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We introduce near triple arrays as binary row-column designs with at most two consecutive values for the replication numbers of symbols, for the intersection sizes of pairs of rows, pairs of columns and pairs of a row and a column. Near triple arrays form a common generalization of such well-studied classes of designs as triple arrays, (near) Youden rectangles and Latin squares. We enumerate near triple arrays for a range of small parameter sets and show that they exist in the vast majority of the cases considered. As a byproduct, we obtain the first complete enumerations of 6×10 triple arrays on 15 symbols, 7×8 triple arrays on 14 symbols and 5×16 triple arrays on 20 symbols. Next, we give several constructions for families of near triple arrays, and e.g. show that near triple arrays with 3 rows and at least 6 columns exist for any number of symbols. Finally, we investigate a duality between row and column intersection sizes of a row-column design, and covering numbers for pairs of symbols by rows and columns. These duality results are used to obtain necessary conditions for the existence of near triple arrays. This duality also provides a new unified approach to earlier results on triple arrays and balanced grids.

We present a new construction of triple arrays by combining a symmetric 2-design with a resolution of another 2-design. This is the first general method capable of producing non-extremal triple arrays. We call the triple arrays which can be obtained in this way resolvable. We employ the construction to produce the first examples of (21×15, 63)-triple arrays, and enumerate all resolvable (7×15, 35)-triple arrays, of which there was previously only a single known example. An infinite subfamily of Paley triple arrays turns out to be resolvable. We also introduce a new intermediate object, unordered triple arrays, that are to triple arrays what symmetric 2-designs are to Youden rectangles, and propose a strengthening of Agrawal’s long-standing conjecture on the existence of extremal triple arrays. For small parameters, we completely enumerate all unordered triple arrays, and use this data to corroborate the new conjecture. We construct several infinite families of resolvable unordered triple arrays, and, in particular, show that all ((q + 1) × q², q(q + 1))-triple arrays are resolvable and are in correspondence with finite affine planes of order q.

We computationally completely enumerate a number of types of row-column designs up to isotopism, including double, sesqui, and triple arrays as known from the literature, and two newly introduced types that we call mono arrays and AO-arrays. We calculate autotopism group sizes for the designs we generate. For larger parameter values, where complete enumeration is not feasible, we generate examples of some of the designs, and for some admissible parameter sets, we prove non-existence results. We give some explicit constructions of sesqui arrays, mono arrays and AO-arrays, in particular, we prove constructively that AO-arrays exist for all feasible parameter sets. Finally, we investigate connections to Youden rectangles and binary pseudo-Youden designs.

We investigate the rigidity properties of rod configurations. Rod configurations are realizations of rank two incidence geometries as points (joints) and straight lines (rods) in the Euclidean plane, such that the lines move as rigid bodies, connected at the points. Note that not all incidence geometries have such realizations. We show that under the assumptions that the rod configuration exists and is sufficiently generic, its infinitesimal rigidity is equivalent to the infinitesimal rigidity of generic frameworks of the graph defined by replacing each rod by a cone over its point set. To put this into context, the molecular conjecture states that the infinitesimal rigidity of rod configurations realizing 2-regular hypergraphs is determined by the rigidity of generic body and hinge frameworks realizing the same hypergraph. This conjecture was proven by Jackson and Jordán in the plane, and by Katoh and Tanigawa in arbitrary dimension. Whiteley proved a version of the molecular conjecture for hypergraphs of arbitrary degree that have realizations as independent body and joint frameworks. Our result extends his result to hypergraphs that do not necessarily have realizations as independent body and joint frameworks, under the assumptions listed above.

We study sets of mutually orthogonal Latin rectangles (MOLR), and a natural variation of the concept of self-orthogonal Latin squares which is applicable on larger sets of mutually orthogonal Latin squares and MOLR, namely that each Latin rectangle in a set of MOLR is isotopic to each other rectangle in the set. We call such a set of MOLR co-isotopic. In the course of doing this, we perform a complete enumeration of sets of t mutually orthogonal k × n Latin rectangles for k ≤ n ≤ 7, for all t < n up to isotopism, and up to paratopism. Additionally, for larger n we enumerate co-isotopic sets of MOLR, as well as sets of MOLR where the autotopism group acts transitively on the rectangles, and we call such sets of MOLR transitive. We build the sets of MOLR row by row, and in this process we also keep track of which of the MOLR are co-isotopic and/or transitive in each step of the construction process. We use the prefix stepwise to refer to sets of MOLR with this property at each step of their construction. Sets of MOLR are connected to other discrete objects, notably finite geometries and certain regular hypergraphs. Here we observe that all projective planes of order at most 9 except the Hughes plane can be constructed from a stepwise transitive MOLR.

We present results on rigidity of structures of rigid rods connected in joints: rod configurations. The underlying combinatorial structure of a rod configuration is an incidence structure. Our aim is to find simple ways of determining which rod configurations admit non-trivial motions, using the underlying incidence structure.

Rigidity of graphs in the plane is well understood. Indeed, there is a polynomial time algorithm for deciding whether most realisations of a graph are rigid. One of the results presented here equates rigidity of sufficiently generic rod configurations to rigidity of a related graph. As a consequence, itis possible to determine the rigidity of rod configurations using the previously mentioned polynomial time algorithm. We use this to show that all v3-configurations on up to 15 points and all triangle-free v3-configurations on up to 20 points are rigid in regular position, if such a realisation exists. We also conjecture that the smallest v3-configuration that is flexible in regular position is a previously known 28₃-configuration. 

In this article we explore the rigidity of realizations of incidence geometries consisting of points and rigid rods: rod configurations. We survey previous results on the rigidity of structures that are related to rod configurations, discuss how to find realizations of incidence geometries as rod configurations, and how this relates to the 2-plane matroid. We also derive further sufficient conditions for the minimal rigidity of k-uniform rod configurations and give an example of an infinite family of minimally rigid 3-uniform rod configurations failing the same conditions. Finally, we construct v3-configurations that are flexible in the plane, and show that there are flexible v3-configurations for all sufficiently large values of v.

In this paper we first study k × n Youden rectangles of small orders. We have enumerated all Youden rectangles for a range of small parameter values, excluding the almost square cases where k = n − 1, in a large scale computer search. In particular, we verify the previous counts for (n, k) = (7, 3), (7, 4), and extend this to the cases (11, 5), (11, 6), (13, 4) and (21, 5). For small parameter values where no Youden rectangles exist, we also enumerate rectangles where the number of symbols common to two columns is always one of two possible values, differing by 1, which we call near Youden rectangles. For all the designs we generate, we calculate the order of the autotopism group and investigate to which degree a certain transformation can yield other row-column designs, namely double arrays, triple arrays and sesqui arrays. Finally, we also investigate certain Latin rectangles with three possible pairwise intersection sizes for the columns and demonstrate that these can give rise to triple and sesqui arrays which cannot be obtained from Youden rectangles, using the transformation mentioned above.