Michael William Schroeder

Let $G$ be a graph with a decomposition $\mathcal{D}$. We say ${\mathcal{D}}^{\prime }\subseteq \mathcal{D}$ is a subdecomposition of $\mathcal{D}$ if ${\mathcal{D}}^{\prime }$ is nonempty and is a decomposition of an induced subgraph of $G$, and $\mathcal{D}$ is a primitive decomposition if $\mathcal{D}$ contains no proper subdecompositions. In this paper, we prove a reduction result toward classifying when $K_n$ and $K_n-I$ have primitive $C_m$-decompositions. We also investigate known results on cyclic and 1-rotational $C_m$-decompositions to prove the existence of primitive $C_m$-decompositions of $K_n$ and $K_n-I$ for several families of values of $m$ and $n$.

In 2003 Grüttmüller proved that if $n\geqslant 3$ is odd, then a partial transversal of the Cayley table of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ with length $2$ is completable to a transversal. Additionally, he conjectured that a partial transversal of the Cayley table of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ with length $k$ is completable to a transversal if and only if $n$ is odd and either $n \in \{k, k + 1\}$ or $n \geqslant 3k - 1$. Cavenagh, Hämäläinen, and Nelson (in 2009) showed the conjecture is true when $k = 3$ and $n$ is prime. In this paper, we prove Grüttmüller’s conjecture for $k = 2$ and $k = 3$ by establishing a more general result for Cayley tables of Abelian groups of odd order.

Combinatorial batch codes were defined by Paterson, Stinson, and Wei as purely combinatorial versions of the batch codes introduced by Ishai, Kushilevitz, Ostrovsky, and Sahai. There are $n$ items and $m$ servers, each of which stores a subset of the items. A batch code is an arrangement for storing items on servers so that, for prescribed integers $k$ and $t$, any $k$ items can be retrieved by reading at most $t$ items from each server. Silberstein defined an erasure batch code (with redundancy $r$) as a batch code in which any $k$ items can be retrieved by reading at most $t$ items from each server, while any $r$ servers are unavailable (failed). In this paper, we investigate erasure batch codes with $t=1$ (each server can read at most one item) in a combinatorial manner. We determine the optimal (minimum) total storage of an erasure batch code for several ranges of parameters. Additionally, we relate optimal erasure batch codes to maximum packings. We also identify a necessary lower bound for the total storage of an erasure batch code, and we relate parameters for which this trivial lower bound is achieved to the existence of graphs with appropriate girth.

Combinatorial batch codes were defined by Paterson, Stinson, and Wei as purely combinatorial versions of the batch codes introduced by Ishai, Kushilevitz, Ostrovsky, and Sahai. There are $n$ items and $m$ servers, each of which stores a subset of the items. A batch code is an arrangement for storing items on servers so that, for prescribed integers $k$ and $t$, any $k$ items can be retrieved by reading at most $t$ items from each server. Silberstein defined an erasure batch code (with redundancy $r$) as a batch code in which any $k$ items can be retrieved by reading at most $t$ items from each server, while any $r$ servers are unavailable (failed). In this paper, we investigate erasure batch codes with $t = 1$ (each server can read at most one item) in a combinatorial manner. We determine the optimal (minimum) total storage of an erasure batch code for several ranges of parameters. Additionally, we relate optimal erasure batch codes to maximum packings. We also identify a necessary lower bound for the total storage of an erasure batch code, and we relate parameters for which this trivial lower bound is achieved to the existence of graphs with appropriate girth.