Self-dual codes from orbit matrices and quotient matrices of combinatorial designs

In this paper we give constructions of self-orthogonal and self-dual codes, with respect to certain scalar products, with the help of orbit matrices of block designs and quotient matrices of symmetric (group) divisible designs (SGDDs) with the dual property. First we describe constructions from block designs and their extended orbit matrices, where the orbit matrices are induced by the action of an automorphism group of the design. Further, we give some further constructions of self-dual codes from symmetric block designs and their orbit matrices. Moreover, in a similar way as for symmetric designs, we give constructions of self-dual codes from SGDDs with the dual property and their quotient matrices.     

Balanced arrays of strength two from block designs

Some constructions of balanced arrays of strength two are provided by use of rectangular designs, group divisible designs, and nested balanced incomplete block designs. Some series of such arrays are also presented as well as orthogonal arrays, with illustrations. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 303–312, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10016     

Self-orthogonal codes constructed from orbit matrices of 2-designs and quotient matrices of divisible designs

In 2003 Harada and Tonchev showed a construction of self-orthogonal codes from orbit matrices of block designs with fixed-point-free automorphisms. We describe a construction of self-orthogonal codes from orbit matrices of 2-designs admitting certain automorphisms with fixed points (and blocks). Further, we present a construction of self-orthogonal codes from quotient matrices of divisible designs and divisible design graphs.     

A problem of combinatorial designs related to authentication codes

The strong partially balanced t-designs can be used to construct authentication codes, whose probabilities P_r of successful deception in an optimum spoofing attack of order r for r = 0, 1, …, t − 1, achieve their information-theoretic lower bounds. In this paper a new family of strong partially balanced t-designs are constructed by means of rational normal curves over finite fields. Thus based on this new partially balanced t-designs a new class of authentication codes is obtained. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Combin Designs 6: 417–429, 1998     

Unitary designs and codes

A unitary design is a collection of unitary matrices that approximate the entire unitary group, much like a spherical design approximates the entire unit sphere. In this paper, we use irreducible representations of the unitary group to find a general lower bound on the size of a unitary t-design in U(d), for any d and t. We also introduce the notion of a unitary code—a subset of U(d) in which the trace inner product of any pair of matrices is restricted to only a small number of distinct absolute values—and give an upper bound for the size of a code with s inner product values in U(d), for any d and s. These bounds can be strengthened when the particular inner product values that occur in the code or design are known. Finally, we describe some constructions of designs: we give an upper bound on the size of the smallest weighted unitary t-design in U(d), and we catalogue some t-designs that arise from finite groups.      

Mutually disjoint designs and new 5‐designs derived from groups and codes

The article gives constructions of disjoint 5‐designs obtained from permutation groups and extremal self‐dual codes. Several new simple 5‐designs are found with parameters that were left open in the table of 5‐designs given in (G. B. Khosrovshahi and R. Laue, t‐Designs with t⩾3, in “Handbook of Combinatorial Designs”, 2nd edn, C. J. Colbourn and J. H. Dinitz (Editors), Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2007, pp. 79–101), namely, 5−(v, k, λ) designs with (v, k, λ)=(18, 8, 2m) (m=6, 9), (19, 9, 7m) (m=6, 9), (24, 9, 6m) (m=3, 4, 5), (25, 9, 30), (25, 10, 24m) (m=4, 5), (26, 10, 126), (30, 12, 440), (32, 6, 3m) (m=2, 3, 4), (33, 7, 84), and (36, 12, 45n) for 2⩽n⩽17. These results imply that a simple 5−(v, k, λ) design with (v, k)=(24, 9), (25, 9), (26, 10), (32, 6), or (33, 7) exists for all admissible values of λ. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 18: 305–317, 2010     

Infinite families of 2‐designs from a class of cyclic codes

Combinatorial $t$‐designs have wide applications in coding theory, cryptography, communications, and statistics. It is well known that the supports of all codewords with a fixed weight in a code may give a $t$‐design. In this paper, we first determine the weight distributions of a class of linear codes derived from the dual of some extended cyclic codes. We then obtain infinite families of 2‐designs and explicitly compute their parameters from the supports of all the codewords with a fixed weight in the codes. By a simple counting argument, we obtain exponentially many 2‐designs.     

GOB designs for authentication codes with arbitration

Combinatorial characterization of optimal authentication codes with arbitration was previously given by several groups of researchers in terms of affine α-resolvable + BIBDs and α-resolvable designs with some special properties, respectively. In this paper, we revisit this known characterization and restate it using a new idea of GOB designs. This newly introduced combinatorial structure simplifies the characterization, and enables us to extend Johansson’s well-known family of optimal authentication codes with arbitration to any finite projective spaces with dimension greater than or equal to 3.     

The spectrum of additive BIB designs

In this article, the existence of additive BIB designs is discussed with direct and recursive constructions, together with investigation of a property of resolvability. Such designs can be used to construct infinite families of BIB designs. In particular, we obtain a series of B(sⁿ, ts^m, λt (ts^m ? 1) (s^n‐m ? 1)/[2(s^m ? 1)]) for any positive integer λ, such that sⁿ (sⁿ ? 1) λ ≡ 0 (mod s^m (s^m ? 1) and for any positive integer t with 2 ≤ t ≤ s^n‐m, where s is an odd prime power. Connections between additive BIB designs and other combinatorial objects such as multiply nested designs and perpendicular arrays are discussed. A construction of resolvable BIB designs with v = 4k is also proposed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 235–254, 2007     

Orthogonal designs,self‐dual codes,and the Leech lattice

Symmetric designs and Hadamard matrices are used to construct binary and ternary self‐dual codes. Orthogonal designs are shown to be useful in construction of self‐dual codes over large fields. In this paper, we first introduce a new array of order 12, which is suitable for any set of four amicable circulant matrices. We apply some orthogonal designs of order 12 to construct new self‐dual codes over large finite fields, which lead us to the odd Leech lattice by Construction A. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 13: 184–194, 2005.     

Configuration distribution and designs of codes in the Johnson scheme

The main goal of this article is to present several connections between perfect codes in the Johnson scheme and designs, and provide new tools for proving Delsarte conjecture that there are no nontrivial perfect Codes in the Johnson scheme. Three topics will be considered. The first is the configuration distribution which is akin to the weight distribution in the Hamming scheme. We prove that if there exists an e‐perfect code in the Johnson scheme then there is a formula which connects the number of vectors at distance i from any codeword in various codes isomorphic to . The second topic is the Steiner systems embedded in a perfect code. We prove a lower bound on the number of Steiner systems embedded in a perfect code. The last topic is the strength of a perfect code. We show two new methods for computing the strength of a perfect code and demonstrate them on 1‐perfect codes. We further discuss how to settle Delsarte conjecture. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 15–34, 2007     

Ternary codes,biplanes, and the nonexistence of some quasisymmetric and quasi‐3 designs

The dual codes of the ternary linear codes of the residual designs of biplanes on 56 points are used to prove the nonexistence of quasisymmetric 2‐ $\left(56,12,9\right)$ and 2‐ $\left(57,12,11\right)$ designs with intersection numbers 0 and 3, and the nonexistence of a 2‐ $\left(267,57,12\right)$ quasi‐3 design. The nonexistence of a 2‐ $\left(149,37,9\right)$ quasi‐3 design is also proved.     

A construction of balanced arrays of strengtht and some related incomplete block designs

Summary Saha [6] has shown the equivalence between a ‘tactical system’ (or at-design) and a 2-symbol balanced array (BA) of strengtht. The implicit method of construction of BA in that paper has been generalized herein to that of ans-symbol BA of strengtht. Some BIB and PBIB designs are also constructed from these arrays. Majindar [2], Vanstone [8] and Saha [6] have all shown that the existence of a symmetrical BIBD forv treatments implies the existence of six more BIBD's forv treatments in (v/2) blocks. An analogue of this result has been obtained for a large class of PBIB designs in this paper.     

An extremum problem for polynomials related to codes and designs

We give a solution to Yudin’s extremum problem for algebraic polynomials related to codes and designs. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 67, No. 4, pp. 508–513, April, 2000.     

On optimal superimposed codes

A (w,r) cover‐free family is a family of subsets of a finite set such that no intersection of w members of the family is covered by a union of r others. A binary (w,r) superimposed code is the incidence matrix of such a family. Such a family also arises in cryptography as a concept of key distribution patterns. In this paper, we develop a method of constructing superimposed codes and prove that some superimposed codes constructed in this way are optimal. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 12: 79–71, 2004.     

Error-correcting codes from permutation groups

We replace the usual setting for error-correcting codes (i.e. vector spaces over finite fields) with that of permutation groups. We give an algorithm which uses a combinatorial structure which we call an uncovering-by-bases, related to covering designs, and construct some examples of these. We also analyse the complexity of the algorithm.We then formulate a conjecture about uncoverings-by-bases, for which we give some supporting evidence and prove for some special cases. In particular, we consider the case of the symmetric group in its action on 2-subsets, where we make use of the theory of graph decompositions. Finally, we discuss the implications this conjecture has for the complexity of the decoding algorithm.     

Quasigroups constructed from perfect Mendelsohn designs with block size 4

Several varieties of quasigroups obtained from perfect Mendelsohn designs with block size 4 are defined. One of these is obtained from the so‐called directed standard construction and satisfies the law $xy?\left(y?xy\right)=x$ and another satisfies Stein's third law $xy?yx=y$. Such quasigroups which satisfy the flexible law $x?yx=xy?x$ are investigated and characterized. Quasigroups which satisfy both of the laws $xy?\left(y?xy\right)=x$ and $xy?yx=y$ are shown to exist. Enumeration results for perfect Mendelsohn designs PMD(9, 4) and PMD(12, 4) as well as for (nonperfect) Mendelsohn designs MD(8, 4) are given.     

Optimal doubly constant weight codes

A doubly constant weight code is a binary code of length n₁ + n₂, with constant weight w₁ + w₂, such that the weight of a codeword in the first n₁ coordinates is w₁. Such codes have applications in obtaining bounds on the sizes of constant weight codes with given minimum distance. Lower and upper bounds on the sizes of such codes are derived. In particular, we show tight connections between optimal codes and some known designs such as Howell designs, Kirkman squares, orthogonal arrays, Steiner systems, and large sets of Steiner systems. These optimal codes are natural generalization of Steiner systems and they are also called doubly Steiner systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 16: 137–151, 2008     

On the self‐dual 𝔽5‐codes constructed from Hadamard matrices of order 24

There are exactly 60 inequivalent Hadamard matrices of order 24. In this note, we give a classification of the self‐dual ??₅‐codes of length 48 constructed from the Hadamard matrices of order 24. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.