Computing varieties of representations of hyperbolic 3-manifolds into .
It is proved that the normal bundle of a distribution on a riemannian manifold admits a conformal curvature if and only if is a conformal foliation. Then is conformally flat if and only if vanishes. Also, the Pontrjagin classes of can be expressed in terms of .
Positive permutation braids on n strings, which are defined to be positive n-braids where each pair of strings crosses at most once, form the elementary but non-trivial building blocks in many studies of conjugacy in the braid groups. We consider conjugacy among these elementary braids which close to knots, and show that those which close to the trivial knot or to the trefoil are all conjugate. All such n-braids with the maximum possible crossing number are also shown to be conjugate. ...