Related papers: Small 3-fold blocking sets in $\mathrm{PG}(2,p^n)$
A 3-$(n,4,1)$ packing design consists of an $n$-element set $X$ and a collection of $4$-element subsets of $X$, called {\it blocks}, such that every $3$-element subset of $X$ is contained in at most one block. The packing number of…
We study the smallest possible number of points in a topological space having k open sets. Equivalently, this is the smallest possible number of elements in a poset having k order ideals. Using efficient algorithms for constructing a…
For a finite set $P$ of points in the plane in general position, a \emph{crossing family} of size $k$ in $P$ is a collection of $k$ line segments with endpoints in $P$ that are pairwise crossing. It is a long-standing open problem to…
Subspace codes are collections of subspaces of a projective space such that any two subspaces satisfy a pairwise minimum distance criterion. Recent results have shown that it is possible to construct optimal $(5,3)$ subspace codes from…
We give some new explicit examples of putatively optimal projective spherical designs. i.e., ones for which there is numerical evidence that they are of minimal size. These form continuous families, and so have little apparent symmetry in…
New results on pentagonal geometries PENT(k,r) with block sizes k = 3 or k = 4 are given. In particular we completely determine the existence spectra for PENT(3,r) systems with the maximum number of opposite line pairs as well as those…
In the projective planes $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$, we collect the smallest known sizes of complete arcs for the regions \begin{align*} &\mbox{all } q\le160001,~~ q \mbox{ prime power};\\ &Q_{4}=\{34 \mbox{ sporadic }q'\mbox{s in the interval…
We improve on the lower bound of the maximum number of planes of ${\rm PG}(8,q)$ mutually intersecting in at most one point leading to the following lower bound: ${\cal A}_q(9, 4; 3) \ge q^{12}+2q^8+2q^7+q^6+q^5+q^4+1$ for constant…
This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of foundational results and recent advances concerning minimal generating sets for the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface, $\mathrm{Mod}(N_{g})$, and its index-two twist subgroup,…
A small polygon is a polygon of unit diameter. The maximal perimeter and the maximal width of a convex small polygon with $n=2^s$ vertices are not known when $s \ge 4$. In this paper, we construct a family of convex small $n$-gons, $n=2^s$…
We study the maximum numbers of pseudo-triangulations and pointed pseudo-triangulations that can be embedded over a specific set of points in the plane or contained in a specific triangulation. We derive the bounds $O(5.45^N)$ and $\Omega…
A finite set $P$ of points in the plane is $n$-universal with respect to a class $\mathcal{C}$ of planar graphs if every $n$-vertex graph in $\mathcal{C}$ admits a crossing-free straight-line drawing with vertices at points of $P$. For the…
The Borsuk number of a set S of diameter d >0 in Euclidean n-space is the smallest value of m such that S can be partitioned into m sets of diameters less than d. Our aim is to generalize this notion in the following way: The k-fold Borsuk…
Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, its separability is the minimum number of lines needed to separate all its pairs of points from each other. We show that the minimum number of lines needed to separate $n$ points, picked randomly…
In the packing-constrained point covering problem, PC^2, one seeks configurations of points in the plane that cannot all be covered by a packing arrangement of unit disks. We consider in particular the problem of finding the minimum number…
It is natural to expect that there are only three possible types of scaling limits for the collection of all percolation interfaces in the plane: (1) a trivial one, consisting of no curves at all, (2) a critical one, in which all points of…
In the projective space $\mathrm{PG}(N,q)$ over the Galois field of order $q$, $N\ge3$, an iterative step-by-step construction of complete caps by adding a new point on every step is considered. It is proved that uncovered points are evenly…
We consider the following problem: Given a set $S$ of $n$ distinct points in the plane, how many edge-disjoint plane straight-line spanning paths can be drawn on $S$? Each spanning path must be crossing-free, but edges from different paths…
For each natural number n >= 4, we determine the unique lowest volume hyperbolic 3-orbifold whose torsion orders are bounded below by n. This lowest volume orbifold has base space the 3-sphere and singular locus the figure-8 knot, marked n.…
We prove the following results on flag triangulations of 2- and 3-manifolds. In dimension 2, we prove that the vertex-minimal flag triangulations of $\mathbb{R} P^2$ and $\mathbb{S}^1\times \mathbb{S}^1$ have 11 and 12 vertices,…