On the \(t\)-term rank of a matrix (Q765173)

Let \(t\) a positive integer. Then the \textit{\(t\)-term rank} of a \((0,1)\)-matrix \(A\) equals the maximum number of \(1\)s in \(A\) with at most one \(1\) in each column and at most \(t\) \(1\)s in each row. Thus the \(1\)-term rank is the ordinary term rank. The authors determine several basic properties of the \(t\)-term rank. In particular, they exhibit the \(t\)-term rank of matrices in a class \({\mathcal A}(R,S)\), i.e., the class of \((0,1)\)-matrices with a fixed row sum vector \(R\) and a fixed column sum vector \(S\). Given any nonempty class \({\mathcal A}(R,S)\) the following results are established: First, a formula for the maximum \(t\)-term rank over the class \({\mathcal A}(R,S)\) is given. This generalises a formula of Ryser. In addition, it is shown that there exists a matrix in \({\mathcal A}(R,S)\) which attains the maximum \(t'\)-term rank for all \(t'\) with \(1\leq t'\leq t\).