Cyclic k‐cycle systems of order 2kn + k: A solution of the last open cases

We exhibit cyclic (K_v, C_k)‐designs with v > k, v ≡ k (mod 2k), for k an odd prime power but not a prime, and for k = 15. Such values were the only ones not to be analyzed yet, under the hypothesis v ≡ k (mod 2k). Our construction avails of Rosa sequences and approximates the Hamiltonian case (v = k), which is known to admit no cyclic design with the same values of k. As a particular consequence, we settle the existence question for cyclic (K_v, C_k)‐designs with k a prime power. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 12: 299–310, 2004.     

Quasi‐symmetric designs with fixed difference of block intersection numbers

The following results for proper quasi‐symmetric designs with non‐zero intersection numbers x,y and λ > 1 are proved.

• (1) Let D be a quasi‐symmetric design with z = y ? x and v ≥ 2k. If x ≥ 1 + z + z³ then λ < x + 1 + z + z³.
• (2) Let D be a quasi‐symmetric design with intersection numbers x, y and y ? x = 1. Then D is a design with parameters v = (1 + m) (2 + m)/2, b = (2 + m) (3 + m)/2, r = m + 3, k = m + 1, λ = 2, x = 1, y = 2 and m = 2,3,… or complement of one of these design or D is a design with parameters v = 5, b = 10, r = 6, k = 3, λ = 3, and x = 1, y = 2.
• (3) Let D be a triangle free quasi‐symmetric design with z = y ? x and v ≥ 2k, then x ≤ z + z².
• (4) For fixed z ≥ 1 there exist finitely many triangle free quasi‐symmetric designs non‐zero intersection numbers x, y = x + z.
• (5) There do not exist triangle free quasi‐symmetric designs with non‐zero intersection numbers x, y = x + 2.

© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 49–60, 2007     

A note on triangle‐free quasi‐symmetric designs

Triangle‐free quasi‐symmetric 2‐ (v, k, λ) designs with intersection numbers x, y; 0<x<y<kand λ>1, are investigated. It is proved that λ?2y ? x ? 3. As a consequence it is seen that for fixed λ, there are finitely many triangle‐free quasi‐symmetric designs. It is also proved that: k?y(y ? x) + x. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 19:422‐426, 2011     

Quasi-symmetric 2-(28, 12, 11) designs with an automorphism of order 7

All quasi-symmetric 2-(28, 12, 11) designs with an automorphism of order 7 without fixed points or blocks are enumerated. Up to isomorphism, there are exactly 246 such designs. All but four of these designs are embeddable as derived designs in symmetric 2-(64, 28, 12) designs, producing in this way at least 8784 nonisomorphic symmetric 2-(64, 28, 12) designs. The remaining four 2-(28, 12, 11) designs are the first known examples of nonembeddable quasi-symmetric quasi-derived designs. These symmetric 2-(64, 28, 12) designs also produce at least 8784 nonisomorphic quasi-symmetric 2-(36, 16, 12) designs with intersection numbers 6 and 8, including the first known examples of quasi-symmetric 2-(36, 16, 12) designs with a trivial automorphism group. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 6: 213–223, 1998     

Bounds on the number of Hadamard designs of even order

A new lower bound on the number of non‐isomorphic Hadamard symmetric designs of even order is proved. The new bound improves the bound on the number of Hadamard designs of order 2n given in [12] by a factor of 8n ? 1 for every odd n > 1, and for every even n such that 4n ? 1 > 7 is a prime. For orders 8, 10, and 12, the number of non‐isomorphic Hadamard designs is shown to be at least 22,478,260, 1.31 × 10¹⁵, and 10²⁷, respectively. For orders 2n = 14, 16, 18 and 20, a lower bound of (4n ? 1)! is proved. It is conjectured that (4n ? 1)! is a lower bound for all orders 2n ≥ 14. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 9: 363‐378, 2001     

Alternating groups and flag‐transitive 2‐(v,k, 4) symmetric designs

In this article, we study the classification of flag‐transitive, point‐primitive 2‐ (v, k, 4) symmetric designs. We prove that if the socle of the automorphism group G of a flag‐transitive, point‐primitive nontrivial 2‐ (v, k, 4) symmetric design ?? is an alternating group A_n for n≥5, then (v, k) = (15, 8) and ?? is one of the following: (i) The points of ?? are those of the projective space PG(3, 2) and the blocks are the complements of the planes of PG(3, 2), G = A₇ or A₈, and the stabilizer G_x of a point x of ?? is L₃(2) or AGL₃(2), respectively. (ii) The points of ?? are the edges of the complete graph K₆ and the blocks are the complete bipartite subgraphs K_{2, 4} of K₆, G = A₆ or S₆, and G_x = S₄ or S₄ × Z₂, respectively. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 19:475‐483, 2011     

A symmetric design with parameters 2-(49, 16, 5)

A symmetric 2-design with parameters (v, k, λ) = (49, 16, 5) is constructed. Both this design and its residual, a design with parameters (v, b, r, k, λ) = (33, 48, 16, 11, 5), seem to be new. The derived designs do not have repeated blocks. The group of the design is cyclic of order 15. There is no polarity.     

Primitive symmetric designs with prime power number of points

In this paper we either prove the non‐existence or give explicit construction of primitive symmetric (v, k, λ) designs with v=p^m<2500, p prime and m>1. The method of design construction is based on an automorphism group action; non‐existence results additionally include the theory of difference sets, multiplier theorems in particular. The research involves programming and wide‐range computations. We make use of software package GAP and the library of primitive groups which it contains. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 18: 141–154, 2010     

Primitive symmetric designs with up to 2500 points

By this article we conclude the construction of all primitive ( v, k,λ ) symmetric designs with v < 2500 , up to a few unsolved cases. Complementary to the designs with prime power number of points published previously, here we give 55 primitive symmetric designs with v ≠ p ^m , p prime and m positive integer, together with the analysis of their full automorphism groups. The research involves programming and wide‐range computations. We make use of the software package GAP and the library of primitive groups which it contains. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 19:463‐474, 2011     

Unitals and Unitary Polarities in Symmetric Designs

We extend the notion of unital as well as unitary polarity from finite projective planes to arbitrary symmetric designs. The existence of unitals in several families of symmetric designs has been proved. It is shown that if a unital in a point-hyperplane design PG _d-1(d,q) exists, then d = 2 or 3; in particular, unitals and ovoids are equivalent in case d = 3. Moreover, unitals have been found in two designs having the same parameters as the PG ₄(5,2), although the latter does not have a unital. It had been not known whether or not a nonclassical design exists, which has a unitary polarity. Fortunately, we have discovered a unitary polarity in a symmetric 2-(45,12,3) design. To a certain extent this example seems to be exceptional for designs with these parameters.     

Symmetric designs and projective special linear groups of dimension at most four

In this article, we study symmetric $\left(v,k,\lambda \right)$ designs admitting a flag‐transitive and point‐primitive automorphism group $G$ whose socle is isomorphic to a projective special linear group of dimension at most four. We, in particular, determine all such possible parameters $\left(v,k,\lambda \right)$ and show that such a design belongs to one of two infinite families of point‐hyperplane designs or it is isomorphic to a design with parameters (7, 3, 1), (7, 4, 2), (11, 5, 2), (11, 6, 3), (15, 8, 4), (35, 18, 9), or (56, 45, 18).     

Group‐divisible designs with block size k having k + 1 groups,for k = 4, 5

We investigate the spectrum for k‐GDDs having k + 1 groups, where k = 4 or 5. We take advantage of new constructions introduced by R. S. Rees (Two new direct product‐type constructions for resolvable group‐divisible designs, J Combin Designs, 1 (1993), 15–26) to construct many new designs. For example, we show that a resolvable 4‐GDD of type g⁵ exists if and only if g ≡ 0 mod 12 and that a resolvable 5‐GDD of type g⁶ exists if and only if g ≡ 0 mod 20. We also show that a 4‐GDD of type g⁴m¹ exists (with m > 0) if and only if g ≡ m ≡ 0 mod 3 and 0 < m ≤ 3g/2, except possibly when (g,m) = (9,3) or (18,6), and that a 5‐GDD of type g⁵m¹ exists (with m > 0) if and only if g ≡ m ≡ 0 mod 4 and 0 < m ≤ 4g/3, with 32 possible exceptions. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 8: 363–386, 2000     

Some Hadamard designs with parameters (71,35,17)

Up to isomorphisms there are precisely eight symmetric designs with parameters (71, 35, 17) admitting a faithful action of a Frobenius group of order 21 in such a way that an element of order 3 fixes precisely 11 points. Five of these designs have 84 and three have 420 as the order of the full automorphism group G. If |G| = 420, then the structure of G is unique and we have G = (Frob₂₁ × Z5):Z4. In this case Z(G) = 〈1〉, G′ has order 35, and G induces an automorphism group of order 6 of Z7. If |G| = 84, then Z(G) is of order 2, and in precisely one case a Sylow 2‐subgroup is elementary abelian. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 144–149, 2002; DOI 10.1002/jcd.996     

Symmetric designs with parameters (69, 17, 4) and F39 as a group of automorphisms

According to Mathon and Rosa [The CRC handbook of combinatorial designs, CRC Press, 1996] there is only one known symmetric design with parameters (69, 17, 4). This known design is given in Beth, Jungnickel, and Lenz [Design theory, B. I. Mannheim, 1985]; the Frobenius group F₃₉ of order 39 acts on this design, where Z₁₃ has exactly 4 fixed points and Z₃ has exactly 9 fixed points. The purpose of this article is to investigate the converse of this fact with the hope of obtaining in this way at least one more design with these parameters. In fact we obtain exactly one new such design. In this article we have classified all such designs invariant under F₃₉. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 6: 231–233, 1998     

The generalized centro‐symmetric and least squares generalized centro‐symmetric solutions of the matrix equation AYB + CYTD = E

An n×n real matrix P is said to be a symmetric orthogonal matrix if P = P^?1 = P^T. An n × n real matrix Y is called a generalized centro‐symmetric with respect to P, if Y = PYP. It is obvious that every matrix is also a generalized centro‐symmetric matrix with respect to I. In this work by extending the conjugate gradient approach, two iterative methods are proposed for solving the linear matrix equation and the minimum Frobenius norm residual problem over the generalized centro‐symmetric Y, respectively. By the first (second) algorithm for any initial generalized centro‐symmetric matrix, a generalized centro‐symmetric solution (least squares generalized centro‐symmetric solution) can be obtained within a finite number of iterations in the absence of round‐off errors, and the least Frobenius norm generalized centro‐symmetric solution (the minimal Frobenius norm least squares generalized centro‐symmetric solution) can be derived by choosing a special kind of initial generalized centro‐symmetric matrices. We also obtain the optimal approximation generalized centro‐symmetric solution to a given generalized centro‐symmetric matrix Y₀ in the solution set of the matrix equation (minimum Frobenius norm residual problem). Finally, some numerical examples are presented to support the theoretical results of this paper. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Almost regular edge colorings and regular decompositions of complete graphs

For k = 1 and k = 2, we prove that the obvious necessary numerical conditions for packing t pairwise edge‐disjoint k‐regular subgraphs of specified orders m₁,m₂,… ,m_t in the complete graph of order n are also sufficient. To do so, we present an edge‐coloring technique which also yields new proofs of various known results on graph factorizations. For example, a new construction for Hamilton cycle decompositions of complete graphs is given. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 499–506, 2008     

Lotto design tables

An LD(n,k,p,t;b) lotto design is a set of b k‐sets (blocks) of an n‐set such that any p‐set intersects at least one k‐set in t or more elements. Let L(n,k,p,t) denote the minimum number of blocks in any LD(n,k,p,t;b) lotto design. We will list the known lower and upper bound theorems for lotto designs. Since many of these bounds are recursive, we will incorporate this information in a set of tables for lower and upper bounds for lotto designs with small parameters. We will also use back‐track algorithms, greedy algorithms, and simulated annealing to improve the tables. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 335–359, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10020     

Some results on λ‐designs with two block sizes

A λ‐design is a family ?? = {B₁, B₂, …, B_v} of subsets of X = {1, 2, …, v} such that |B_i∩B_j| = λ for all i≠jand not all B_i are of the same size. The only known example of λ‐designs (called type‐1 designs) are those obtained from symmetric designs by a certain complementation procedure. Ryser [J Algebra 10 (1968), 246–261] and Woodall [Proc London Math Soc 20 (1970), 669–687] independently conjectured that all λ‐designs are type‐1. Let g = gcd(r ? 1, r^* ? 1), where rand r^* are the two replication numbers. Ionin and Shrikhande [J Combin Comput 22 (1996), 135–142; J Combin Theory Ser A 74 (1996), 100–114] showed that λ‐designs with g = 1, 2, 3, 4 are type‐1 and that the Ryser–Woodall conjecture is true for λ‐designs on p + 1, 2p + 1, 3p + 1, 4p + 1 points, where pis a prime. Hein and Ionin [Codes and Designs—Proceedings of Conference honoring Prof. D. K. Ray‐Chaudhuri on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Ohio State University Mathematical Research Institute Publications, 10, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2002, pp. 145–156] proved corresponding results for g = 5 and Fiala [Codes and Designs—Proceedings of Conference honoring Prof. D. K. Ray‐Chaudhuri on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Ohio State University Mathematical Research Institute Publications, 10, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2002, pp. 109–124; Ars Combin 68 (2003), 17–32; Ars Combin, to appear] for g = 6, 7, and 8. In this article, we consider λ designs with exactly two block sizes. We show that in this case, the conjecture is true for g = 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, and for g = 10, 14, 18, 22 with v≠4λ ? 1. We also give two results on such λ‐designs on v = 9p + 1 and 12p + 1 points, where pis a prime. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 19:95‐110, 2011     

M_(12)作用在396个点上的SPBIB设计的分类

研究Mathieu群M_(12)作用在396个点上所构成的对称的部分平衡不完全区组设计(即SPBIB设计)的分类情况.首先,证明了以M_(12)作为自同构群的非平凡的2-(396,k,λ)对称设计是不存在的.然后,得到了同构意义下的3个点数为396且区组长度为80的SPBIB设计.最后,给出了396个点上以M_(12)作为自同构群的SPBIB设计的完全分类.     

On large sets of almost Hamilton cycle decompositions

A large set of CS(v, k, λ), k‐cycle system of order v with index λ, is a partition of all k‐cycles of K_v into CS(v, k, λ)s, denoted by LCS(v, k, λ). A (v ? 1)‐cycle is called almost Hamilton. The completion of the existence spectrum for LCS(v, v ? 1, λ) only depends on one case: all v ≥ 4 for λ = 2. In this article, it is shown that there exists an LCS(v, v ? 1,2) for any v ≡ 0,1 (mod 4) except v = 5, and for v = 6,7,10,11. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 53–69, 2008