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.     

On affine designs and Hadamard designs with line spreads

Rahilly [On the line structure of designs, Discrete Math. 92 (1991) 291-303] described a construction that relates any Hadamard design H on 4^m-1 points with a line spread to an affine design having the same parameters as the classical design of points and hyperplanes in AG(m,4). Here it is proved that the affine design is the classical design of points and hyperplanes in AG(m,4) if, and only if, H is the classical design of points and hyperplanes in PG(2m-1,2) and the line spread is of a special type. Computational results about line spreads in PG(5,2) are given. One of the affine designs obtained has the same 2-rank as the design of points and planes in AG(3,4), and provides a counter-example to a conjecture of Hamada [On the p-rank of the incidence matrix of a balanced or partially balanced incomplete block design and its applications to error-correcting codes, Hiroshima Math. J. 3 (1973) 153-226].     

Extension sets,affine designs,and Hamada’s conjecture

We introduce the notion of an extension set for an affine plane of order q to study affine designs \({\mathcal {D}}'\) with the same parameters as, but not isomorphic to, the classical affine design \({\mathcal {D}} = \mathrm {AG}_2(3,q)\) formed by the points and planes of the affine space \(\mathrm {AG}(3,q)\) which are very close to this geometric example in the following sense: there are blocks \(B'\) and B of \({\mathcal {D}'}\) and \({\mathcal {D}}\), respectively, such that the residual structures \({\mathcal {D}}'_{B'}\) and \({\mathcal {D}}_B\) induced on the points not in \(B'\) and B, respectively, agree. Moreover, the structure \({\mathcal {D}}'(B')\) induced on \(B'\) is the q-fold multiple of an affine plane \({\mathcal {A}}'\) which is determined by an extension set for the affine plane \(B \cong AG(2,q)\). In particular, this new approach will result in a purely theoretical construction of the two known counterexamples to Hamada’s conjecture for the case \(\mathrm {AG}_2(3,4)\), which were discovered by Harada et al. [7] as the result of a computer search; a recent alternative construction, again via a computer search, is in [23]. On the other hand, we also prove that extension sets cannot possibly give any further counterexamples to Hamada’s conjecture for the case of affine designs with the parameters of some \(\mathrm {AG}_2(3,q)\); thus the two counterexamples for \(q=4\) might be truly sporadic. This seems to be the first result which establishes the validity of Hamada’s conjecture for some infinite class of affine designs of a special type. Nevertheless, affine designs which are that close to the classical geometric examples are of interest in themselves, and we provide both theoretical and computational results for some particular types of extension sets. Specifically, we obtain a theoretical construction for one of the two affine designs with the parameters of \(\mathrm {AG}_2(3,3)\) and 3-rank 11 and for an affine design with the parameters of \(\mathrm {AG}_2(3,4)\) and 2-rank 17 (in both cases, just one more than the rank of the classical example).     

Distorting symmetric designs

A simple replacement approach is used to construct new symmetric and affine designs from projective or affine spaces. This is used to construct symmetric designs with a given automorphism group, to study GMW designs, and to construct new affine designs whose automorphism group fixes a point and has just two point- and block-orbits.      

Linear Perfect Codes and a Characterization of the Classical Designs

A new definition for the dimension of a combinatorial t-(v,k,) design over a finite field is proposed. The complementary designs of the hyperplanes in a finite projective or affine geometry, and the finite Desarguesian planes in particular, are characterized as the unique (up to isomorphism) designs with the given parameters and minimum dimension. This generalizes a well-known characterization of the binary hyperplane designs in terms of their minimum 2-rank. The proof utilizes the q-ary analogue of the Hamming code, and a group-theoretic characterization of the classical designs.     

On symmetric nets and generalized Hadamard matrices from affine designs

Symmetric nets are affine resolvable designs whose duals are also affine. It is shown that. up to isomorphism, there are exactly four symmetric (3, 3)-nets (v=b=27,k=9), and exactly two inequivalent 9×9 generalized Hadamard matrices over the group of order 3. The symmetric (3, 3)-nets are found as subnets of affine resolvable 2-(27, 9, 4) designs. Ten of the 68 non-isomorphic affine resolvable 2-(27, 9, 4) designs are not extensions of symmetric (3, 3)-subnets, providing the first examples of affine 2-(q³, q², q²–1/q–1) designs without symmetric (q, q)-subnets.     

Block-transitive designs in affine spaces

This paper deals with block-transitive t-(v, k, λ) designs in affine spaces for large t, with a focus on the important index λ = 1 case. We prove that there are no non-trivial 5-(v, k, 1) designs admitting a block-transitive group of automorphisms that is of affine type. Moreover, we show that the corresponding non-existence result holds for 4-(v, k, 1) designs, except possibly when the group is 1-D affine. Our approach involves a consideration of the finite 2-homogeneous affine permutation groups.     

Pseudo generalized Youden designs

Youden square designs, or Youden rectangles, are classical objects in design theory. Extensions of these were introduced in 1958 by Kiefer and in 1981 by Cheng, in the form of generalized Youden designs (GYDs) and pseudo Youden designs (PYDs), respectively. In this paper, we introduce a common generalization of both these objects, which we call a pseudo generalized Youden design (PGYD). PGYDs share the statistically desirable optimality properties of GYDs and PYDs, and we show that they exist in situations where neither GYDs nor PYDs do. We determine some numerical necessary conditions for the existence of PGYDs, classify their existence for small parameter sets, and provide constructions for families of PGYDs using patchwork methods based on affine planes.     

Translations and parallel classes of lines in affine designs

The structure of affine designs admitting all possible translations in one direction is investigated. A method is given for constructing such designs using Cartesian groups, analogous to the known method for affine planes.     

Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs invariant under the dihedral group of order 10

All Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs invariant under the dihedral group of order 10 are constructed and classified up to isomorphism together with related Hadamard matrices of order 64. Affine 2-(64,16,5) designs can be obtained from Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) designs having line spreads by Rahilly’s construction [A. Rahilly, On the line structure of designs, Discrete Math. 92 (1991) 291-303]. The parameter set 2-(64,16,5) is one of two known sets when there exists several nonisomorphic designs with the same parameters and p-rank as the design obtained from the points and subspaces of a given dimension in affine geometry AG(n,p^m) (p a prime). It is established that an affine 2-(64,16,5) design of 2-rank 16 that is associated with a Hadamard 2-(63,31,15) design invariant under the dihedral group of order 10 is either isomorphic to the classical design of the points and hyperplanes in AG(3,4), or is one of the two exceptional designs found by Harada, Lam and Tonchev [M. Harada, C. Lam, V.D. Tonchev, Symmetric (4, 4)-nets and generalized Hadamard matrices over groups of order 4, Designs Codes Cryptogr. 34 (2005) 71-87].     

Exponential bounds on the number of designs with affine parameters

It is well‐known that the number of designs with the parameters of a classical design having as blocks the hyperplanes in PG(n, q) or AG(n, q), n≥3, grows exponentially. This result was extended recently [D. Jungnickel, V. D. Tonchev, Des Codes Cryptogr, published online: 23 May, 2009] to designs having the same parameters as a projective geometry design whose blocks are the d‐subspaces of PG(n, q), for any 2≤d≤n−1. In this paper, exponential lower bounds are proved on the number of non‐isomorphic designs having the same parameters as an affine geometry design whose blocks are the d‐subspaces of AG(n, q), for any 2≤d≤n−1, as well as resolvable designs with these parameters. An exponential lower bound is also proved for the number of non‐isomorphic resolvable 3‐designs with the same parameters as an affine geometry design whose blocks are the d‐subspaces of AG(n, 2), for any 2≤d≤n−1. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 18: 475–487, 2010     

Recent results on designs with classical parameters

We report on recent results concerning designs with the same parameters as the classical geometric designs PG _d (n, q) formed by the points and d-dimensional subspaces of the n-dimensional projective space PG(n, q) over the field GF(q) with q elements, where 1 ???d ???n?1. The corresponding case of designs with the same parameters as the classical geometric designs AG _d (n, q) formed by the points and d-dimensional subspaces of the n-dimensional affine space AG(n, q) will also be discussed, albeit in less detail.     

Pooling spaces associated with finite geometry

Motivated by the works of Ngo and Du [H. Ngo, D. Du, A survey on combinatorial group testing algorithms with applications to DNA library screening, DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science 55 (2000) 171–182], the notion of pooling spaces was introduced [T. Huang, C. Weng, Pooling spaces and non-adaptive pooling designs, Discrete Mathematics 282 (2004) 163–169] for a systematic way of constructing pooling designs; note that geometric lattices are among pooling spaces. This paper attempts to draw possible connections from finite geometry and distance regular graphs to pooling spaces: including the projective spaces, the affine spaces, the attenuated spaces, and a few families of geometric lattices associated with the orbits of subspaces under finite classical groups, and associated with d-bounded distance-regular graphs.     

On the dimension of affine resolvable designs and hypercubes

The equivalence between complete sets of mutually orthogonal hypercubes and affine resolvable designs, which generalizes the well-known equivalence between complete sets of mutually orthogonal latin squares and affine planes, is used to examine the dimension of designs by studying the prime classes in the associated hypercubes. Particular attention is given to designs of order n=9 including a design which is nonisomorphic to AG(3, 9) even though it possesses the same parameters and three prime classes. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On construction of balancedn-ary block designs

Summary A method of construction of balanced ternary designs using affine α-resolvable balanced incomplete block designs is presented.     

Quasi-residual quasi-symmetric designs

It is shown that for each λ ? 3, there are only finitely many quasi-residual quasi-symmetric (QRQS) designs and that for each pair of intersection numbers (x, y) not equal to (0, 1) or (1, 2), there are only finitely many QRQS designs.A design is shown to be affine if and only if it is QRQS with x = 0. A projective design is defined as a symmetric design which has an affine residual. For a projective design, the block-derived design and the dual of the point-derivate of the residual are multiples of symmetric designs.     

An infinite family of 7-designs

We study designs in the binary affine space invariant under the affine group in its 3-transitive action. The main result is a family 7-(2ⁿ,8,45), n6 of non-simple designs. We also obtain 5-(2ⁿ,6,3) for every n3 and 5-(2ⁿ,7,7(2ⁿ−16)/2) for every even n6.     

q-Wedge Modules for Quantized Enveloping Algebras of Classical Type

We use the fusion construction in twisted quantum affine algebras to obtain a unified method to deform the wedge product for classical Lie algebras. As a by-product we uniformly realize all non-spin fundamental modules for quantized enveloping algebras of classical types, and show that they admit natural crystal bases as modules for the (derived) twisted quantum affine algebra. These crystal bases are parametrized in terms of the q-wedge products.     

Correction to: “Exponential bounds on the number of designs with affine parameters”

It is well known that the number of designs with the parameters of a classical design having as blocks the hyperplanes in PG(n, q) or AG(n, q), n?3, grows exponentially. This result was extended recently [5] to designs having the same parameters as a projective geometry design whose blocks are the d‐subspaces of PG(n, q), for any 2?d?n ? 1. In this paper, exponential lower bounds are proved on the number of non‐isomorphic designs having the same parameters as an affine geometry design whose blocks are the d‐subspaces of AG(n, q), for any 2≤d≤n ? 1. Exponential bounds are also proved for the number of resolvable designs with these parameters. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 19:156‐166, 2011     

The affine Plateau problem

In this paper, we study a second order variational problem for locally convex hypersurfaces, which is the affine invariant analogue of the classical Plateau problem for minimal surfaces. We prove existence, regularity and uniqueness results for hypersurfaces maximizing affine area under appropriate boundary conditions.