Subsets of a finite set that almost always intersect each other in \(\lambda\) elements (Q1356776)

The author gives some extensions of Fisher's inequality and applications to clique decompositions of certain graphs. Let \(H\) be a hypergraph with edges \(E_1, E_2, \dots, E_m\). The vertices of \(H\) are elements of \(V= \bigcup_{1 \leq i \leq m} E_i\). Assume that \(E_i \neq E_j\) whenever \(i \neq j\). \(H\) is said to be a cocktail party hypergraph if there is a positive integer \(\lambda\) such that \(|E_i \cap E_j |\neq \lambda\) for \(1 \leq i \leq m\) and all but at most one \(j \neq i\). If \(|E_i \cap E_j |\neq \lambda\) for \(j\neq i\), then the pair \({E_i, E_j}\) is said to be a discordant pair of edges. Put \(n= |V |\), \(e_i= |E_i |\), \(e_{ij}= |E_i \cap E_j |\) and \(\Delta_{ij}= (e_i- \lambda)(e_j- \lambda)- (e_{ij}- \lambda)^2\). The following extensions of Fisher's inequality are given: If \(\Delta_{ij} \neq 0\) for every discordant pair, then \(m \leq n+1\). If \(\Delta_{ij} \neq 0\) for all but exactly one discordant pair, then \(m \leq n\). If \(\Delta_{ij} > 0\) for every discordant pair, then \(m \leq n\).