Efficient Two-Stage Group Testing Algorithms for Genetic Screening

Efficient two-stage group testing algorithms that are particularly suited for rapid and less-expensive DNA library screening and other large scale biological group testing efforts are investigated in this paper. The main focus is on novel combinatorial constructions in order to minimize the number of individual tests at the second stage of a two-stage disjunctive testing procedure. Building on recent work by Levenshtein (2003) and Tonchev (2008), several new infinite classes of such combinatorial designs are presented.Comment: 14 pages; to appear in "Algorithmica". Part of this work has been presented at the ICALP 2011 Group Testing Workshop; arXiv:1106.368

Spectrum of Sizes for Perfect Deletion-Correcting Codes

One peculiarity with deletion-correcting codes is that perfect $t$-deletion-correcting codes of the same length over the same alphabet can have different numbers of codewords, because the balls of radius $t$ with respect to the Levenshte\u{\i}n distance may be of different sizes. There is interest, therefore, in determining all possible sizes of a perfect $t$-deletion-correcting code, given the length $n$ and the alphabet size~$q$. In this paper, we determine completely the spectrum of possible sizes for perfect $q$-ary 1-deletion-correcting codes of length three for all $q$, and perfect $q$-ary 2-deletion-correcting codes of length four for almost all $q$, leaving only a small finite number of cases in doubt.Comment: 23 page

Framed vertex operator algebras, codes and the moonshine module

For a simple vertex operator algebra whose Virasoro element is a sum of commutative Virasoro elements of central charge 1/2, two codes are introduced and studied. It is proved that such vertex operator algebras are rational. For lattice vertex operator algebras and related ones, decompositions into direct sums of irreducible modules for the product of the Virasoro algebras of central charge 1/2 are explicitly described. As an application, the decomposition of the moonshine vertex operator algebra is obtained for a distinguished system of 48 Virasoro algebras.Comment: Latex, 54 page

Equiangular lines in Euclidean spaces

We obtain several new results contributing to the theory of real equiangular line systems. Among other things, we present a new general lower bound on the maximum number of equiangular lines in d dimensional Euclidean space; we describe the two-graphs on 12 vertices; and we investigate Seidel matrices with exactly three distinct eigenvalues. As a result, we improve on two long-standing upper bounds regarding the maximum number of equiangular lines in dimensions d=14, and d=16. Additionally, we prove the nonexistence of certain regular graphs with four eigenvalues, and correct some tables from the literature.Comment: 24 pages, to appear in JCTA. Corrected an entry in Table