Finite graphs of valency 4 and girth 4 admitting ½-transitive group actions, that is, vertex- and edge- but not arc-transitive group actions, are investigated. A graph is said to be ½-transitive if its automorphism group acts ½-transitively. There is a natural orientation of the edge set of a ½-transitive graph induced and preserved by its automorphism group. It is proved that in a finite ½-transitive graph of valency 4 and girth 4 the set of 4-cycles decomposes the edge set in such a way that either every 4-cycle is alternating or every 4-cycle is directed relative to this orientation. In the latter case vertex stabilizers are isomorphic to Z2.

A minimal (1,3; ν) covering occurs when we have a family of proper subsets selected from ν elements with the property that every triple occurs exactly once in the family and no family of smaller cardinality possesses this property. Woodall developed a lower bound W for the quantity g(k)(1, 3; ν) which represents the cardinality of a minimal family with longest block of length k. The Woodall bound is only accurate in the region when k ≥ ν/2. We develop an expression for the excess of the true value over the Woodall bound and apply this to show that, when k ≥ ν/2, the value of g(1,3; ν) = W + 1 when k is even and W + 1 + when k is odd.

The structure is determined for the existence of some amicable weighing matrices. This is then used to prove the existence and non-existence of some amicable orthogonal designs in powers of two.

The purpose of this paper is to prove (1) if q ≡ 1 (mod 8) is a prime power and there exists a Hadamard matrix of order (q − 1)/2, then we can construct a Hadamard matrix of order 4q, (2) if q ≡ 5 (mod 8) is a prime power and there exists a skew-Hadamard matrix of order (q + 3)/2, then we can construct a Hadamard matrix of order 4(q + 2), (3) if q ≡ 1 (mod 8) is a prime power and there exists a symmetric C-matrix of order (q + 3)/2, then we can construct a Hadamard matrix of order 4(q + 2).

We have 36, 36 and 8 new orders 4n for n ≤ 10000, of Hadamard matrices from the first, the second and third theorem respectively, which were known to the list of Geramita and Seberry. We prove these theorems by using an adaptation of generalized quaternion type array and relative Gauss sums.

A Room n-cube of side t is an n dimensional array of side t which satisfies the property that each two dimensional projection is a Room square. The existence of a Room n-cube of side t is equivalent to the existence of n pairwise orthgonal symmetric Latin squares (POSLS) of side t. The existence of n pairwise orthogonal starters of order t implies the existence of n POSLS of side t. Denote by v(n) the maximum number of POSLS of side t. In this paper, we use Galois fields and computer constructions to construct sets of pairwise orthogonal starters of order t ≤ 101. The existence of these sets of starters gives improved lower bounds for v(n). In particular, we show v(17) ≥ 5, v(21) ≥ 5, v(29) ≥ 13, v(37) ≥ 15 and v(41) ≥ 9, among others.

V. Krishnamurthy has shown that on a finite set X all topologies can be mapped into a certain set of matrices of zeros and ones. In this paper it is shown that all lattices, algebras and rings on a finite set X can be mapped onto particular sets of matrices of zeros and ones.

Let the word “graph” be used in the sense of a countable, connected, simple graph with at least one vertex. We write Qn and Ocn for the graphs associated with the n-cube Qn and the n-octahedron Ocn respectively. In a previous paper (Dekker, 1981) we generalized Qn and Qn to a graph QN and a cube QN, for any nonzero recursive equivalence type N. In the present paper we do the same for Ocn and Ocn. We also examine the nature of the duality between QN and OcN, in case N is an infinite isol. There are c RETs, c denoting the cardinality of the continuum.

We address the problem of describing all graphs Γ such that Aut Γ is a symmetric group, subject to certain restrictions on the sizes of the orbits of Aut Γ on vertices. As a corollary of our general results, we obtain a classification of all graphs Γ on v vertices with Aut Γ ≅ Sn, where ν < min{5n, ½n(n – 1)}.

A recursive method of A. C. Mukhopadhay is used to obtain several new infinite classes of Hadamard matrices. Unfortunately none of these constructions give previously unknown Hadamard matrices of order <40,000.

We define and investigate the notion of a decomposable hypergraph, showing that such a hypergraph always is conformal, that is, can be viewed as the class of maximal cliques of a graph. We further show that the clique hypergraph of a graph is decomposable if and only if the graph is triangulated and characterise such graphs in terms of a combinatorial identity.

In this paper we obtain asymptotics for the number of rooted 3-connected maps on an arbitrary surface and use them to prove that almost all rooted 3-connected maps on any fixed surface have large edge-width and large face-width. It then follows from the result of Roberston and Vitray [10] that almost all rooted 3-connected maps on any fixed surface are minimum genus embeddings and their underlying graphs are uniquely embeddable on the surface.

We establish a characterization of certain trees of polygons similar to that of n-gon-trees given by Chao and Li.

An n-hedral tiling of ℝd is a tiling with each tile congruent to one of the n distinct sets. In this paper, we use the iterated function systems (IFS) to generate n-hedral tilings of ℝd. Each tile in the tiling is similar to the attractor of the IFS. These tiles are fractals and their boundaries have the Hausdorff dimension less than d. Our results generalize a result of Bandt.

The existence of 1-factorizations of the complete multigraph λKn which cannot be decomposed into 1-factorizations with smaller λ is studied.

Let L be an integer lattice, and S a set of lattice points in L. We say that S is optimal if it minimises the number of rectangular sublattices of L (including degenerate ones) which contain an even number of points in S. We show that the resolution of the Hadamard conjecture is equivalent to the determination of |S| for an optimal set S in a (4s-1) × (4s-1) integer lattice L. We then specialise to the case of 1 × n integer lattices, characterising and enumerating their optimal sets.

An equidistant permutation array (EPA) is a ν × r array defined on an r-set, R, such that (i) each row is a permutation of the elements of R and (ii) any two distinct rows agree in λ positions (that is, the Hamming distance is (r−λ)).

Such an array is said to have order ν. In this paper we give several recursive constructions for EPA's.

The first construction uses a resolvable regular pairwise balanced design of order v to construct an EPA of order ν. The second construction is a generalization of the direct product construction for Room squares.

We also give a construction for intersection permutation arrays, which arrays are a generalization of EPA's.

This paper classifies all finite connected 4- and 5-arc-transitive cubic graphs that contain circuits of length less than or equal to 11, or of length 13, and some of those graphs with circuits of length 12.

A complementary decomposition of λKn into a graph G is an edge-disjoint decomposition of λKn into copies of G such that if each copy H of G is replaced by its complement in V(H) then the result is an edge-disjoint decomposition of λKn into copies of GC it is a self- complementary decomposition if G = Gc. The spectrum for the last self-complementary graph on at most 7 vertices is found.

We find necessary and sufficient conditions for completing an arbitrary 2 by n latin rectangle to an n by n symmetric latin square, for completing an arbitrary 2 by n latin rectangle to an n by n unipotent symmetric latin square, and for completing an arbitrary 1 by n latin rectangle to an n by n idempotent symmetric latin square. Equivalently, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an (n−1)-edge colouring of Kn (n even), and for n-edge colouring of Kn (n odd) in which the colours assigned to the edges incident with two vertices are specified in advance.

A near 1-factor of a graph of order 2n ≧ 4 is a subgraph isomorphic to (n − 2) K2 ∪ P3 ∪ K1. Wallis determined, for each r ≥ 3, the order of a smallest r-regular graph of even order without a 1-factor; while for each r ≧ 3, Chartrand, Goldsmith and Schuster determined the order of a smallest r-regular, (r − 2)-edge-connected graph of even order without a 1-factor. These results are extended to graphs without near 1-factors. It is known that every connected, cubic graph with less than six bridges has a near 1-factor. The order of a smallest connected, cubic graph with exactly six bridges and no near 1-factor is determined.