Problems on q-Analogs in Coding Theory

The interest in $q$-analogs of codes and designs has been increased in the last few years as a consequence of their new application in error-correction for random network coding. There are many interesting theoretical, algebraic, and combinatorial coding problems concerning these q-analogs which remained unsolved. The first goal of this paper is to make a short summary of the large amount of research which was done in the area mainly in the last few years and to provide most of the relevant references. The second goal of this paper is to present one hundred open questions and problems for future research, whose solution will advance the knowledge in this area. The third goal of this paper is to present and start some directions in solving some of these problems.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0805.3528 by other author

Join-Reachability Problems in Directed Graphs

For a given collection G of directed graphs we define the join-reachability graph of G, denoted by J(G), as the directed graph that, for any pair of vertices a and b, contains a path from a to b if and only if such a path exists in all graphs of G. Our goal is to compute an efficient representation of J(G). In particular, we consider two versions of this problem. In the explicit version we wish to construct the smallest join-reachability graph for G. In the implicit version we wish to build an efficient data structure (in terms of space and query time) such that we can report fast the set of vertices that reach a query vertex in all graphs of G. This problem is related to the well-studied reachability problem and is motivated by emerging applications of graph-structured databases and graph algorithms. We consider the construction of join-reachability structures for two graphs and develop techniques that can be applied to both the explicit and the implicit problem. First we present optimal and near-optimal structures for paths and trees. Then, based on these results, we provide efficient structures for planar graphs and general directed graphs

A Method for Classification of Doubly Resolvable Designs and Its Application

This article presents the principal results of the Ph.D. thesis Investigation and classification of doubly resolvable designs by Stela Zhelezova (Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, BAS), successfully defended at the Specialized Academic Council for Informatics and Mathematical Modeling on 22 February 2010.The resolvability of combinatorial designs is intensively investigated because of its applications. This research focuses on resolvable designs with an additional property - they have resolutions which are mutually orthogonal. Such designs are called doubly resolvable. Their specific properties can be used in statistical and cryptographic applications.Therefore the classification of doubly resolvable designs and their sets of mutually orthogonal resolutions might be very important. We develop a method for classification of doubly resolvable designs. Using this method and extending it with some theoretical restrictions we succeed in obtaining a classification of doubly resolvable designs with small parameters. Also we classify 1-parallelisms and 2-parallelisms of PG(5,2) with automorphisms of order 31 and find the first known transitive 2-parallelisms among them. The content of the paper comprises the essentials of the author’s Ph.D. thesis

Exact algorithms for the order picking problem

Order picking is the problem of collecting a set of products in a warehouse in a minimum amount of time. It is currently a major bottleneck in supply-chain because of its cost in time and labor force. This article presents two exact and effective algorithms for this problem. Firstly, a sparse formulation in mixed-integer programming is strengthened by preprocessing and valid inequalities. Secondly, a dynamic programming approach generalizing known algorithms for two or three cross-aisles is proposed and evaluated experimentally. Performances of these algorithms are reported and compared with the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) solver Concorde

Orthogonal Resolutions and Latin Squares

Resolutions which are orthogonal to at least one other resolution (RORs) and sets of m mutually orthogonal resolutions (m-MORs) of 2-(v, k, λ) designs are considered. A dependence of the number of nonisomorphic RORs and m-MORs of multiple designs on the number of inequivalent sets of v/k − 1 mutually orthogonal latin squares (MOLS) of size m is obtained. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): G.2.1.∗ This work was partially supported by the Bulgarian National Science Fund under Contract No I01/0003

On the algorithmic complexity of twelve covering and independence parameters of graphs

The definitions of four previously studied parameters related to total coverings and total matchings of graphs can be restricted, thereby obtaining eight parameters related to covering and independence, each of which has been studied previously in some form. Here we survey briefly results concerning total coverings and total matchings of graphs, and consider the aforementioned 12 covering and independence parameters with regard to algorithmic complexity. We survey briefly known results for several graph classes, and obtain new NP-completeness results for the minimum total cover and maximum minimal total cover problems in planar graphs, the minimum maximal total matching problem in bipartite and chordal graphs, and the minimum independent dominating set problem in planar cubic graphs

Correlation bounds for fields and matroids

Let $G$ be a finite connected graph, and let $T$ be a spanning tree of $G$ chosen uniformly at random. The work of Kirchhoff on electrical networks can be used to show that the events $e_1 \in T$ and $e_2 \in T$ are negatively correlated for any distinct edges $e_1$ and $e_2$. What can be said for such events when the underlying matroid is not necessarily graphic? We use Hodge theory for matroids to bound the correlation between the events $e \in B$, where $B$ is a randomly chosen basis of a matroid. As an application, we prove Mason's conjecture that the number of $k$-element independent sets of a matroid forms an ultra-log-concave sequence in $k$.Comment: 16 pages. Supersedes arXiv:1804.0307

On multicolor Ramsey numbers of triple system paths of length 3

Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a 3-uniform hypergraph. The multicolor Ramsey number $r_k(\mathcal{H})$ is the smallest integer $n$ such that every coloring of $\binom{[n]}{3}$ with $k$ colors has a monochromatic copy of $\mathcal{H}$. Let $\mathcal{L}$ be the loose 3-uniform path with 3 edges and $\mathcal{M}$ denote the messy 3-uniform path with 3 edges; that is, let $\mathcal{L} = \{abc, cde, efg\}$ and $\mathcal{M} = \{ abc, bcd, def\}$. In this note we prove $r_k(\mathcal{L}) < 1.55k$ and $r_k(\mathcal{M}) < 1.6k$ for $k$ sufficiently large. The former result improves on the bound $r_k( \mathcal{L}) < 1.975k + 7\sqrt{k}$, which was recently established by {\L}uczak and Polcyn.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure