This book contains an in-depth overview of the current state of the recently emerged and rapidly growing theory of Gnk groups, picture-valued invariants, and braids for arbitrary manifolds. Equivalence relations arising in low-dimensional topology and combinatorial group theory inevitably lead to the study of invariants, and good invariants should be strong and apparent. An interesting case of such invariants is picture-valued invariants, whose values are not algebraic objects, but geometrical constructions, like graphs or polyhedra.In 2015, V O Manturov defined a two-parametric family of groups Gnk and formulated the following principle: if dynamical systems describing a motion of n particles possess a nice codimension 1 property governed by exactly k particles then these dynamical systems possess topological invariants valued in Gnk.The book is devoted to various realisations and generalisations of this principle in the broad sense. The groups Gnk have many epimorphisms onto free products of cyclic groups; hence, invariants constructed from them are powerful enough and easy to compare. However, this construction does not work when we try to deal with points on a 2-surface, since there may be infinitely many geodesics passing through two points. That leads to the notion of another family of groups — Γnk, which give rise to braids on arbitrary manifolds yielding invariants of arbitrary manifolds.

This book consists of a selection of articles devoted to new ideas and developments in low dimensional topology. Low dimensions refer to dimensions three and four for the topology of manifolds and their submanifolds. Thus we have papers related to both manifolds and to knotted submanifolds of dimension one in three (classical knot theory) and two in four (surfaces in four dimensional spaces). Some of the work involves virtual knot theory where the knots are abstractions of classical knots but can be represented by knots embedded in surfaces. This leads both to new interactions with classical topology and to new interactions with essential combinatorics.

This book is an introduction to the remarkable work of Vaughan Jones and Victor Vassiliev on knot and link invariants and its recent modifications and generalizations, including a mathematical treatment of Jones-Witten invariants. The mathematical prerequisites are minimal compared to other monographs in this area. Numerous figures and problems make this book suitable as a graduate level course text or for self-study.

One-Cocycles and Knot Invariants is about classical knots, i.e., smooth oriented knots in 3-space. It introduces discrete combinatorial analysis in knot theory in order to solve a global tetrahedron equation. This new technique is then used to construct combinatorial 1-cocycles in a certain moduli space of knot diagrams. The construction of the moduli space makes use of the meridian and the longitude of the knot. The combinatorial 1-cocycles are therefore lifts of the well-known Conway polynomial of knots, and they can be calculated in polynomial time. The 1-cocycles can distinguish loops consisting of knot diagrams in the moduli space up to homology. They give knot invariants when they are evaluated on canonical loops in the connected components of the moduli space. They are a first candidate for numerical knot invariants which can perhaps distinguish the orientation of knots.

Dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Zbigniew Oziewicz from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the book consists of papers on a wide variety of topics related to the work of Professor Oziewicz, which were presented at the special conference on Graph-Operads-Logic (GOL 2021), selected through peer review to promote his scientific legacy.Professor Oziewicz was a great enthusiast and supporter of category theory and its applications in physics, as well as in various areas of mathematics (topology, noncommutative geometry, etc.). In particular, he made significant contributions to the theory of Frobenius algebras, which now are becoming more important due to their connection with topological quantum field theories that are used in mathematical physics and in quantum topology. Professor Oziewicz was a great and very generous teacher, who immersed his students in the beautiful ideas of category theory as well as mathematical physics and computation. It was his idea to start a series of conferences under the title Graphs-Operads-Logic, most of them held in Mexico, with some of them in the USA, which were a great platform to discuss various ideas connected with category theory and its various applications, and to make friends with other scientists. Despite his passing, the GOL 2021 conference is included in this series to pay tribute to his many contributions to diverse areas of science.The book is laid out in twelve main topics where we can find relevant works from distinguished experts.

This book is meant to serve either as a textbook for an interdisciplinary course in Mathematics of Design, or as a trade book for designers. It will also be of interest for people interested in recreational mathematics showing the connection between mathematics and design. Topics from the book can also be adapted for use in pre-college mathematics. Each chapter will provide the user with ideas that can be incorporated in a design. Background materials will be provided to show the reader the mathematical principles that lie behind the designs.

Cosmology, the study of the universe, arouses a great deal of public interest, with serious articles both in the scientific press and in major newspapers, with many of the theories and concepts (e.g. the 'big bang' and 'black holes') discussed, often in great depth.Accordingly the book is divided into three parts:Part 1 is readable (and understandable) by anyone with a nodding acquaintance with the basic language of cosmology: events, lights paths, galaxies, black holes and so on. It covers the whole story of the book in a way as untechnical as possible given the scope of the topics covered.Part 2 covers the same ground again but with enough technical details to satisfy a reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and/or physics.Part 3 consists of appendices which are referred to in the other parts and which also contain the highly technical material omitted from Section 2.