this paper we try to lay some of the foundations of such a theory of categories `up to homotopy' or more exactly `up to coherent homotopies'. The method we use is based on earlier work on:

We show that the nerve of a braided monoidal category carries a natural action of a simplicial E2-operad and is thus up to group completion a double loop space. Shifting up dimension twice associates to each braided monoidal category a 1-reduced lax 3-category whose nerve realizes an explicit double delooping whenever all cells are invertible. We deduce that lax 3-groupoids are algebraic models for homotopy 3-types. Introduction The concept of braiding as a refinement of symmetry is the starting point of a rich interplay between geometry (knot theory) and algebra (representation theory). The underlying structure of a braided monoidal category reveals an interest of its own in that it encompasses two at first sight different geometrical objects : double loop spaces and homotopy 3-types. The link to double loop spaces was pointed out by J. Stasheff [38] and made precise by Z. Fiedorowicz [15], who proves that double loop spaces may be characterized (up to group completion) as algebras o...

Using the theory of pasting presentations, developed in chapter 2, I give a detailed description of the tensor product on !-categories, which extends Gray's tensor product on 2-categories and which is closely related to Brown-Higgins's tensor product on !-groupoids. Immediate consequences are a general and uniform definition of higher dimensional lax natural transformations, and a nice and transparent description of the corresponding internal homs. Further consequences will be in the development of a theory for weak n-categories, since both tensor products and lax structures are crucial in this. Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Cubes and cubical sets 5 2.1 Cubes combinatorially : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 5 2.2 A model category for cubes : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 6 2.3 Generating the model category for cubes : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 7 2.4 Cubical sets : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 9 2.5 Duality : : : : : : : : : : : : : ...

Abstract. As an example of the categorical apparatus of pseudo algebras over 2-theories, we show that pseudo algebras over the 2-theory of categories can be viewed as pseudo double categories with folding or as appropriate 2-functors into bicategories. Foldings are equivalent to connection pairs, and also to thin structures if the vertical and horizontal morphisms coincide. In a sense, the squares of a double category with folding are determined in a functorial way by the 2-cells of the horizontal 2-category. As a special case, strict 2-algebras with one object and everything invertible are crossed modules under a group.

We outline the main features of the definitions and applications of crossed complexes and cubical #-groupoids with connections.

... L are simplicial sets, then there is a strong deformation retraction of the fundamental crossed complex of the cartesian product K \Theta L onto the tensor product of the fundamental crossed complexes of K and L. This satisfies various side-conditions and associativity/interchange laws, as for the chain complex version. Given simplicial sets K 0 ; : : : ; K r , we discuss the r-cube of homotopies induced on (K 0 \Theta : : : \Theta K r ) and show these form a coherent system. We introduce a definition of a double crossed complex, and of the associated total (or codiagonal) crossed complex. We introduce a definition of homotopy colimits of diagrams of crossed complexes. We show that the homotopy colimit of crossed complexes can be expressed as the

It has been difficult to see precisely the role played by strict n-categories in the nascent theory of n-categories, particularly as related to n-truncated homotopy types of spaces. We propose to show in a fairly general setting that one cannot obtain all 3-types by any reasonable realization functor 1 from strict 3-groupoids (i.e. groupoids in the sense of [20]). More precisely we show that one does not obtain the 3-type of S 2. The basic reason is that the Whitehead bracket is nonzero. This phenomenon is actually well-known, but in order to take into account the possibility of an arbitrary reasonable realization functor we have to write the argument in a particular way. We start by recalling the notion of strict n-category. Then we look at the notion of strict n-groupoid as defined by Kapranov and Voevodsky [20]. We show that their definition is equivalent to a couple of other natural-looking definitions (one of these equivalences was left as an exercise in [20]). At the end of these first sections, we have a picture of strict 3-groupoids having only one object and one 1-morphism, as being equivalent to abelian monoidal objects (G, +) in the category of groupoids, such that (π0(G), +) is a group. In the case in question, this group will be π2(S 2) = Z. Then comes the main

Generalising a result of Brown and Loday, we give for n = 3 and 4, a decomposition of the group, dn NGn ; of boundaries of a simplicial group G as a product of commutator subgroups. Partial results are given for higher dimensions. Applications to 2-crossed modules and quadratic modules are discussed. A. M. S. Classication: 18G30, 55U10, 55P10. Introduction Simplicial groups occupy a place somewhere between homological group theory, homotopy theory, algebraic K-theory and algebraic geometry. In each sector they have played a signicant part in developments over quite a lengthy period of time and there is an extensive literature on their homotopy theory. In homotopy theory itself, they model all connected homotopy types and allow analysis of features of such homotopy types by a combination of group theoretic methods and tools from combinatorial homotopy theory. Simplicial groups have a natural structure of Kan complexes and so are potentially models for weak innity categories. They d...

this paper is the extension of this result to the case of twisted coefficients given by

Dedicated to the memory of Frank Adams