Determining a Set from the Cardinalities of its Intersections with Other Sets

Abstract

Let n be a positive integer and put N = {1, 2, . . . , n}. A collection {S1, S2, . . . , St} of subsets of N is called determining if, for any T ⊂ N, the cardinalities of the t intersections T ∩ Sj determine T uniquely. Let €1, €2, . . . , €n be n variables with range {0, 1}. It is clear that a determining collection {Sj) has the property that the sums