Orthogonal Arrays: Theory and Applications

Who should read this book'? Anyone whois running experiments, whether in a chemistry lab or a manufacturing plant (trying to make those alloys stronger), or in agricultural or medical research. Any one interested in one of the most fascinating areas of discrete math ematics, connected to statistics and coding theory, with applications to computer science and cryptography. Thisis the first book on the subject since its introduction more than fifty years ago, and can be used as a graduate text or as a reference work. It features all of the key results, many very useful tables, and a large number of exercises and research problems. Most of the arrays that can be obtained by the methods in this book are available electronically. Orthogonalarraysarebeautifulanduseful. Theyareessentialinstatistics andtheyareusedincomputerscienceandcryptography. Instatisticsthey areprimarilyusedindesigningexperiments, whichsimplymeansthatthey areimmenselyimportantinallareasofhumaninvestigation: forexamplein medicine, agricultureandmanufacturing. Yourautomobilelastslongertodaybecauseoforthogonalarrays. l Themathematicaltheoryisextremelybeautiful: orthogonalarraysarere latedtocombinatorics, finitefields, geometryanderror-correctingcodes. The definitionofanorthogonalarrayissimpleandnatural, andweknowmany elegantconstructions- yetthereareatleastasmanyunsolvedproblems. l'VT"L . . . . __. K'Tr-n" D__L __ I__ . . . . . . . . . nne . . . . . . . . . . . l1A 110 Ie . . . . ., . . . . . . . 1. . . . . . . . C'. . . . . . . 4-: . . . . . . ."