Abstract. The construction of a quantum groupoid out of a double groupoid satisfying a filling condition and a perturbation datum is given. Several important classes of examples of tensor categories are shown to fit into this construction. Certain invariants such as a pivotal grouplike element and quantum and Frobenius-Perron dimensions of simple objects are computed. Contents

We give an interpretation of Yetter’s Invariant of manifolds M in terms of the homotopy type of the function space TOP(M,B(G)), where G is a crossed module and B(G) is its classifying space. From this formulation, there follows that Yetter’s invariant depends only on the homotopy type of M, and the weak homotopy type of the crossed module G. We use this interpretation to define a twisting of Yetter’s Invariant by cohomology classes of crossed modules, defined

The classifying space of a crossed complex generalises the construction of Eilenberg-Mac Lane spaces. We show how the theory of fibrations of crossed complexes allows the analysis of homotopy classes of maps from a free crossed complex to such a classifying space. This gives results on the homotopy classification of maps from a CW-complex to the classifying space of a crossed module and also, more generally, of a crossed complex whose homotopy groups vanish in dimensions between 1 and n. The results are analogous to those for the obstruction to an abstract kernel in group extension theory.

Crossed complexes are shown to have an algebra sufficiently rich to model the geometric inductive definition of simplices, and so to give a purely algebraic proof of the Homotopy Addition Lemma (HAL) for the boundary of a simplex. This leads to the fundamental crossed complex of a simplicial set. The main result is a normalisation theorem for this fundamental crossed complex, analogous to the usual theorem for simplicial abelian groups, but more complicated to set up and prove, because of the complications of the HAL and of the notion of homotopies for crossed complexes. We start with some historical background, and give a survey of the required basic facts on crossed complexes.

We prove that if M is a CW-complex, then the homotopy type of the skeletal filtration of M does not depend on the cell decomposition of M up to wedge products with n-disks Dn, when the later are given their natural CW-decomposition with unique cells of order 0, (n − 1) and n; a result resembling J.H.C. Whitehead’s work on simple homotopy types. From the Colimit Theorem for the Fundamental Crossed Complex of a CW-complex (due to R. Brown and P.J. Higgins), follows an algebraic analogue for the fundamental crossed complex Π(M) of the skeletal filtration of M, which thus depends only on the homotopy type of M (as a space) up to free product with crossed complexes of the type Dn. = Π(Dn),n ∈ N. This expands an old result (due to J.H.C. Whitehead) asserting that the homotopy type of Π(M) depends only on the homotopy type of M. We use

We explain the notion of colimit in category theory as a potential tool for describing structures and their communication, and the notion of higher dimensional algebra as potential yoga for dealing with processes and processes of processes.

We prove that if M is a CW-complex and M 1 is its 1-skeleton, then the crossed module Π2(M,M 1) depends only on the homotopy type of M as a space, up to free products, in the category of crossed modules, with Π2(D 2,S 1). From this it follows that if G is a finite crossed module and M is finite, then the number of crossed module morphisms Π2(M,M 1) →Gcan be re-scaled to a homotopy invariant IG(M), depending only on the algebraic 2-type of M. We describe an algorithm for calculating π2(M,M (1) ) as a crossed module over π1(M (1)), in the case when M is the complement of a knotted surface Σ in S 4 and M (1) is the handlebody of a handle decomposition of M made from its 0- and 1-handles. Here, Σ is presented by a knot with bands. This in particular gives us a geometric method for calculating the algebraic 2-type of the complement of a knotted surface from a hyperbolic splitting of it. We prove in addition that the invariant IG yields a non-trivial invariant of knotted surfaces in S 4 with good properties with regard to explicit calculations.

Abstract. The primary purpose of this work is to characterise strict ω-categories as simplicial sets with structure. We prove the Street-Roberts conjecture which states that they are exactly the “complicial sets ” defined and named by John Roberts in his handwritten notes of that title [26].2 VERITY

Abstract. We give a general description of the structure of a discrete double groupoid (with an extra, quite natural, filling condition) in terms of groupoid factorizations and groupoid 2-cocycles with coefficients in abelian group bundles. Our description goes as follows: To any double groupoid, we associate an abelian group bundle and a second double groupoid, its frame. The frame satisfies that every box is determined by its edges, and thus is called a ‘slim ’ double groupoid. In a first step, we prove that every double groupoid is obtained as an extension of its associated abelian group bundle by its frame. In a second, independent, step we prove that every slim double groupoid with filling condition is completely determined by a factorization of a certain canonically defined ‘diagonal ’ groupoid.