We employ a certain labeled finite graph, called a chart, in a closed oriented surface to describe the monodromy of a(n achiral) Lefschetz fibration over the surface. Applying charts and their moves with respect to Wajnryb's presentation of mapping class groups, we first generalize a signature formula for Lefschetz fibrations over the 2-sphere obtained by Endo and Nagami to that for Lefschetz fibrations over arbitrary closed oriented surface. We then prove two theorems on stabilization of Lefschetz fibrations under fiber summing with copies of a typical Lefschetz fibration as generalizations of a theorem of Auroux.

A quandle is a set that has a binary operation satisfying three conditions corresponding to the Reidemeister moves. Homology theories of quandles have been developed in a way similar to group homology, and have been applied to knots and knotted surfaces. In this paper, a homology theory is defined that unifies group and quandle homology theories. A quandle that is a union of groups with the operation restricting to conjugation on each group component is called a multiple conjugation quandle (MCQ, defined rigorously within). In this definition, compatibilities between the group and quandle operations are imposed which are motivated by considerations on colorings of handlebody-links. A homology theory defined here for MCQs take into consideration both group and quandle operations, as well as their compatibility. The first homology group is characterized, and the notion of extensions by 2-cocycles is provided. Degenerate subcomplexes are defined in relation to simplicial decompositions of prismatic (products of simplices) complexes and group inverses. Cocycle invariants are also defined for handlebody-links.

Abstract. An increasing sequence of integers is said to be universal for knots and links if every knot and link has a projection to the sphere such that the number of edges of each complementary face of the projection comes from the given sequence. In this paper, it is proved that the following infinite sequences are all universal for knots and links: (3, 5, 7, . . . ), (2, n, n + 1, n + 2, . . . ) for all n ≥ 3 and (3, n, n + 1, n + 2, . . . ) for all n ≥ 4. Moreover, the following finite sequences are also universal for knots and links: (3, 4, 5) and (2, 4, 5). It is also shown that every knot has a projection with exactly two odd-sided faces, which can be taken to be triangles, and every link of n components has a projection with at most n odd-sided faces if n is even and n + 1 odd-sided faces if n is odd.

Abstract. Khovanov introduced a cohomology theory for oriented classical links whose graded Euler characteristic is the Jones polynomial. Since Khovanov's theory is functorial for link cobordisms between classical links, we obtain an invariant of a surface-knot, called the Khovanov-Jacobsson number, by considering the surface-knot as a link cobordism between empty links. In this paper, we study an extension of the Khovanov-Jacobsson number derived from Bar-Natan's theory, and prove that any T 2 -knot has trivial KhovanovJacobsson number.

We have a knot quandle and a fundamental class as invariants for a surface-knot. These invariants can be defined for a classical knot in a similar way, and it is known that the pair of them is a complete invariant for classical knots. In this paper, we compare a situation in surface-knot theory with that in classical knot theory, and prove the following: There exist arbitrarily many inequivalent surface-knots of genus g with the same knot quandle, and there exist two inequivalent surface-knots of genus g with the same knot quandle and with the same fundamental class.