We show that for an oriented 4-dimensional Poincaré complex X with finite fundamental group, whose 2-Sylow subgroup is abelian with at most 2 generators, the homotopy type of X is determined by its quadratic 2-type.

For a finitely dominated Poincaré duality space $M$, we show how the first author's total obstruction $\mu _M$ to the existence of a Poincaré embedding of the diagonal map $M \to M \times M$ in [17] relates to the Reidemeister trace of the identity map of $M$. We then apply this relationship to show that $\mu _M$ vanishes when suitable conditions on the fundamental group of $M$ are satisfied.

Let $X^{n}$ be an oriented closed generalized $n$-manifold, $n\ge 5$. In our recent paper (Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. (2) 63 (2020), no. 2, 597–607), we have constructed a map $t:\mathcal {N}(X^{n}) \to H^{st}_{n} ( X^{n}; \mathbb{L}^{+})$ which extends the normal invariant map for the case when $X^{n}$ is a topological $n$-manifold. Here, $\mathcal {N}(X^{n})$ denotes the set of all normal bordism classes of degree one normal maps $(f,\,b): M^{n} \to X^{n},$ and $H^{st}_{*} ( X^{n}; \mathbb{E})$ denotes the Steenrod homology of the spectrum $\mathbb{E}$. An important non-trivial question arose whether the map $t$ is bijective (note that this holds in the case when $X^{n}$ is a topological $n$-manifold). It is the purpose of this paper to prove that the answer to this question is affirmative.

The aim of this paper is to show the importance of the Steenrod construction of homology theories for the disassembly process in surgery on a generalized n-manifold Xn, in order to produce an element of generalized homology theory, which is basic for calculations. In particular, we show how to construct an element of the nth Steenrod homology group $H^{st}_{n} (X^{n}, \mathbb {L}^+)$, where 𝕃+ is the connected covering spectrum of the periodic surgery spectrum 𝕃, avoiding the use of the geometric splitting procedure, the use of which is standard in surgery on topological manifolds.

We explore the constraints imposed by Poincaré duality on the resonance varieties of a graded algebra. For a three-dimensional Poincaré duality algebra A, we obtain a fairly precise geometric description of the resonance varieties ${\cal R}^i_k(A)$.

We give algebraic proofs of some results of Wang on homomorphisms of nonzero degree between aspherical closed orientable 3-manifolds. Our arguments apply to PDn-groups which are virtually poly-Z or have a Kropholler decomposition into parts of generalized Seifert type, for all n.

It is shown that, in characteristic zero, a finite subgroup of a general linear group is generated by pseudo-reflections if and only if its ring of coinvariants satisfies Poincaré duality.

A short proof of the following result of Bernstein and Ganea is given:

“Let X be a topological space which is homotopy dominated by a closed connected n-dimensional manifold M. If Hn (X; Z2 ) ≠ 0 then X has the homotopy type of M”.

It is also shown that the manifold in this theorem can be replaced by a Poincaré complex.