arXiv subjects

Maura B. Paterson

Publications and source records attributed to Maura B. Paterson.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Putting Dots in Triangles

Given a right-angled triangle of squares in a grid whose horizontal and vertical sides are $n$ squares long, let N(n) denote the maximum number of dots that can be placed into the cells of the triangle such that each row, each column, and each diagonal parallel to the long side of the triangle contains at most one dot. It has been proven that $N(n) = \lfloor \frac{2n+1}{3} \rfloor$. In this note, we give a new proof of this result using linear programming techniques.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2010

Yet Another Hat Game

Several different "hat games" have recently received a fair amount of attention. Typically, in a hat game, one or more players are required to correctly guess their hat colour when given some information about other players' hat colours. Some versions of these games have been motivated by research in complexity theory and have ties to well-known research problems in coding theory, and some variations have led to interesting new research. In this paper, we review Ebert's Hat Game, which garnered a considerable amount of publicity in the late 90's and early 00's, and the Hats-on-a-line Game. Then we introduce a new hat game which is a "hybrid" of these two games and provide an optimal strategy for playing the new game. The optimal strategy is quite simple, but the proof involves an interesting combinatorial argument.

math.CO↗

arXiv2009

Honeycomb arrays

A honeycomb array is an analogue of a Costas array in the hexagonal grid; they were first studied by Golomb and Taylor in 1984. A recent result of Blackburn, Etzion, Martin and Paterson has shown that (in contrast to the situation for Costas arrays) there are only finitely many examples of honeycomb arrays, though their bound on the maximal size of a honeycomb array is too large to permit an exhaustive search over all possibilities. The present paper contains a theorem that significantly limits the number of possibilities for a honeycomb array (in particular, the theorem implies that the number of dots in a honeycomb array must be odd). Computer searches for honeycomb arrays are summarised, and two new examples of honeycomb arrays with 15 dots are given.

math.CO↗

arXiv2009

Two-Dimensional Patterns with Distinct Differences -- Constructions, Bounds, and Maximal Anticodes

A two-dimensional grid with dots is called a \emph{configuration with distinct differences} if any two lines which connect two dots are distinct either in their length or in their slope. These configurations are known to have many applications such as radar, sonar, physical alignment, and time-position synchronization. Rather than restricting dots to lie in a square or rectangle, as previously studied, we restrict the maximum distance between dots of the configuration; the motivation for this is a new application of such configurations to key distribution in wireless sensor networks. We consider configurations in the hexagonal grid as well as in the traditional square grid, with distances measured both in the Euclidean metric, and in the Manhattan or hexagonal metrics. We note that these configurations are confined inside maximal anticodes in the corresponding grid. We classify maximal anticodes for each diameter in each grid. We present upper bounds on the number of dots in a pattern with distinct differences contained in these maximal anticodes. Our bounds settle (in the negative) a question of Golomb and Taylor on the existence of honeycomb arrays of arbitrarily large size. We present constructions and lower bounds on the number of dots in configurations with distinct differences contained in various two-dimensional shapes (such as anticodes) by considering periodic configurations with distinct differences in the square grid.

math.CO↗

arXiv2009

Distinct Difference Configurations: Multihop Paths and Key Predistribution in Sensor Networks

A distinct difference configuration is a set of points in $\mathbb{Z}^2$ with the property that the vectors (\emph{difference vectors}) connecting any two of the points are all distinct. Many specific examples of these configurations have been previously studied: the class of distinct difference configurations includes both Costas arrays and sonar sequences, for example. Motivated by an application of these structures in key predistribution for wireless sensor networks, we define the $k$-hop coverage of a distinct difference configuration to be the number of distinct vectors that can be expressed as the sum of $k$ or fewer difference vectors. This is an important parameter when distinct difference configurations are used in the wireless sensor application, as this parameter describes the density of nodes that can be reached by a short secure path in the network. We provide upper and lower bounds for the $k$-hop coverage of a distinct difference configuration with $m$ points, and exploit a connection with $B_{h}$ sequences to construct configurations with maximal $k$-hop coverage. We also construct distinct difference configurations that enable all small vectors to be expressed as the sum of two of the difference vectors of the configuration, an important task for local secure connectivity in the application.

math.CO↗