28,662 research outputs found
New constructions for covering designs
A {\em covering design}, or {\em covering}, is a family of
-subsets, called blocks, chosen from a -set, such that each -subset is
contained in at least one of the blocks. The number of blocks is the covering's
{\em size}, and the minimum size of such a covering is denoted by .
This paper gives three new methods for constructing good coverings: a greedy
algorithm similar to Conway and Sloane's algorithm for lexicographic
codes~\cite{lex}, and two methods that synthesize new coverings from
preexisting ones. Using these new methods, together with results in the
literature, we build tables of upper bounds on for , , and .
Problems on q-Analogs in Coding Theory
The interest in -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
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