We discuss the Kodaira problem for uniruled Kähler spaces. Building on a construction due to Voisin, we give an example of a uniruled Kähler space X such that every run of the K_X-MMP immediately terminates with a Mori fibre space, yet X does not admit an algebraic approximation. Our example also shows that for a Mori fibration, approximability of the base does not imply approximability of the total space.

The subject for investigation in this note is concerned with strongly homotopy (SH) Lie algebras, also known as $L_\infty$-algebras, or $L_\infty[1]$-algebras. We extract an intrinsic character, the Atiyah class, when a smaller $L_\infty[1]$-algebra $A$ is extended to a bigger one $L$. In fact, we establish that given such an SH Lie pair $(L,A)$, and any $A$-module $E$, there associates a canonical cohomology class, the Atiyah class $[\alpha^E]$, living in $H^2_{\mathrm{CE}}(A, A^\perp\otimes End(E))$, which generalizes earlier known Atiyah classes out of Lie algebra pairs. In particular, the quotient space $L/A$ is a canonical $A$-module and there associates the Atiyah class $[\alpha^{L/A}]\in H^2_{\mathrm{CE}}(A, Hom(L/A\otimes L/A,L/A))$. The nature of such classes is that they induce on $H^\bullet_{\mathrm{CE}}(A,L/A[-2])$ a Lie algebra structure, and on $H^\bullet_{\mathrm{CE}}(A,E[-2])$ a Lie algebra module structure. An alternative point of view is that the process of taking Atiyah classes defines a functor from the category of $A$-modules to the category of $H^\bullet_{\mathrm{CE}}(A,L/A[-2])$-modules. Moreover, Atiyah classes are invariant under gauge equivalent $A$-compatible infinitesimal deformations of $L$.

We prove that if a connected Lie group action on a complete Riemannian manifold preserves the geodesics (considered as unparameterized curves), then the metric has constant positive sectional curvature, or the group acts by affine transformations.

For any unital separable simple infinite-dimensional nuclear$C$^{∗}-algebra with finitely many extremal traces, we prove that $$ \mathcal{Z} $$ -absorption, strict comparison and property (SI) are equivalent. We also show that any unital separable simple nuclear$C$^{∗}-algebra with tracial rank zero is approximately divisible, and hence is $$ \mathcal{Z} $$ -absorbing.

The embedded cobordism category under study in this paper generalizes the category of conformal surfaces, introduced by G. Segal in [S2] in order to formalize the concept of field theories. Our main result identifies the homotopy type of the classifying space of the embedded$d$-dimensional cobordism category for all$d$. For$d$= 2, our results lead to a new proof of the generalized Mumford conjecture, somewhat different in spirit from the original one, presented in [MW].