High-rate self-synchronizing codes

Self-synchronization under the presence of additive noise can be achieved by allocating a certain number of bits of each codeword as markers for synchronization. Difference systems of sets are combinatorial designs which specify the positions of synchronization markers in codewords in such a way that the resulting error-tolerant self-synchronizing codes may be realized as cosets of linear codes. Ideally, difference systems of sets should sacrifice as few bits as possible for a given code length, alphabet size, and error-tolerance capability. However, it seems difficult to attain optimality with respect to known bounds when the noise level is relatively low. In fact, the majority of known optimal difference systems of sets are for exceptionally noisy channels, requiring a substantial amount of bits for synchronization. To address this problem, we present constructions for difference systems of sets that allow for higher information rates while sacrificing optimality to only a small extent. Our constructions utilize optimal difference systems of sets as ingredients and, when applied carefully, generate asymptotically optimal ones with higher information rates. We also give direct constructions for optimal difference systems of sets with high information rates and error-tolerance that generate binary and ternary self-synchronizing codes.Comment: 9 pages, no figure, 2 tables. Final accepted version for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Material presented in part at the International Symposium on Information Theory and its Applications, Honolulu, HI USA, October 201

Permutation polynomials induced from permutations of subfields, and some complete sets of mutually orthogonal latin squares

We present a general technique for obtaining permutation polynomials over a finite field from permutations of a subfield. By applying this technique to the simplest classes of permutation polynomials on the subfield, we obtain several new families of permutation polynomials. Some of these have the additional property that both f(x) and f(x)+x induce permutations of the field, which has combinatorial consequences. We use some of our permutation polynomials to exhibit complete sets of mutually orthogonal latin squares. In addition, we solve the open problem from a recent paper by Wu and Lin, and we give simpler proofs of much more general versions of the results in two other recent papers.Comment: 13 pages; many new result