Sequences in abelian groups G of odd order without zero-sum subsequences of length exp(G)

We present a new construction for sequences in the finite abelian group \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$C_{n}^r$$\end{document} without zero-sum subsequences of length n, for odd n. This construction improves the maximal known cardinality of such sequences for r > 4 and leads to simpler examples for r > 2. Moreover we explore a link to ternary affine caps and prove that the size of the second largest complete caps in AG(5, 3) is 42.