On the upper bound of the size of the r-cover-free families

Let T (r; n) denote the maximum number of subsets of an n-set satisfying the condition in the title. It is proved in a purely combinatorial way, that for n sufficiently large log 2 T (r; n) n 8 \Delta log 2 r r 2 holds. 1. Introduction The notion of the r-cover-free families was introduced by Kautz and Singleton in 1964 [17]. They initiated investigating binary codes with the property that the disjunction of any r (r 2) codewords are distinct (UD r codes). This led them to studying the binary codes with the property that none of the codewords is covered by the disjunction of r others (Superimposed codes, ZFD r codes; P. Erdos, P. Frankl and Z. Furedi called the correspondig set system r-cover-free in [7]). Since that many results have been proved about the maximum size of these codes. Various authors studied these problems basically from three different points of view, and these three lines of investigations were almost independent of each other. This is why many results were ..

Symmetric Disjunctive List-Decoding Codes

A binary code is said to be a disjunctive list-decoding $s_L$-code (LD $s_L$-code), $s \ge 2$, $L \ge 1$, if the code is identified by the incidence matrix of a family of finite sets in which the union (or disjunctive sum) of any $s$ sets can cover not more than $L-1$ other sets of the family. In this paper, we consider a similar class of binary codes which are based on a {\em symmetric disjunctive sum} (SDS) of binary symbols. By definition, the symmetric disjunctive sum (SDS) takes values from the ternary alphabet $\{0, 1, *\}$, where the symbol~$*$ denotes "erasure". Namely: SDS is equal to $0$ ($1$) if all its binary symbols are equal to $0$ ($1$), otherwise SDS is equal to~$*$. List decoding codes for symmetric disjunctive sum are said to be {\em symmetric disjunctive list-decoding $s_L$-codes} (SLD $s_L$-codes). In the given paper, we remind some applications of SLD $s_L$-codes which motivate the concept of symmetric disjunctive sum. We refine the known relations between parameters of LD $s_L$-codes and SLD $s_L$-codes. For the ensemble of binary constant-weight codes we develop a random coding method to obtain lower bounds on the rate of these codes. Our lower bounds improve the known random coding bounds obtained up to now using the ensemble with independent symbols of codewords.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, conference pape

Construction of Almost Disjunct Matrices for Group Testing

In a \emph{group testing} scheme, a set of tests is designed to identify a small number $t$ of defective items among a large set (of size $N$) of items. In the non-adaptive scenario the set of tests has to be designed in one-shot. In this setting, designing a testing scheme is equivalent to the construction of a \emph{disjunct matrix}, an $M \times N$ matrix where the union of supports of any $t$ columns does not contain the support of any other column. In principle, one wants to have such a matrix with minimum possible number $M$ of rows (tests). One of the main ways of constructing disjunct matrices relies on \emph{constant weight error-correcting codes} and their \emph{minimum distance}. In this paper, we consider a relaxed definition of a disjunct matrix known as \emph{almost disjunct matrix}. This concept is also studied under the name of \emph{weakly separated design} in the literature. The relaxed definition allows one to come up with group testing schemes where a close-to-one fraction of all possible sets of defective items are identifiable. Our main contribution is twofold. First, we go beyond the minimum distance analysis and connect the \emph{average distance} of a constant weight code to the parameters of an almost disjunct matrix constructed from it. Our second contribution is to explicitly construct almost disjunct matrices based on our average distance analysis, that have much smaller number of rows than any previous explicit construction of disjunct matrices. The parameters of our construction can be varied to cover a large range of relations for $t$ and $N$.Comment: 15 Page

Group testing problems in experimental molecular biology

In group testing, the task is to determine the distinguished members of a set of objects L by asking subset queries of the form ``does the subset Q of L contain a distinguished object?'' The primary biological application of group testing is for screening libraries of clones with hybridization probes. This is a crucial step in constructing physical maps and for finding genes. Group testing has also been considered for sequencing by hybridization. Another important application includes screening libraries of reagents for useful chemically active zones. This preliminary report discusses some of the constrained group testing problems which arise in biology.Comment: 7 page