Norton Algebras of the Hamming Graphs via Linear Characters

The Norton product is defined on each eigenspace of a distance regular graph by the orthogonal projection of the entry-wise product. The resulting algebra, known as the Norton algebra, is a commutative nonassociative algebra that is useful in group theory due to its interesting automorphism group. We provide a formula for the Norton product on each eigenspace of a Hamming graph using linear characters. We construct a large subgroup of automorphisms of the Norton algebra of a Hamming graph and completely describe the automorphism group in some cases. We also show that the Norton product on each eigenspace of a Hamming graph is as nonassociative as possible, except for some special cases in which it is either associative or equally as nonassociative as the so-called double minus operation previously studied by the author, Mickey, and Xu. Our results restrict to the hypercubes and extend to the halved and/or folded cubes, the bilinear forms graphs, and more generally, all Cayley graphs of finite abelian groups.

Structure of the space of taboo-free sequences

Models of sequence evolution typically assume that all sequences are possible. However, restriction enzymes that cut DNA at specific recognition sites provide an example where carrying a recognition site can be lethal. Motivated by this observation, we studied the set of strings over a finite alphabet with taboos, that is, with prohibited substrings. The taboo-set is referred to as $$\mathbb {T}$$ T and any allowed string as a taboo-free string. We consider the so-called Hamming graph $$\varGamma _n(\mathbb {T})$$ Γ n ( T ) , whose vertices are taboo-free strings of length n and whose edges connect two taboo-free strings if their Hamming distance equals one. Any (random) walk on this graph describes the evolution of a DNA sequence that avoids taboos. We describe the construction of the vertex set of $$\varGamma _n(\mathbb {T})$$ Γ n ( T ) . Then we state conditions under which $$\varGamma _n(\mathbb {T})$$ Γ n ( T ) and its suffix subgraphs are connected. Moreover, we provide an algorithm that determines if all these graphs are connected for an arbitrary $$\mathbb {T}$$ T . As an application of the algorithm, we show that about $$87\%$$ 87 % of bacteria listed in REBASE have a taboo-set that induces connected taboo-free Hamming graphs, because they have less than four type II restriction enzymes. On the other hand, four properly chosen taboos are enough to disconnect one suffix subgraph, and consequently connectivity of taboo-free Hamming graphs could change depending on the composition of restriction sites.

$2$-Neighbour-Transitive Codes with Small Blocks of Imprimitivity

A code $C$ in the Hamming graph $\varGamma=H(m,q)$ is $2$-neighbour-transitive if ${\rm Aut}(C)$ acts transitively on each of $C=C_0$, $C_1$ and $C_2$, the first three parts of the distance partition of $V\varGamma$ with respect to $C$. Previous classifications of families of $2$-neighbour-transitive codes leave only those with an affine action on the alphabet to be investigated. Here, $2$-neighbour-transitive codes with minimum distance at least $5$ and that contain ``small'' subcodes as blocks of imprimitivity are classified. When considering codes with minimum distance at least $5$, completely transitive codes are a proper subclass of $2$-neighbour-transitive codes. This leads, as a corollary of the main result, to a solution of a problem posed by Giudici in 1998 on completely transitive codes.

CONTINUITY OF UNIVERSALLY MEASURABLE HOMOMORPHISMS

Answering a longstanding problem originating in Christensen’s seminal work on Haar null sets [Math. Scand. 28 (1971), 124–128; Israel J. Math. 13 (1972), 255–260; Topology and Borel Structure. Descriptive Topology and Set Theory with Applications to Functional Analysis and Measure Theory, North-Holland Mathematics Studies, 10 (Notas de Matematica, No. 51). (North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam–London; American Elsevier Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1974), iii+133 pp], we show that a universally measurable homomorphism between Polish groups is automatically continuous. Using our general analysis of continuity of group homomorphisms, this result is used to calibrate the strength of the existence of a discontinuous homomorphism between Polish groups. In particular, it is shown that, modulo $\text{ZF}+\text{DC}$ , the existence of a discontinuous homomorphism between Polish groups implies that the Hamming graph on $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$ has finite chromatic number.