ON KRAMER-MESNER MATRIX PARTITIONING CONJECTURE

In 1977, Ganter and Teirlinck proved that any $2t\;\times\;2t$ matrix with 2t nonzero elements can be partitioned into four sub-matrices of order t of which at most two contain nonzero elements. In 1978, Kramer and Mesner conjectured that any $mt{\times}nt$ matrix with kt nonzero elements can be partitioned into mn submatrices of order t of which at most k contain nonzero elements. In 1995, Brualdi et al. showed that this conjecture is true if $m = 2,\;k\;\leq\;3\;or\;k\geq\;mn-2$. They also found a counterexample of this conjecture when m = 4, n = 4, k = 6 and t = 2. When t = 2, we show that this conjecture is true if $k{\leq}5$.