We discuss the uniruledness of various base loci of linear systems related to the canonical divisor. In particular we prove that the stable base locus of the canonical divisor of a smooth projective variety of general type is covered by rational curves.

We describe a notion of ampleness for line bundles on orbifolds with cyclic quotient singularities that is related to embeddings in weighted projective space, and prove a global asymptotic expansion for a weighted Bergman kernel associated to such a line bundle.

We develop foundational theory for the Laplacian flow for closed G2 structures which will be essential for future study. (1). We prove Shi-type derivative estimates for the Riemann curvature tensor Rm and torsion tensor T along the flow, i.e. that a bound on Λ(x,t)=(|∇T(x,t)|^2g(t)+|Rm(x,t)|^2g(t))^{1/2} will imply bounds on all covariant derivatives of Rm and T. (2). We show that Λ(x,t) will blow up at a finite-time singularity, so the flow will exist as long as Λ(x,t) remains bounded. (3). We give a new proof of forward uniqueness and prove backward uniqueness of the flow, and give some applications. (4). We prove a compactness theorem for the flow and use it to strengthen our long time existence result from (2) to show that the flow will exist as long as the velocity of the flow remains bounded. (5). Finally, we study soliton solutions of the Laplacian flow.

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We consider two natural problems arising in geometry which are equivalent to the local solvability of specific equations of Monge- Amp`ere type. These two problems are: the local isometric embedding problem for two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, and the problem of locally prescribed Gaussian curvature for surfaces in R3. We prove a general local existence result for a large class of Monge-Amp`ere equations in the plane, and obtain as corollaries the existence of regular solutions to both problems, in the case that the Gaussian curvature vanishes to arbitrary finite order on a single smooth curve.