From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
Subject: Efficient orthogonal array generation.
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 15:21:38 +0100
Newsgroups: sci.math

I have a (possibly naive) question or two
about algorithms for generating orthogonal
arrays.  When I attempted to generate such
arrays randomly (e.g. Taguchi's L4, and L8
arrays), I quickly concluded that this
approach was prohibitvely slow for anything
more complicated than an L4 array; a more
efficient algorithm was required.

I have done some background research, which
includes looking at some C code provided on
the web by:

    Art Owen
    Department of Statistics
    Sequoia Hall
    Stanford, CA 94305

I have also obtained a couple of the papers
he cites:

Addelman and Kempthorne (1961), Annals of
Mathematical Statistics, 32:1167-1176.

Bose and Bush (1952), Annals of Mathematical
Statistics, 23:508-524.

For reasons I won't go into here, I need to
code an algorithm in a language other than
C which will generate orthogonal arrays in
at least a semi-efficient manner.  Having
looked at these papers, I now understand
rudimentary Galois field arithmetic, and
that it is somehow employed in generating
orthogonal arrays.

What would be a good next step?  To code
an algorithm, I either need a better 
understanding of the math involved (number
theory in this case), or I need to be able to
translate C code (never a pleasant prospect)
which in this case is highly arcane.

Thank you in advance.