In this paper, we study the relationship between the cocenter and the representation theory of affine Hecke algebras. The approach is based on the interaction between the rigid cocenter, an important subspace of the cocenter, and the dual object in representation theory, the rigid quotient of the Grothendieck group of finite dimensional representations.

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We give a solution to the inverse problem (given a prescribed function, find a corresponding group) for large classes of speed, entropy, isoperimetric profile, return probability and Lp-compression functions of finitely generated groups. For smaller classes, we give solutions among solvable groups of exponential volume growth. As corollaries, we prove a recent conjecture of Amir on joint evaluation of speed and entropy exponents and we obtain a new proof of the existence of uncountably many pairwise non-quasi-isometric solvable groups, originally due to Cornulier and Tessera. We also obtain a formula relating the Lp-compression exponent of a group and its wreath product with the cyclic group forp in [1,2].

In this paper we discuss the change in contact structures as their supporting open book decompositions have their binding components cabled. To facilitate this and applications we define the notion of a rational open book decomposition that generalizes the standard notion of open book decomposition and allows one to more easily study surgeries on transverse knots. As a corollary to our investigation we are able to show there are Stein fillable contact structures supported by open books whose monodromies cannot be written as a product of positive Dehn twists. We also exhibit several monoids in the mapping class group of a surface that have contact geometric significance.

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