The purpose of this thesis is to construct finite groups as homomorphic images of progenitors.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-107). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Not available / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Mathematics, June 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

We compute the partial isomorphism rank, in the sense Scott and Karp, of a pair of ordinal structures using an Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse game. A complete formula is proven by induction given any two arbitrary ordinals written in Cantor normal form.

The purpose of this thesis was to present the technique of double coset enumeration and apply it to construct finite homomorphic images of infinite semidirect products. Several important homomorphic images include the classical groups, the Projective Special Linear group and the Derived Chevalley group were constructed.

In this dissertation the Bays-Lambossy theorem is generalized to GF(pn). The Bays-Lambossy theorem states that if two Cayley objects each based on GF(p) are isomorphic then they are isomorphic by a multiplier map. We use this characterization to show that under certain conditions two isomorphic Cayley objects over GF(pn) must be isomorphic by a function on GF(pn) of a particular type.

This dissertation is concerned with the existence and the isomorphism of designs. The first part studies the existence of designs. Chapter I shows how to obtain a design from a difference family. Chapters II to IV study the existence of an affine 3-(p^m,4,λ) design where the v-set is the Galois field GF(p^m). Associated to each prime p, this paper constructs a graph. If the graph has a 1-factor, then a difference family and hence an affine design exists. The question arises of how to determine when the graph has a 1-factor. It is not hard to see that the graph is connected and of even order. Tutte's theorem shows that if the graph is 2-connected and regular of degree three, then the graph has a 1-factor. By using the concept of quadratic reciprocity, this paper shows that if p Ξ 53 or 77 (mod 120), the graph is almost regular of degree three, i.e., every vertex has degree three, except two vertices each have degree tow. Adding an extra edge joining the two vertices with degree tow gives a regular graph of degree three. Also, Tutte proved that if A is an edge of the graph satisfying the above conditions, then it must have a 1-factor which contains A. The second part of the dissertation is concerned with determining if two designs are isomorphic. Here the v-set is any group G and translation by any element in G gives a design automorphism. Given a design B and its difference family D, two topological spaces, B and D, are constructed. We give topological conditions which imply that a design isomorphism is a group isomorphism.