Linear spaces with many small lines

AbstractIn this paper some of the work in linear spaces in which most of the lines have few points is surveyed. This includes existence results, blocking sets and embeddings. Also, it is shown that any linear space of order v can be embedded in a linear space of order about 13v in which there are no lines of size 2

α-Resolvable λ-fold G-designs

A λ-fold G-design is said to be α-resolvable if its blocks can be partitioned into classes such that every class contains each vertex exactly α times. In this paper we study the existence problem of an α-resolvable λ-fold G-design oforder v in the case when G is any connected subgraph of K_4 and prove that the necessary conditions for its existence are also sufficient

The Intersection problem for 2-(v; 5; 1) directed block designs

The intersection problem for a pair of 2-(v, 3, 1) directed designs and 2-(v, 4, 1) directed designs is solved by Fu in 1983 and by Mahmoodian and Soltankhah in 1996, respectively. In this paper we determine the intersection problem for 2-(v, 5, 1) directed designs.Comment: 17 pages. To appear in Discrete Mat

Two Problems of Gerhard Ringel

Gerhard Ringel was an Austrian Mathematician, and is regarded as one of the most influential graph theorists of the twentieth century. This work deals with two problems that arose from Ringel\u27s research: the Hamilton-Waterloo Problem, and the problem of R-Sequences. The Hamilton-Waterloo Problem (HWP) in the case of Cm-factors and Cn-factors asks whether Kv, where v is odd (or Kv-F, where F is a 1-factor and v is even), can be decomposed into r copies of a 2-factor made entirely of m-cycles and s copies of a 2-factor made entirely of n-cycles. Chapter 1 gives some general constructions for such decompositions and apply them to the case where m=3 and n=3x. This problem is settle for odd v, except for a finite number of x values. When v is even, significant progress is made on the problem, although open cases are left. In particular, the difficult case of v even and s=1 is left open for many situations. Chapter 2 generalizes the Hamilton-Waterloo Problem to complete equipartite graphs K(n:m) and shows that K(xyzw:m) can be decomposed into s copies of a 2-factor consisting of cycles of length xzm and r copies of a 2-factor consisting of cycles of length yzm, whenever m is odd, s,r≠1, gcd(x,z)=gcd(y,z)=1 and xyz≠0 (mod 4). Some more general constructions are given for the case when the cycles in a given two factor may have different lengths. These constructions are used to find solutions to the Hamilton-Waterloo problem for complete graphs. Chapter 3 completes the proof of the Friedlander, Gordon and Miller Conjecture that every finite abelian group whose Sylow 2-subgroup either is trivial or both non-trivial and non-cyclic is R-sequenceable. This settles a question of Ringel for abelian groups