Functorial Knot Theory: Categories Of Tangles, Coherence, Categorical Deformations And Topological Invariants

Almost since the advent of skein-theoretic invariants of knots and links (the Jones, HOMFLY, and Kauffman polynomials), the important role of categories of tangles in the connection between low-dimensional topology and quantum-group theory has been recognized. The rich categorical structures naturally arising from the considerations of cobordisms have suggested functorial views of topological fiel...