We study moduli spaces of d-dimensional manifolds with embedded particles and discs, which we refer to as decorations. These spaces admit a model in which points are unparametrised d-dimensional manifolds in $\mathbb{R}^\infty$ with particles and discs constrained to it. We compare this to the space of d-dimensional manifolds in $\mathbb{R}^\infty$ with particles and discs that are no longer constrained, i.e. the decorations are decoupled. We show that under certain conditions these spaces cannot be distinguished by homology groups within a range. This generalises work by Bödigheimer–Tillmann for oriented surfaces to different tangential structures and also to higher dimensional manifolds. We also extend this result to moduli spaces with more general submanifolds as decorations and specialise in the case of decorations being embedded circles.

In this note, we show that given a closed connected oriented $3$ -manifold M, there exists a knot K in M such that the manifold $M'$ obtained from M by performing an integer surgery admits an open book decomposition which embeds into the trivial open book of the $5$ -sphere $S^5.$

We study cubical sets without degeneracies, which we call $\square$-sets. These sets arise naturally in a number of settings and they have a beautiful intrinsic geometry; in particular a $\square$-set $C$ has an infinite family of associated $\square$-sets $J^i(C)$, for $i=1,2,\ldots$, which we call James complexes. There are mock bundle projections $p_i \colon |J^i (C)| \to |C|$ (which we call James bundles) defining classes in unstable cohomotopy which generalise the classical James–Hopf invariants of $\Omega (S^2)$. The algebra of these classes mimics the algebra of the cohomotopy of $\Omega (S^2)$ and the reduction to cohomology defines a sequence of natural characteristic classes for a $\square$-set. An associated map to $BO$ leads to a generalised cohomology theory with geometric interpretation similar to that for Mahowald orientation.

Let X be a compact connected Riemann surface and ξ a square root of the holomorphic contangent bundle of X. Sending any line bundle L over X of order two to the image of dim H0(X, ξ ⊗ L) − dim H0(X, ξ) in Z/2Z defines a quadratic form on the space of all order two line bundles. We give a topological interpretation of this quadratic form in terms of index of vector fields on X.

We show that a (Spinq-style) twistor space admits a canonical Spin structure. The adiabatic limits of η-invariants of the associated Dirac operator and of an intrinsically twisted Dirac operator are then investigated.

We show that the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a lens space determine and are determined by its Casson-Walker invariant and its Reidemeister-Turaev torsion.

It is shown that there are no almost-quaternion substructures on the complex projective space Pn(ℂ).