Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bryn Mawr. / Vita. Reprinted from Trans. Am. Math. Soc., July, 1914.

A Steiner triple system of order ν, denoted STS(ν), is said to be tricyclic if it admits an automorphism whose disjoint cyclic decomposition consists of three cycles. In this paper we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a tricyclic STS(ν) for several cases. We also pose conjectures concerning their existence in two remaining cases.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / A tactical con guration consists of a nite set V of points, a nite set B of blocks and an incidence relation between them, so that all blocks are incident with the same number k points, and all points are incident with the same number r of blocks (See [14] for example ). If v := jV j and b := jBj; then v; k; b; r are known as the parameters of the con guration. Counting incident point-block pairs, one sees that vr = bk: In this thesis, we generalize tactical con gurations on Steiner triple systems obtained from projective geometry. Our objects are subgeometries as blocks. These subgeometries are collected into systems and we study them as designs and graphs. Considered recursively is a further tactical con guration on some of the designs obtained and in what follows, we obtain similar structures as the Steiner triple systems from projective geometry. We also study these subgeometries as factorizations and examine the automorphism group of the new structures. These tactical con gurations at rst sight do not form interesting structures. However, as will be shown, they o er some level of intriguing symmetries. It will be shown that they inherit the automorphism group of the parent geometry.

In this paper we extend the study of Heffter arrays and the biembedding of graphs on orientable surfaces first discussed by Archdeacon in 2014. We begin with the definitions of Heffter systems, Heffter arrays, and their relationship to orientable biembeddings through current graphs. We then focus on two specific cases. We first prove the existence of embeddings for every K_(6n+1) with every edge on a face of size 3 and a face of size n. We next present partial results for biembedding K_(10n+1) with every edge on a face of size 5 and a face of size n. Finally, we address the more general question of ordering subsets of Z_n take away {0}. We conclude with some open conjectures and further explorations.

The self-calibration method, a new interferometric technique using measurements in the K′-band (2.1 μm) at the CHARA Array, has been used to derive orbits for several spectroscopic binaries. This method uses the wide component of a hierarchical triple system to calibrate visibility measurements of the triple’s close binary system through quasi-simultaneous observations of the separated fringe packets of both. Prior to the onset of this project, the reduction of separated fringe packet data had never included the goal of deriving visibilities for both fringe packets, so new data reduction software has been written. Visibilities obtained with separated fringe packet data for the target close binary are run through both Monte Carlo simulations and grid search programs in order to determine the best-fit orbital elements of the close binary. Several targets, with spectral types ranging from O to G and luminosity classesfrom III to V, have been observed in this fashion, and orbits have been derived for the close binaries of eight targets (V819 Her B, Kappa Peg B, Eta Vir A, Eta Ori Aab, 55 UMa A, 13 Ceti A, CHARA 96 Ab, HD 129132 Aa). The derivation of an orbit has allowed for the calculation of the masses of the components in these systems. The magnitude differences between the components can also be derived, provided that the components of the close binary have a magnitude difference of Delta K < 2.5 (CHARA’s limit). Derivation of the orbit also allows for the calculation of the mutual inclination (Phi), which is the angle between the planes of the wide and close orbits. According to data from the Multiple Star Catalog, there are 34 triple systems other than the 8 studied here for which the wide and close systems both have visual orbits. Early formation scenarios for multiple systems predict coplanarity (Phi < 15 degrees), but only 6 of these 42 systems are possibly coplanar. This tendency against coplanarity may suggest that the capture method of multiple system formation is more important than previously believed.

In this thesis, we consider the decomposition of the complete mixed graph on v vertices denoted Mv, into every possible mixed graph on three vertices which has (like Mv) twice as many arcs as edges. Direct constructions are given in most cases. Decompositions of theλ-fold complete mixed graph λMv, are also studied.

In the study of Graph theory, there are eight orientations of the complete graph on three vertices with a pendant edge, K3 ∪ {e}. Two of these are the 3-circuit with a pendant arc and the other six are transitive triples with a pendant arc. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for decompositions, packings, and coverings of the complete digraph with the two 3-circuit with a pendant arc orientations.

The aim of this dissertation is to give explicit descriptions of the set of proper holomorphic mappings between two complex manifolds with reasonable restrictions on the domain and target spaces. Without any restrictions, this problem is intractable even when posed for do-mains in . We give partial results for special classes of manifolds. We study, broadly, two types of structure results: Descriptive. The first result of this thesis is a structure theorem for finite proper holomorphic mappings between products of connected, hyperbolic open subsets of compact Riemann surfaces. A special case of our result follows from the techniques used in a classical result due to Remmert and Stein, adapted to the above setting. However, the presence of factors that have no boundary or boundaries that consist of a discrete set of points necessitates the use of techniques that are quite divergent from those used by Remmert and Stein. We make use of a finiteness theorem of Imayoshi to deal with these factors. Rigidity. A famous theorem of H. Alexander proves the non-existence of non-injective proper holomorphic self-maps of the unit ball in . ,n >1. Several extensions of this result for various classes of domains have been established since the appearance of Alexander’s result, and it is conjectured that the result is true for all bounded domains in . , n > 1, whose boundary is C2-smooth. This conjecture is still very far from being settled. Our first rigidity result establishes the non-existence of non-injective proper holomorphic self-maps of bounded, balanced pseudo convex domains of finite type (in the sense of D’Angelo) in ,n >1. This generalizes a result in 2, by Coupet, Pan and Sukhov, to higher dimensions. As in Coupet–Pan–Sukhov, the aforementioned domains need not have real-analytic boundaries. However, in higher dimensions, several aspects of their argument do not work. Instead, we exploit the circular symmetry and a recent result in complex dynamics by Opshtein. Our next rigidity result is for bounded symmetric domains. We prove that a proper holomorphic map between two non-planar bounded symmetric domains of the same dimension, one of them being irreducible, is a biholomorphism. Our methods allow us to give a single, all-encompassing argument that unifies the various special cases in which this result is known. Furthermore, our proof of this result does not rely on the fine structure (in the sense of Wolf et al.) of bounded symmetric domains. Thus, we are able to apply our techniques to more general classes of domains. We illustrate this by proving a rigidity result for certain convex balanced domains whose automorphism groups are assumed to only be non-compact. For bounded symmetric domains, our key tool is that of Jordan triple systems, which is used to describe the boundary geometry.

In the study of triple systems, one question faced is that of finding for what order a decomposition exists. We state and prove a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a bicyclic mixed triple system based on the three possible partial orientations of the 3-cycle with twice as many arcs as edges. We also explore the existence of rotational and reverse mixed triple systems. Our principal proof technique applied is the difference method. Finally, this work contains a result on packing of complete mixed graphs on v vertices, Mv, with isomorphic copies of two of the mixed triples and a possible leave structure.

Dans cette thèse, on étudie la structure de quelques types d'algèbres (binaires et ternaires) munies d'une forme bilinéaire symétrique, non dégénérée et associative (ou invariante). La première partie de cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude des algèbres de Leibniz quadratiques. On montre que ces algèbres sont symétriques. De plus, on utilise la T*-extension et la double extension pour montrer plusieurs résultats sur ce type d'algèbres. Ensuite, on a remarqué que l'anti-commutativité du crochet de Lie donne naissance à de nouveaux types d'invariance pour les algèbres de Leibniz : L'invariance à gauche et l'invariance à droite. Alors, on s'est intéresse à l'étude des algèbres de Leibniz (gauche et droite) munies d'une forme bilinéaire symétrique, non dégénérée et invariante à gauche (et invariante à droite). On prouve que ces algèbres sont Lie admissibles. En second lieu, on s'intéresse aux systèmes triples de Lie et de Jordan. On débute la deuxième partie de cette thèse par la description inductive des systèmes triples de Lie quadratiques au moyen de la double extension. En plus, on introduit la T*extension des systèmes triples de Jordan pseudo-Euclidien. Finalement, on donne deux nouvelles caractérisations des systèmes triples de Jordan semi-simples parmi les systèmes triples de Jordan pseudo-Euclidiens / In this thesis, we study the stucture of several types of algebras endowed with Symmetric, non degenerate and invariant bilinear forms. In the first part, we study quadratic Leibniz algebras. First, we prove that these algebras are symmetric. Then, we use the T*-extension and the double extension to prove some properties of this type of Leibniz algebras. Besides, since we observe that the skew-symmetry of the Leibniz bracket gives rise to other types of invariance for a bilinear form on a Leibniz algebra: The left invariance and the right invariance. We focus on the study of left (resp. right) Leibniz algebras with symmetric, non degenerate and left (resp. right) invariant bilinear form. In particular, we prove that these algebras are Lie admissibles. The second part of this work is dedicated to the study of quadratic Lie triple systems and pseudo-euclidien Jordan triple systems. We start by giving an inductive description of quadratic Lie triple systems using double extension. Next, we introduce the T*-extension of Jordan triple systems. Finally, we give new caracterizations of semi-simple Jordan triple systems among pseudo-euclidian Jordan triple systems