Generalized packing designs

Generalized $t$-designs, which form a common generalization of objects such as $t$-designs, resolvable designs and orthogonal arrays, were defined by Cameron [P.J. Cameron, A generalisation of $t$-designs, \emph{Discrete Math.}\ {\bf 309} (2009), 4835--4842]. In this paper, we define a related class of combinatorial designs which simultaneously generalize packing designs and packing arrays. We describe the sometimes surprising connections which these generalized designs have with various known classes of combinatorial designs, including Howell designs, partial Latin squares and several classes of triple systems, and also concepts such as resolvability and block colouring of ordinary designs and packings, and orthogonal resolutions and colourings. Moreover, we derive bounds on the size of a generalized packing design and construct optimal generalized packings in certain cases. In particular, we provide methods for constructing maximum generalized packings with $t=2$ and block size $k=3$ or 4.Comment: 38 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables, 2 appendices. Presented at 23rd British Combinatorial Conference, July 201

HOPs and COPs: Room frames with partitionable transversals

In this paper, we construct Room frames with partitionable transversals. Direct and recursive constructions are used to find sets of disjoint complete ordered partitionable (COP) transversals and sets of disjoint holey ordered partitionable (HOP) transversals for Room frames. Our main results include upper and lower bounds on the number of disjoint COP transversals and the number of disjoint HOP transversals for Room frames of type 2n. This work is motivated by the large number of applications of these designs