Related papers: On the linearity of higher-dimensional blocking se…

We consider $q$-ary (linear and nonlinear) block codes with exactly two distances: $d$ and $d+\delta$. Several combinatorial constructions of optimal such codes are given. In the linear (but not necessary projective) case, we prove that…

An (n,r)-arc in PG(2,q) is a set of n points such that each line contains at most r of the selected points. It is well-known that (n,r)-arcs in PG(2,q) correspond to projective linear codes. Let m_r(2,q) denote the maximal number n of…

For k >= 3, a k-angulation is a 2-connected plane graph in which every internal face is a k-gon. We say that a point set P admits a plane graph G if there is a straight-line drawing of G that maps V(G) onto P and has the same facial cycles…

We consider the action of the $2$-dimensional projective special linear group $PSL(2,q)$ on the projective line $PG(1,q)$ over the finite field $\F_q$, where $q$ is an odd prime power. A subset $S$ of $PSL(2,q)$ is said to be an…

For a finite field GF(q) a Kakeya set K is a subset of GF(q)^n that contains a line in every direction. This paper derives new upper bounds on the minimum size of Kakeya sets when q is even.

We consider a simplicial complex generaliztion of a result of Billera and Meyers that every nonshellable poset contains the smallest nonshellable poset as an induced subposet. We prove that every nonshellable $2$-dimensional simplicial…

Let $C$ be a $(n,q^{2k},n-k+1)_{q^2}$ additive MDS code which is linear over ${\mathbb F}_q$. We prove that if $n \geqslant q+k$ and $k+1$ of the projections of $C$ are linear over ${\mathbb F}_{q^2}$ then $C$ is linear over ${\mathbb…

In this paper, we study and characterise certain blocking sets in generalised polygons. This will allow us to derive new results about the minimum weight and minimum weight code words in the code generated by the rows of the incidence…

Let F_q be a finite field of order q with characteristic p. An arc is an ordered family of at least k vectors in (F_q)^k in which every subfamily of size k is a basis of (F_q)^k. The MDS conjecture, which was posed by Segre in 1955, states…

Blocking sets and minimal codes have been studied for many years in projective geometry and coding theory. In this paper, we provide a new lower bound on the size of $t$-fold $s$-blocking sets without the condition $t \leq q$, which is…

Let $\epsilon\in \{-1,1\}$. A sequence of prime numbers $p_1, p_2, p_3, ...$, such that $p_i=2p_{i-1}+\epsilon$ for all $i$, is called a {\it Cunningham chain} of the first or second kind, depending on whether $\epsilon =1$ or -1…

An untouchable set in a projective plane is a set of points such that no line of the plane meets the set in exactly one point. Recently, H\'eger and Nagy (Avoiding Secants of Given Size in Finite Projective Planes, J. Combin. Des.…

We study the NP-complete Minimum Shared Edges (MSE) problem. Given an undirected graph, a source and a sink vertex, and two integers p and k, the question is whether there are p paths in the graph connecting the source with the sink and…

In this paper we deal with two aspects of the minimum rank of a simple undirected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices over a finite field $\FF_q$ with $q$ elements, which is denoted by $\mr(\FF_q,G)$. In the first part of this paper we show that the…

We present a deterministic 2^O(t)q^{(t-2)(t-1)+o(1)} algorithm to decide whether a univariate polynomial f, with exactly t monomial terms and degree <q, has a root in F_q. A corollary of our method --- the first with complexity sub-linear…

We provide a doubly exponential upper bound in $p$ on the size of forbidden pivot-minors for symmetric or skew-symmetric matrices over a fixed finite field $\mathbb{F}$ of linear rank-width at most $p$. As a corollary, we obtain a doubly…

A $k$-block in a graph $G$ is a maximal set of at least $k$ vertices no two of which can be separated in $G$ by deleting fewer than $k$ vertices. The block number $\beta(G)$ of $G$ is the maximum integer $k$ for which $G$ contains a…

Assuming the well-known conjecture that [x,x+x^t] contains a prime for t > 0 and x sufficiently large, we prove: For 0 < r < 1, there exists 0 < s < r < 1, 0 < d < 1, and infinitely many primes q such that if S is a subset of Z/qZ having…

For a graph $G$ on $[n]$, the $k$-cut complex $\Delta_k(G)$ has facets $[n]\setminus T$, where $T$ ranges over the disconnected $k$-vertex induced subgraphs of $G$. Bayer, Denker, Jeli\'c Milutinovi\'c, Sundaram, and Xue proved that the…

We consider the following conjecture: on a klt germ (X,x), for every finite set I there is a positive integer N with the property that for every R-ideal J on X with exponents in I, there is a divisor E over X that computes the minimal log…