Contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Topology held at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro in January 1992. This work presents two surveys on group actions - finite group actions and rigidity theory for Anosov actions - as well as an elementary survey of Thurston's geometric topology in dimensions 2 and 3.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Topology held at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro in January 1992. Bringing together about one hundred mathematicians from Brazil and around the world, the workshop covered a variety of topics in differential and algebraic topology, including group actions, foliations, low-dimensional topology, and connections to differential geometry. The main concentration was on foliation theory, but there was a lively exchange on other current topics in topology. The volume contains an excellent list of open problems in foliation research, prepared with the participation of some of the top world experts in this area. Also presented here are two surveys on group actions - finite group actions and rigidity theory for Anosov actions - as well as an elementary survey of Thurston's geometric topology in dimensions 2 and 3 that would be accessible to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

Foliations Topological obstructions to smoothing proper foliations by J. Cantwell and L. Conlon Deformations of holomorphic foliations by O. Calvo-Andrade Transverse Euler classes of foliations on non-atomic foliation cycles by S. Hurder and Y. Mitsumatsu Foliated cohomology and characteristic classes by N. M. d. Santos A list of questions about foliations by R. Langevin De Rham theory and singularities Duality and De Rham complex on singular varieties by A. G. Aleksandrov De Rham theorems for singular varieties by J.-P. Brasselet On the equisingularity of families of corank $1$ generic germs by M. A. S. Ruas Two surveys on actions Cohomology and actions of finite groups by A. Adem A survey of rigidity theory for Anosov actions by S. Hurder Low-dimensional topology An introduction to geometric topology: Geometric structures on manifolds of dimensions $2$ and $3$ by N. C. Saldanha On $4$-dimensional bundle theories by D. Randall On foliations, concordance spaces, and the Smale conjectures by D. Randall and P. A. Schweitzer S. J. Generic $1$-parameter families of closed space curves by J. N. Ballesteros and M. C. R. Fuster Characteristic classes Dependence relations for Cheeger-Chern-Simons invariants of locally symmetric spaces by J. L. Dupont and F. W. Kamber Obstructions to immersions of projective Stiefel manifolds by N. E. Barufatti.