Counting Steiner triple systems with classical parameters and prescribed rank

By a famous result of Doyen, Hubaut and Vandensavel \cite{DHV}, the 2-rank of a Steiner triple system on $2^n-1$ points is at least $2^n -1 -n$, and equality holds only for the classical point-line design in the projective geometry $PG(n-1,2)$. It follows from results of Assmus \cite{A} that, given any integer $t$ with $1 \leq t \leq n-1$, there is a code $C_{n,t}$ containing representatives of all isomorphism classes of STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank at most $2^n -1 -n + t$. Using a mixture of coding theoretic, geometric, design theoretic and combinatorial arguments, we prove a general formula for the number of distinct STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank at most $2^n -1 -n + t$ contained in this code. This generalizes the only previously known cases, $t=1$, proved by Tonchev \cite{T01} in 2001, $t=2$, proved by V. Zinoviev and D. Zinoviev \cite{ZZ12} in 2012, and $t=3$ (V. Zinoviev and D. Zinoviev \cite{ZZ13}, \cite{ZZ13a} (2013), D. Zinoviev \cite{Z16} (2016)), while also unifying and simplifying the proofs. This enumeration result allows us to prove lower and upper bounds for the number of isomorphism classes of STS$(2^n-1)$ with 2-rank exactly (or at most) $2^n -1 -n + t$. Finally, using our recent systematic study of the ternary block codes of Steiner triple systems \cite{JT}, we obtain analogous results for the ternary case, that is, for STS$(3^n)$ with 3-rank at most (or exactly) $3^n -1 -n + t$. We note that this work provides the first two infinite families of 2-designs for which one has non-trivial lower and upper bounds for the number of non-isomorphic examples with a prescribed $p$-rank in almost the entire range of possible ranks.Comment: 27 page

Foreign Taleovers and Wages: Theory and Evidence from Hungary

This study discriminates FDI technology spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, our model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from moving to local competitors. Hence, the national wage bill is unaffected by foreign takeovers. In contrast to learning, technology spillover effects occur whenever a worker with MNE experience contributes more to local firms’ than to MNEs’ productivity. In this case, experienced MNE workers are hired by local firms and the host country obtains a welfare gain. We investigate empirically wages, productivity, and worker turnover during the course of foreign takeovers on employee-employer matched data of Hungary and find evidence consistent with learning, but not with FDI technology spillovers.FDI, foreign takeover, cross-border M&A, wage regression, employee-employer matched data, propensity score matching, FDI technology spillover

Partitioned difference families: the storm has not yet passed

Two years ago, we alarmed the scientific community about the large number of bad papers in the literature on {\it zero difference balanced functions}, where direct proofs of seemingly new results are presented in an unnecessarily lengthy and convoluted way. Indeed, these results had been proved long before and very easily in terms of difference families. In spite of our report, papers of the same kind continue to proliferate. Regrettably, a further attempt to put the topic in order seems unavoidable. While some authors now follow our recommendation of using the terminology of {\it partitioned difference families}, their methods are still the same and their results are often trivial or even wrong. In this note, we show how a very recent paper of this type can be easily dealt with

Two remarks on affine designs with classical parameters

AbstractSimple proofs are given for Dembowski's theorem characterizing the classical affine designs and for the existence of affine designs with classical parameters but not isomorphic to any affine space

Balanced generalized weighing matrices and their applications

Balanced generalized weighing matrices include well-known classical combinatorial objects such as Hadamard matrices and conference matrices; moreover, particular classes of BGW -matrices are equivalent to certain relative difference sets. BGW -matrices admit an interesting geometrical interpretation, and in this context they generalize notions like projective planes admitting a full elation or homology group. After surveying these basic connections, we will focus attention on proper BGW -matrices; thus we will not give any systematic treatment of generalized Hadamard matrices, which are the subject of a large area of research in their own right. In particular, we will discuss what might be called the classical parameter series. Here the nicest examples are closely related to perfect codes and to some classical relative difference sets associated with affine geometries; moreover, the matrices in question can be characterized as the unique (up to equivalence) BGW -matrices for the given parameters with minimum q-rank.One can also obtain a wealth of monomially inequivalent examples and deter  mine the q-ranks of all these matrices by exploiting a connection with linear shift register sequences

Matrix constructions of divisible designs

AbstractWe present two new constructions of group divisible designs. We use skew-symmetric Hadamard matrices and certain strongly regular graphs together with (v, k, λ)-designs. We include many examples, in particular several new series of divisible difference sets

A Note on Intersection Numbers of Difference Sets

We present a condition on the intersection numbers of difference sets which follows from a result of Jungnickel and Pott [3]. We apply this condition to rule out several putative (non-abelian) difference sets and to correct erroneous proofs of Lander [4] for the nonexistence of (352, 27, 2)- and (122, 37, 12)-difference sets

Some Non-Existence Results on Divisible Difference Sets

In this paper, we shall prove several non-existence results for divisible difference sets, using three approaches: (i) character sum arguments similar to the work of Turyn [25] for ordinary difference sets, (ii) involution arguments, and (iii) multipliers in conjunction with results on ordinary difference sets. Among other results, we show that an abelian affine difference set of odd order s (s not a perfect square) in G can exist only if the Sylow 2-subgroup of G is cyclic. We also obtain a non-existence result for non-cyclic (n, n, n, 1) relative difference sets of odd order n

A Note on Intersection Numbers of Difference Sets

We present a condition on the intersection numbers of difference sets which follows from a result of Jungnickel and Pott [3]. We apply this condition to rule out several putative (non-abelian) difference sets and to correct erroneous proofs of Lander [4] for the nonexistence of (352, 27, 2)- and (122, 37, 12)-difference sets