Mandatory representation designs MRD(4\(,k;v\)) with \(k\equiv 2\) mod 3 (Q998419)

A pairwise balanced design PBD\((K;v)\), where \(K\) is a set of positive integers and \(v\) is a nonnegative integer, is a set \(V\) of \(v\) elements equipped with a set \(\mathcal B\) of subsets of \(V\) so that every pair of elements in \(V\) occurs in exactly one \(B \in {\mathcal B}\), and \(|B| \in K\) for every \(B \in {\mathcal B}\). A PBD\((K;v)\) is a mandatory representation design MRD\((K;v)\) if in addition for each \(k \in K\), there exists \(B \in {\mathcal B}\) with \(|B| = k\). This paper studies existence for MRD\((\{4,k\};v)\). When \(k \equiv 1 \pmod{3}\), the existence question has essentially been solved earlier, and this paper treats cases when \(k \equiv 2 \pmod{3}\) and \(k \geq 5\). It is shown that the basic necessary conditions are sufficient when \(v \geq 18k^2\) when \(v \equiv 2 \pmod{3}\); \(v \geq 12k^3\) when \(v \equiv 1 \pmod{3}\); and \(v \geq 8k^4\) when \(v \equiv 0 \pmod{3}\).