On the theory of random search

Abstract

The problem of identifying one or more unknown elements belonging to a finite set So' containing n distinguishable elements is well known in literature. Designs used in this kind of investigation are known as search designs. Earlier work in this area was done by Renyi (1965,1969,1970), Katona (1966), Dickson (1969), Chakravarti and Manglik (1972), Chakravarti (1976), Tosic (1980), Bush and Federer (1984) and Sebo (1988). In this thesis we consider the problem of developing search designs for identifying one, two or three unknown elements in the finite set Sn. The thesis is an extension and generalization of the work done by Renyi (1965), Chakravarti and Manglik (1972), Chakravarti (1976) and Bush and Federer (1984).