sharp. We give a large class of length optimal codes with n _q (k, d) = g _q (k, d) + 1.     

New Results on Codes with Covering Radius 1 and Minimum Distance 2

The minimal cardinality of a q-ary code of length n and covering radius at most R is denoted by K_q(n, R); if we have the additional requirement that the minimum distance be at least d, it is denoted by K_q(n, R, d). Obviously, K_q(n, R, d) K_q(n, R). In this paper, we study instances for which K_q(n,1,2) > K_q(n, 1) and, in particular, determine K₄(4,1,2)=28 > 24=K₄(4,1).Supported in part by the Academy of Finland under grant 100500.     

Optimal constant weight covering codes and nonuniform group divisible 3-designs with block size four

Let K _q (n, w, t, d) be the minimum size of a code over Z _q of length n, constant weight w, such that every word with weight t is within Hamming distance d of at least one codeword. In this article, we determine K _q (n, 4, 3, 1) for all n ≥ 4, q = 3, 4 or q = 2 ^m  + 1 with m ≥ 2, leaving the only case (q, n) = (3, 5) in doubt. Our construction method is mainly based on the auxiliary designs, H-frames, which play a crucial role in the recursive constructions of group divisible 3-designs similar to that of candelabra systems in the constructions of 3-wise balanced designs. As an application of this approach, several new infinite classes of nonuniform group divisible 3-designs with block size four are also constructed.     

Classification of gradient space of dimension 8 by a reducible <Emphasis Type="Italic">s</Emphasis>ℓ(2, C) action

This paper deals with a reducible sℓ(2,C) action on the formal power series ring. The purpose of this paper is to confirm a special case of the Yau conjecture: Suppose that sℓ(2,C) acts on the formal power series ring via (1.1). Then I(f) = (ℓ _i1) ⊕ (ℓ _i2) ⊕... ⊕ (ℓ _is ) modulo some one dimensional sℓ(2,C) representations where (ℓ _i ) is an irreducible sℓ(2,C) representation of ℓ _i dimension and {ℓ _i1 ℓ _i2,...,ℓ _is } ⊆ {ℓ ₁ , ℓ ₂...,ℓ _r }. Unlike classical invariant theory which deals only with irreducible action and 1-dimensional representations, we treat the reducible action and higher dimensional representations successively.     

Counting partitions on the abacus

In 2003, Maróti showed that one could use the machinery of ℓ-cores and ℓ-quotients of partitions to establish lower bounds for p(n), the number of partitions of n. In this paper we explore these ideas in the case ℓ=2, using them to give a largely combinatorial proof of an effective upper bound on p(n), and to prove asymptotic formulae for the number of self-conjugate partitions, and the number of partitions with distinct parts. In a further application we give a combinatorial proof of an identity originally due to Gauss. Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Manfred Schocker (1970–2006)     

Upper Bounds for the Laplacian Graph Eigenvalues

We first apply non-negative matrix theory to the matrix K = D A, where D and A are the degree-diagonal and adjacency matrices of a graph G, respectively, to establish a relation on the largest Laplacian eigenvalue λ1 (G) of G and the spectral radius p(K) of K. And then by using this relation we present two upper bounds for λ1(G) and determine the extremal graphs which achieve the upper bounds.     

An application of coding theory to estimating Davenport constants

We investigate a certain well-established generalization of the Davenport constant. For j a positive integer (the case j = 1, is the classical one) and a finite Abelian group (G, +, 0), the invariant D _j (G) is defined as the smallest ℓ such that each sequence over G of length at least ℓ has j disjoint non-empty zero-sum subsequences. We investigate these quantities for elementary 2-groups of large rank (relative to j). Using tools from coding theory, we give fairly precise estimates for these quantities. We use our results to give improved bounds for the classical Davenport constant of certain groups.     

On the value set of the Ramanujan function

We give lower bounds on the number of distinct values of the Ramanujan function τ(n), n ≦ x, and on the number of distinct residues of τ(n), n ≦ x, modulo a prime ℓ. We also show that for any prime ℓ the values τ(n), n ≦ ℓ⁴, form a finite additive basis modulo ℓ. Received: 6 October 2004     

Constructions and bounds on linear error-block codes

We obtain new bounds on the parameters and we give new constructions of linear error-block codes. We obtain a Gilbert–Varshamov type construction. Using our bounds and constructions we obtain some infinite families of optimal linear error-block codes over . We also study the asymptotic of linear error-block codes. We define the real valued function α _q,m,a (δ), which is an analog of the important real valued function α _q (δ) in the asymptotic theory of classical linear error-correcting codes. We obtain both Gilbert–Varshamov and algebraic geometry type lower bounds on α _q,m,a (δ). We compare these lower bounds in graphs.      

The minimal number of circuits in a finite set inR 2k−1

The minimal number of circuits (i.e., minimal affinely dependent subsets) in a set ofs points inR ^2k−1 isr( ₃ ⁴ )+(k−r)( ₃ ^4⋅1 ) as conjectured by J.-P. Doignon, wheres=qk+r, 0≦r<q.