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Motivated by applications to DNA storage, we study reconstruction and list-reconstruction schemes for integer vectors that suffer from limited-magnitude errors. We characterize the asymptotic size of the intersection of error balls in relation to the code’s minimum distance. We also devise efficient reconstruction algorithms for various limited-magnitude error parameter ranges. We then extend these algorithms to the list-reconstruction scheme, and show the trade-off between the asymptotic list size and the number of required channel outputs. These results apply to all codes, without any assumptions on the code structure. Finally, we also study linear reconstruction codes with small intersection, as well as show a connection to list-reconstruction codes for the tandem-duplication channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study generalized covering radii, a fundamental property of linear codes that characterizes the trade-off between storage, latency, and access in linear data-query protocols such as PIR. We prove lower and upper bounds on the generalized covering radii of Reed-Muller codes, as well as finding their exact value in certain extreme cases. With the application to linear data-query protocols in mind, we also construct a covering algorithm that gets as input a set of points in space, and find a corresponding set of codewords from the Reed-Muller code that are jointly not farther away from the input than the upper bound on the generalized covering radius of the code. We prove that the algorithm runs in time that is polynomial in the code parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Error-correcting codes over sets, with applications to DNA storage, are studied. The DNA-storage channel receives a set of sequences, and produces a corrupted version of the set, including sequence loss, symbol substitution, symbol insertion/deletion, and limited-magnitude errors in symbols. Various parameter regimes are studied. New bounds on code parameters are provided, which improve upon known bounds. New codes are constructed, at times matching the bounds up to lower-order terms or small constant factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study scalar-linear and vector-linear solutions of the generalized combination network. We derive new upper and lower bounds on the maximum number of nodes in the middle layer, depending on the network parameters and the alphabet size. These bounds improve and extend the parameter range of known bounds. Using these new bounds we present a lower bound and an upper bound on the gap in the alphabet size between optimal scalar-linear and optimal vector-linear network coding solutions. For a fixed network structure, while varying the number of middle-layer nodes r, the asymptotic behavior of the upper and lower bounds shows that the gap is in Θ (log (r)). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given a database, the private information retrieval (PIR) protocol allows a user to make queries to several servers and retrieve a certain item of the database via the feedbacks without revealing the identity of the specific item to any single server. Classic $k$ -server PIR protocols work on replicated databases, i.e., each of the $k$ servers stores a whole copy of the database. Recently, new PIR models were proposed with coding techniques arising from the distributed storage system. In these new models, each server only stores a fraction $1/s$ of the whole database, where $s>1$ is the given rational number. The PIR array codes are recently proposed by Fazeli, Vardy, and Yaakobi to characterize the new models. The central problem in designing a PIR array code with $m$ servers and the $k$ -PIR property (which indicates that these $m$ servers may emulate a classic $k$ -server PIR protocol) is to maximize $k/m$ , known as the virtual server rate. Our main contribution to this problem is twofold. First, for the case $1 < s\le 2$ , although the PIR array codes with optimal rate have been constructed recently by Blackburn and Etzion, the number of servers in their construction is rather large. We determine the minimum number of servers admitting the existence of a PIR array code with an optimal rate for a certain range of parameters. Second, for the case $s>2$ , a new upper bound on the rate of a PIR array code is presented. Besides, we also have some discussions on an asymptotically optimal construction by Blackburn and Etzion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiply constant-weight codes (MCWCs) were introduced recently to improve the reliability of certain physically unclonable function response. In this paper, the bounds of MCWCs and the constructions of optimal MCWCs are studied. First, we derive three different types of upper bounds which improve the Johnson-type bounds given by Chee et al. for some parameters. The asymptotic lower bound of MCWCs is also examined. Then, we obtain the asymptotic existence of two classes of optimal MCWCs, which shows that the Johnson-type bounds for MCWCs with distances 2\sum i=1^{m}wi-2 or $2mw-2w$ are asymptotically exact. Finally, we construct a class of optimal MCWCs with total weight four and distance six by establishing the connection between such MCWCs and a new kind of combinatorial structures. As a consequence, the maximum sizes of MCWCs with total weight less than or equal to four are determined almost completely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]