To any compactly supported, area preserving, piecewise linear homeomorphism of the plane is associated a relation in $K_2$ of the smallest field whose elements are needed to write the homeomorphism.Using a formula of J. Morita, we show how to calculate the relation, in some simple cases. As applications, a “reciprocity” formula for a pair of triangles in the plane, and some explicit elements of torsion in $K_2$ of certain function fields are found.

We show that if the degree of a nonsingular projective variety is high enough, maximization of any of the most important numerical invariants, such as class, Betti number, and any of the Chern or middle Hodge numbers, leads to the same class of extremal varieties. Moreover, asymptotically (say, for varieties whose total Betti number is big enough) the ratio of any two of these invariants tends to a well-defined constant.

We explore connections between our previous paper [J. Reine Angew. Math. 604 (2007)], where we constructed spectra that interpolate between bu and Hℤ, and earlier work of Kuhn and Priddy on the Whitehead conjecture and of Rognes on the stable rank filtration in algebraic K-theory. We construct a "chain complex of spectra" that is a bu analogue of an auxiliary complex used by Kuhn-Priddy; we conjecture that this chain complex is "exact"; and we give some supporting evidence. We tie this to work of...

Let $r\left({𝔴}_2^0\right)$ be the Green ring of the weak Hopf algebra ${𝔴}_2^0$ corresponding to Sweedler’s 4-dimensional Hopf algebra $H_2$, and let $\mathrm{Aut}\left(R\left({𝔴}_2^0\right)\right)$ be the automorphism group of the Green algebra $R\left({𝔴}_2^0\right)=r\left({𝔴}_2^0\right){\otimes }_{\mathbb{Z}}ℂ$. We show that the quotient group $\mathrm{Aut}\left(R\left({𝔴}_2^0\right)\right)/C_2\cong S_3$, where $C_2$ contains the identity map and is isomorphic to the infinite group $({ℂ}^{*},\times )$ and $S_3$ is the symmetric group of order 6.

Let $H_8$ be the unique noncommutative and noncocommutative eight dimensional semi-simple Hopf algebra. We first construct a weak Hopf algebra $\widetilde{H_8}$ based on $H_8$, then we investigate the structure of the representation ring of $\widetilde{H_8}$. Finally, we prove that the automorphism group of $r\left(\widetilde{H_8}\right)$ is just isomorphic to $D_6$, where $D_6$ is the dihedral group with order 12.

We construct an uncountable set of strong automorphisms of the Witt ring of a global field.