Enumerating partial Latin rectangles (Q2188838)

The object of this paper is to enumerate PLR\((r,s,n;m)\) which is defined to be the set of \(r\times s\) partial Latin rectangles on \(n\) symbols, with \(m\) non-empty cells. In other words, PLR\((r,s,n;m)\) is the set of \(r\times s\) partial matrices with \(m\) filled cells and \(rs-m\) empty cells, in which each entry is a symbol from \(\{1,2,\dots,n\}\) and no symbol is ever repeated within a row or within a column. These objects are counted and classified (up to several different notions of equivalence) for all small values of the parameters. The computations are extensively crosschecked to ensure accuracy. An interesting variety of methods are used, including inclusion-exclusion, chromatic polynomials and algebraic geometry.