In 1986, R. D. Cook proposed differential geometry to assess local influence of minor perturbations of statistical models. We construct a conformally invariant curvature, the conformal normal curvature, for the same purpose. This curvature provides a measure of local influence ranging from 0 to 1, with objective benchmarks to judge largeness. We study various approaches to using the conformal normal curvature and the relationships between these approaches.

We prove that the rotation in time T of a trajectory of a K-Lipschitz vector ¯eld in Rn around a given point (stationary or non-stationary) is bounded by A + BKT with A;B absolute constants. In particular, trajectories of a Lipschitz vector ¯eld in ¯nite time cannot have an in¯nite rotation around a given point (while trajectories of a C1 vector ¯eld may have an in¯- nite rotation around a straight line in ¯nite time). The bound above extends to the mutual rotation of two trajectories (for the time intervals T and T0, respectively) of a K-Lipschitz vector ¯eld in R3: this rotation is bounded from above by the quantity CK min(T; T0) + DK2TT0.

In this article we study compact K¨ahler manifolds satisfying a certain nonnegativity condition on the bisectional curvature. Under this condition, we show that the scalar curvature is nonnegative and that the first Chern class is positive assuming local irreducibility. We also obtain a partial classification of possible de Rham decompositions of the universal cover under this condition.

We study the rigidity results for self-shrinkers in Euclidean space by restriction of the image under the Gauss map. The geometric properties of the target manifolds carry into effect. In the self-shrinking hypersurface situation Theorem 3.1and Theorem 3.2 not only improve the previous results, but also are optimal. In higher codimensional case, using geometric properties of the Grassmannian manifolds (the target manifolds of the Gauss map) we give a rigidity theorem for self-shrinking graphs.

The chapter discusses the group actions on R³. The Smith conjecture has many equivalent forms, and each of these forms has various consequences and generalizations. The Smith conjecture is a structure theorem about symmetries of the product of a compact surface with an interval. Here the interval may be closed or open. The usual Smith conjecture is equivalent to proving the smooth <i>Z_n</i> actions on <i>S</i>² [0, 1] are conjugate to actions that preserve the product structure. This generalized Smith conjecture represents the belief that all the symmetries of the product of a compact surface with an interval actually arise from the symmetries of the surface extended trivially to the product structure. The chapter presents how to apply minimal surfaces to study the generalized Smith conjecture on <i>S</i>² <i>I</i>, where <i>I</i> is an open or closed interval. A geodesic version of the loop theorem and a new equivariant