On symmetric and quasi-symmetric designs with the symmetric difference property and their codes (Q1185880)

A symmetric 2-design has the symmetric difference property if the symmetric difference of any three blocks is either a block or the complement of a block. An infinite family of such designs is known which has parameters \((2^{2m},2^{2m-1}-2^{m-1},2^{2m-2}-2^{m- 1})\). The authors characterize, in the above family, the four designs with \(m=3\) as the only ones with such parameters which have the minimum rank over \(GF(2)\). Their residual and derived designs are considered too and they turn out to be non-isomorphic. The related binary codes are thoroughly investigated and connections with the codes of Hermitian unitals are discussed, as well as related topics. The paper contains interesting results both for design and coding theorists. All needed background material is provided and references are accurate.