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Boolean functions used in symmetric-key encryption should have high higher-order nonlinearity to resist several known cryptographic attacks, such as algebraic attacks and low-degree approximation attacks. The higher-order nonlinearity also plays an important role in coding theory and theoretical computer science, since it relates to the covering radius of Reed–Muller codes and the Gowers norm, respectively. It is well-known that bent functions have the highest nonlinearity in an even number of variables and thus they possess the best ability to withstand fast correlation attacks and best affine approximation attacks. However, there is currently limited knowledge regarding the higher-order nonlinearity of bent functions because computing the higher-order nonlinearity, or even providing tight lower bounds, is an extremely hard task. In 1974, Dillon proposed two well-known classes of bent functions based on partial spread (in brief, PS), called PS − and PS + , respectively. He also exhibited a subclass of bent functions in PS − , known as partial spread affine plane(PS a p for short). In this paper, we provide a lower bound on the third-order nonlinearity of the simplest PS a p bent functions in n variables, where n ≥ 6 is even, by calculating the nonlinearities of all second-order derivatives of this kind of bent functions. Compared to the two known lower bounds on the third-order nonlinearity given by Carlet and Tang et al. respectively, our lower bound is much better than these two ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear codes generated by component functions of perfect nonlinear (PN for short) and almost perfect nonlinear (APN for short) functions and the first-order Reed-Muller codes have been an object of intensive study in coding theory. The objective of this paper is to investigate some binary shortened codes of two families of linear codes from APN functions and some $p$ -ary shortened codes associated with PN functions. The weight distributions of these shortened codes and the parameters of their duals are determined. The parameters of these binary codes and $p$ -ary codes are flexible. Many of the codes presented in this paper are optimal or almost optimal. The results of this paper show that the shortening technique is very promising for constructing good codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reed-Muller (RM) codes are among the oldest, simplest and perhaps most ubiquitous family of codes. They are used in many areas of coding theory in both electrical engineering and computer science. Yet, many of their important properties are still under investigation. This paper covers some of the recent developments regarding the weight enumerator and the capacity-achieving properties of RM codes, as well as some of the algorithmic developments. In particular, the paper discusses the recent connections established between RM codes, thresholds of Boolean functions, polarization theory, hypercontractivity, and the techniques of approximating low weight codewords using lower degree polynomials (when codewords are viewed as evaluation vectors of degree r polynomials in m variables). It then overviews some of the algorithms for decoding RM codes. It covers both algorithms with provable performance guarantees for every block length, as well as algorithms with state-of-the-art performances in practical regimes, which do not perform as well for large block length. Finally, the paper concludes with a few open problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectra of weighted networks have received increasing attention from scientific community, such as mathematical chemistry, computer science, coding theory. The real networks behavior is completely differently, not only in the degree distribution, but also in the weight distribution. In this paper, we determine the generalized adjacency (resp., Laplacian and signless Laplacian) spectra of the weighted neighbourhood corona networks with different structures. As applications, the two important indices of the weighted neighbourhood corona networks are computed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boolean functions, coding theory and $t$ -designs have close connections and interesting interplay. A standard approach to constructing $t$ -designs is the use of linear codes with certain regularity. The Assmus-Mattson Theorem and the automorphism groups are two ways for proving that a code has sufficient regularity for supporting $t$ -designs. However, some linear codes hold $t$ -designs, although they do not satisfy the conditions in the Assmus-Mattson Theorem and do not admit a $t$ -transitive or $t$ -homogeneous group as a subgroup of their automorphisms. The major objective of this paper is to develop a theory for explaining such codes and obtaining such new codes and hence new $t$ -designs. To this end, a general theory for punctured and shortened codes of linear codes supporting $t$ -designs is established, a generalized Assmus-Mattson theorem is developed, and a link between 2-designs and differentially $\delta $ -uniform functions and 2-designs is built. With these general results, binary codes with new parameters and explicit weight distributions are obtained, new 2-designs and Steiner system $S(2, 4, 2^{n})$ are produced in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ovoids in ${\mathrm {PG}}(3, {\mathrm {GF}}(q))$ have been an interesting topic in coding theory, combinatorics, and finite geometry for a long time. So far only two families of ovoids are known. The first is the elliptic quadrics and the second is the Tits ovoids. It is known that an ovoid in ${\mathrm {PG}}(3, {\mathrm {GF}}(q))$ corresponds to a $[q^{2}+1, 4, q^{2}-q]$ code over ${\mathrm {GF}}(q)$ , which is called an ovoid code. The objectives of this paper are to develop the general theories of subfield codes and to study the subfield codes of the two families of ovoid codes. The dimensions, minimum weights, and the weight distributions of the subfield codes of the elliptic quadric codes and Tits ovoid codes are settled. The parameters of the duals of these subfield codes are also studied. Some of the codes presented in this paper are optimal, and some are distance-optimal. The parameters of the subfield codes are new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The de Bruijn graph, its sequences, and their various generalizations, have found many applications in information theory, including many new ones in the last decade. In this paper, motivated by a coding problem for emerging memory technologies, a set of sequences which generalize the window property of de Bruijn sequences, on its shorter subsequences, are defined. These sequences can be also defined and viewed as constrained sequences. Hence, they will be called locally-constrained de Bruijn sequences and a set of such sequences will be called a locally-constrained de Bruijn code. Several properties and alternative definitions for such codes are examined and they are analyzed as generalized sequences in the de Bruijn graph (and its generalization) and as constrained sequences. Various enumeration techniques are used to compute the total number of sequences for any given set of parameters. A construction method of such codes from the theory of shift-register sequences is proposed. Finally, we show how these locally-constrained de Bruijn sequences and codes can be applied in constructions of codes for correcting synchronization errors in the $\ell $ -symbol read channel and in the racetrack memory channel. For this purpose, these codes are superior in their size to previously known codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of constructing maximum distance separable (MDS) codes that enable exact reconstruction (repair) of each code block by downloading a small amount of information from the remaining code blocks. The total amount of information flow from the remaining code blocks during this reconstruction process is referred to as repair bandwidth of the underlying code. Existing constructions of exact-repairable MDS codes with optimal repair bandwidth require working with large subpacketization levels, which restrict their applicability in practice. This paper presents two general approaches to construct exact-repairable MDS codes that aim at significantly reducing the required subpacketization level at the cost of slightly suboptimal repair bandwidth. The first approach provides MDS codes that have repair bandwidth at most twice the optimal repair bandwidth. In addition, these codes also have the smallest possible subpacketization level $O(r)$ , where $r$ denotes the number of parity blocks. This approach is then generalized to design codes that have their repair bandwidth approaching the optimal repair bandwidth at the cost of graceful increment in the required subpacketization level. The second approach transforms an MDS code with optimal repair bandwidth and large subpacketization level into a longer MDS code with small subpacketization level and near-optimal repair bandwidth. For a given $r$ , the codes constructed using this approach have their subpacketization level scaling logarithmically with the code length. In addition, the obtained codes require field size only linear in the code length and ensure load balancing among the intact code blocks in terms of the information downloaded from these blocks during the exact reconstruction of a code block. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Permutation polynomials (PPs) and their inverses have applications in cryptography, coding theory and combinatorial design theory. In this paper, we make a brief summary of the inverses of PPs of finite fields, and give the inverses of all PPs of degree ≤ 6 over finite fields $\mathbb {F}_{q}$ for all $q$ and the inverses of all PPs of degree 7 over $\mathbb {F}_{2^{n}}$. The explicit inverse of a class of fifth degree PPs is the main result, which is obtained by using Lucas’ theorem, some congruences of binomial coefficients, and a known formula for the inverses of PPs of finite fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hasse–Weil bound is a deep result in mathematics and has found wide applications in mathematics, theoretical computer science, information theory etc. In general, the bound is tight and cannot be improved. However, for some special families of curves the bound could be improved substantially. In this paper, we focus on the Hasse–Weil bound for the curve defined by y p − y = f ( x ) over the finite field F q , where p is the characteristic of F q . In 1993, Moreno–Moreno [7] gave an improvement to the Hasse–Weil bound for this family of curves. Recently, Kaufman and Lovett [4, FOCS2011] showed that the Hasse–Weil bound can be improved for this family of curves with f ( x ) = g ( x ) + h ( x ) , where g ( x ) is a polynomial of degree ≪ q and h ( x ) is a sparse polynomial of arbitrary degree but bounded weight degree. The other recent improvement by Rojas-Leon and Wan [9, Math. Ann. 2011] shows that an extra p can be removed for this family of curves if p is very large compared with polynomial degree of f ( x ) and log p ⁡ q . In this paper, we focus on the most interesting case for applications, namely p = 2 . We show that the Hasse–Weil bound for this special family of curves can be improved if q = 2 n with odd n ⩾ 3 which is the same case where Serre [10] improved the Hasse–Weil bound. However, our improvement is greater than Serre's and Moreno–Morenao's improvements for this special family of curves. Furthermore, our improvement works for p = 2 compared with the requirement of large p by Rojas-Leon and Wan. In addition, our improvement finds interesting applications to character sums, cryptography and coding theory. The key idea behind is that this curve has the Hasse–Witt invariant 0 and we show that the Hasse–Weil bound can be improved for any curves with the Hasse–Witt invariant 0. The main tool used in our proof involves Newton polygon and some results in algebraic geometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partial MDS (PMDS) codes are a class of erasure-correcting array codes that combine local correction of the rows with global correction of the array. An $\boldsymbol {m}\times \boldsymbol {n}$ array code is called an $(\boldsymbol {r};\boldsymbol {s})$ PMDS code if each row belongs to an ${[}\boldsymbol {n},\boldsymbol {n}-\boldsymbol {r}, \boldsymbol {r}+\textbf {1}{]}$ MDS code and the code can correct erasure patterns consisting of $\boldsymbol {r}$ erasures in each row together with $\boldsymbol {s}$ more erasures anywhere in the array. While a recent construction by Calis and Koyluoglu generates $(\boldsymbol {r};\boldsymbol {s})$ PMDS codes for all $\boldsymbol {r}$ and $\boldsymbol {s}$ , its field size is exponentially large. In this paper, a family of PMDS codes with field size ${\mathcal{ O}}\left ({\max \{\boldsymbol {m},\boldsymbol {n}^{\boldsymbol {r}+\boldsymbol {s}}\}^{\boldsymbol {s}} }\right)$ is presented for the case where $\boldsymbol {r}= {\mathcal{ O}}(1), \boldsymbol {s}= {\mathcal{ O}}(1)$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we introduce new methods to compute the Longest Previous nonoverlapping Factor (LPnF) table. The LPnF table is the table that stores the maximal length of factors re-occurring at each position of a string without overlapping and this table is related to Ziv-Lempel factorization of a text which is useful for text compression and data compression. The LPnF table has the important role for data compression, string algorithms and computational biology. In this paper, we present three approaches to produce the LPnF table of a string from its augmented position heap, from its position heap, and from its suffix heap. We also present the experimental results from these three solutions. The algorithms run in linear time with linear memory space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partial MDS (PMDS) codes are erasure codes combining local (row) correction with global additional correction of entries, while sector-disk (SD) codes are erasure codes that address the mixed failure mode of current redundant arrays of independent disk (RAID) systems. It has been an open problem to construct general codes that have the PMDS and the SD properties, and previous work has relied on Monte-Carlo searches. In this paper, we present a general construction that addresses the case of any number of failed disks and in addition, two erased sectors. The construction requires a modest field size. This result generalizes previous constructions extending RAID 5 and RAID 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free will (or randomness) has been studied to achieve loophole-free Bell’s inequality test and to provide device-independent quantum key distribution security proofs. The required randomness such that a local hidden variable model (LHVM) can violate the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality has been studied, but a tight bound has not been proved for a practical case that: 1) the device settings of the two parties in the Bell test are independent and 2) the device settings of each party can be correlated or biased across different runs. Using some information theoretic techniques, we prove, in this paper, a tight bound on the required randomness for this case, such that the CHSH inequality can be violated by certain LHVM. Our proof has a clear achievability and converse style. The achievability part is proved using type counting. To prove the converse part, we introduce a concept called profile for a set of binary sequences and study the properties of profiles. Our profile-based converse technique is also of independent interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since discovery of Goppa geometric codes, people have been asking the question: are there different constructions of block codes from algebraic curves that give the same parameters as Goppa geometric codes. Despite of great effort by researchers, no such constructions have been found so far. Although in literature, there are many constructions of block code from algebraic curves, most of them are quite different from the one by Goppa in nature and thus they have different parameters. Some of these constructions have the same parameters as Goppa geometric codes, however it was proved that these are essentially the same codes defined by Goppa. In this paper, we solve this question for the case where the characteristic of the ground field is 2, namely, we present a different construction of block codes from algebraic curves that give the same parameters as Goppa geometric codes for the characteristic 2 case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Baranyai’s theorem is well known in the theory of hypergraphs. A corollary of this theorem says that one can partition the family of all \(u\) -subsets of an \(n\) -element set into \({n-1\choose u-1}\) subfamilies such that each subfamily forms a partition of the \(n\) -element set, where \(n\) is divisible by \(u\) . In this paper, we present a coding-theoretic application of Baranyai’s theorem. More precisely, we propose a combinatorial construction of locally decodable codes. Locally decodable codes are error-correcting codes that allow the recovery of any message symbol by looking at only a few symbols of the codeword. The number of looked codeword symbols is called query complexity. Such codes have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. The Walsh–Hadamard code is a well-known binary two-query locally decodable code of exponential length that can recover any message bit using 2 bits of the codeword. Our construction can give locally decodable codes over small finite fields for any constant query complexities. In particular, it gives a ternary two-query locally decodable code of length asymptotically shorter than the Walsh–Hadamard code. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]