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Steiner systems are t-(v, &, λ) designs with λ = 1 and t > 2. Thus, every t-subset must reside in a unique block of the design. Such systems were of great interest in the early, recreational period leading up to Steiner's "Combinatorische Aufgabe” [268]; in general they are not easy to find. For t = 2 and 3, however, there are many infinite classes of such designs, some of which we have already encountered in earlier chapters, but for t — 4 and 5 only a finite number are known. None have been constructed for t > 6 and the question of the existence, or not, of Steiner systems for large values of t remains an open problem in design theory. In fact, even for general λ there were only a finite number of 5-designs known until Alltop [2] in 1972 produced an infinite class.
The question of the existence of non-trivial t-designs for general λ and t > 6 was, at one time, linked with the Schreier conjecture — that the only finite 6-transitive permutation groups are the alternating or symmetric groups. This conjecture has since been proved using the classification theorem for finite simple groups. In fact, it had been suggested in 1965 that a proof of the Schreier conjecture might be obtained by showing that there were no non-trivial ∧-designs for t > 6: see Hughes [142]. However, in 1983, Magliveras and Leavitt [205] found a 6-design (with λ = 36); a few years later Teirlinck [271] showed that non-trivial ∧-designs exist for all values of t. As far as we know there is not yet any direct proof of the Schreier conjecture and, of course, Teirlinck's result seems to indicate that design theory will be of little help in finding a direct proof.
A curious, and as yet unexplained, phenomenon is that although coding theory did play a role in uncovering new 5-designs (see Assmus and Mattson [18] or Pless [237]) it seems to be of little help in finding or treating t designs for t > 6. Roughly speaking, powerful group-theoretical methods did most of the discovering and classification of designs in the early stages of the theory. Coding-theoretical methods — those that we have discussed, which are, essentially, linear-algebraic — have extended and deepened the understanding of designs, but yet the best existence theorems seem to be of a recursive and set-theoretical nature.
We begin by discussing those basic concepts from design theory needed in our development of the use of linear codes as an aid in organizing and classifying designs. The more specific properties of those designs that we use as examples of this development will follow in the chapters devoted to the class of designs in question. Much of the material in this chapter is now quite standard and treatments can be found in related books on designs and geometries, in particular the books of Beth, Jungnickel and Lenz [37], Dembowski [85], Hall [122], and Hughes and Piper [144]. The books of Cameron [63], Cameron and van Lint [64], and Tonchev [281] are also useful for related material, and Batten [31] has an elementary account that highlights the geometry. We restrict our attention to finite structures, however, and whenever a set, group, or other mathematical structure is mentioned the reader should assume it to be finite. For background material the books by Wielandt [296] and Passman [232] can be consulted for permutation groups, and that by Lidl and Niederreiter [185] for Galois theory and finite fields.
Basic definitions
The most basic structure of the theory is a finite incidence structure which we denote by S = (P, B,T), and which consists of two disjoint finite sets P and B, and a subset I of P x B. The members of P are called points and are generally denoted by lower-case Roman letters; the members of B, are called blocks and are generally denoted by upper-case Roman letters. If the ordered pair (p, B) is in I we say that p is incident with B, or that B contains the point p, or that p is on B, using the general phraseology of geometry, and viewing the incidence structure geometrically. The pair (p, B) is called a flag if it is in I, an anti-flag if not.
A topological ordered space (or pospace) is a poset (X, <) with a topology on X for which the relation < is closed in the product X × X. The topology of X is then necessarily Hausdorff. The basic theory of pospaces was developed by Nachbin in his book [5]; and others have extended it, but the resulting body of knowledge is not very geometrical. There are few concrete examples, other than the unit interval I with its natural order, and Euclidean spaces (Rn, ≤), the Hilbert cube (H, ≤) (each with the vector order), and some function spaces.
In Theorem 7.13 of [1], Proposition 3.1 of [5], and Theorem 1 of [10], minimal group actions on R-trees are considered. If a group G acts on a tree T, then a Lyndon length function lu is associated with each point u∈T. Abstract minimal length functions are defined in Section 2 of this paper by a simple reduction process, where lengths of elements are reduced by a fixed amount (except that any length must remain non-negative). It is shown in Theorem 2.3 that minimal length functions correspond to minimal actions by following Chiswell's construction of actions on trees from length functions, given in [4]. A parallel result to Theorem 1 of [10] is given for minimal length functions in Theorem 2.2. One outcome of these results is that to determine which length functions can arise from an action of a group on the same tree, it suffices to consider only minimal length functions. Section 1 is concerned with some preparatory properties on lengths of products of elements. These lead in Proposition 1.6 to an alternative description of the maximal trivializable subgroup associated with a length function, defined in [3].
§1. Introduction. Let X be a Hausdorff space and let ρ be a metric, not necessarily related to the topology of X. The space X is said to be fragmented by the metric ρ if each non-empty set in X has non-empty relatively open subsets of arbitrarily small ρ-diameter. The space X is said to be a σ-fragmented by the metric ρ if, for each ε>0, it is possible to write
where each set Xi, i≥1, has the property that each non-empty subset of Xi, has a non-empty relatively open subset of ρ-diameter less than ε. If is any family of subsets of X, we say that X is σ-fragmented by the metric ρ, using sets from, if, for each ε>0, the sets Xi, i ≥ 1, in (1.1) can be taken from
Let R be a commutative, Noetherian ring and let Q be the total quotient ring of R. We shall call B an intermediate ring if R ⊂ B ⊂ Q. In [S] it is proved, for an integral domain R, that if R ⊂ B ⊂ Rf where B is flat over R, then B is a finitely generated R-algebra. We observe that the result holds for any commutative, Noetherian ring where f is a non-zero divisor. Our proof [Theorem 1.1] is a little different and straight; it is given for completeness. The idea of the proof in [S] lies in finding an ideal I of R such that IB = B, and for any λ∈I, b∈B there exists m ≥ 1 such that λmb ∈ R. We shall show that even if an intermediate ring B is finitely generated R-algebra, there may not exist any ideal I of R such that IB = B, moreover, if B is not finitely generated R-algebra, we may have IB = B for some ideal I in R.
An explicit formula is given for the volume of the polar dual of a polytope. Using this formula, we prove a geometric criterion for critical (w.r.t. volume) sections of a regular simplex.
§1. Introduction. In 1985, Sárkõzy [11] proved a conjecture of Erdõs [2] by showing that the greatest square factor s(n)2 of the “middle” binomial coefficient satisfies for arbitrary ε > 0 and sufficiently large n
Abstract. We show that the set of T-numbers in Mahler's classification of transcendental numbers supports a measure whose Fourier transform vanishes at infinity. A similar argument shows that U-numbers also support such a measure.
Abstract. We consider the structure of the Kac modules V(Λ) for dominant integral doubly atypical weights Λ of the Lie superalgebra s1(2/2). Primitive vectors of V(Λ) are constructed and it is shown that the number of composition factors of V(Λ) for such Λ is in exact agreement with the conjectures of [HKV]. These results are used to show that the extended Kac-Weyl character formula which was proved in [VHKTl] for singly atypical simple modules of s1(m/n), and conjectured to be valid for all finite dimensional irreducible representations of sl(m/n) in [VHKT2] is in fact valid for all finite-dimensional doubly atypical simple modules of s1(2/2).