Knotted ribbons form an important topic in knot theory. They have applications in natural sciences, such as cyclic duplex DNA modeling. A flat knotted ribbon can be obtained by gently pulling a knotted ribbon tight so that it becomes flat and folded. An important problem in knot theory is to study the minimal ratio of length to width of a flat knotted ribbon. This minimal ratio is called the ribbonlength of the knot. It has been conjectured that the ribbonlength has an upper bound and a lower bound which are both linear in the crossing number of the knot. In the first part of the paper, we use grid diagrams to construct flat knotted ribbons and prove an explicit quadratic upper bound on the ribbonlength for all non-trivial knots. We then improve the quadratic upper bound to a linear upper bound for all non-trivial torus knots and twist knots. Our approach of using grid diagrams to study flat knotted ribbons is novel and can likely be used to obtain a linear upper bound for more general families of knots. In the second part of the paper, we obtain a sharper linear upper bound on the ribbonlength for nontrivial twist knots by constructing a flat knotted ribbon via folding the ribbon over itself multiple times to shorten the length.

This paper is motivated by the problem of subdividing a prismatic mesh to a tetrahedral mesh (without inserting Steiner points) so as to not only match arbitrarily prescribed boundary conditions but also allow arbitrary topologies in the base mesh. We explore all possible combinations of these two factors, and propose a complete solution to this 3D problem by converting it to an equivalent 2D graph problem, called cutting flow problem. For each case, we not only prove the sufficient and necessary condition for the existence of solutions, but also provide linear and provable algorithms to compute a solution whenever there is one.

In this paper, several versions of gluing theorems for quasiconformal mappings in the plane are obtained. The best possibility of gluing quasiconformal mappings is investigated. As an application, we provide a new short proof of the gluing theorem obtained by Jiang and Qi.

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We provide a uniform construction of “mixed versions” or “graded lifts” in the sense of Beilinson-Ginzburg–Soergel which works for arbitrary Artin stacks. In particular, we obtain a general construction of graded lifts of many categories arising in geometric representation theory and categorified knot invariants. Our new theory associates to each Artin stack of finite type Y over F_q a symmetric monoidal DG-category Shv_{gr,c}(Y) of constructible graded sheaves on Y along with the six-functor formalism, a perverse t-structure, and a weight (or co-t-)structure in the sense of Bondarko and Pauksztello. This category sits in between the category Shv_{m,c}(Y_n) of constructible mixed ℓ-adic sheaves in the sense of Beilinson–Bernstein–Deligne--Gabber for any F_{q^n} -form Y_n of Y and the category Shv_c(Y) of constructible ℓ-adic sheaves on Y, compatible with the six-functor formalism, perverse t-structures, and Frobenius weights. Classically, mixed versions were only constructed in very special cases. However, the category Shv_{gr,c}(Y) agrees with those previously constructed when they are available. For example, for any reductive group G with a fixed pair T ⊂ B of a maximal torus and a Borel subgroup, we have an equivalence of monoidal DG weight categories Shv_{gr,c}(B\G/B) ≃ Ch^b(SBim_W), where Ch^b(SBim_W) is the monoidal DG-category of bounded chain complexes of Soergel bimodules and W is the Weyl group of G.