"Co-Frobenius" coalgebras were introduced as dualizations of Frobenius algebras. We previously showed that they admit left-right symmetric characterizations analogue to those of Frobenius algebras. We consider the more general quasi-co-Frobenius (QcF) coalgebras; the first main result in this paper is that these also admit symmetric characterizations: a coalgebra is QcF if it is weakly isomorphic to its (left, or right) rational dual $Rat(C^*)$, in the sense that certain coproduct or product powers of these objects are isomorphic. Fundamental results of Hopf algebras, such as the equivalent characterizations of Hopf algebras with nonzero integrals as left (or right) co-Frobenius, QcF, semiperfect or with nonzero rational dual, as well as the uniqueness of integrals and a short proof of the bijectivity of the antipode for such Hopf algebras all follow as a consequence of these results. This gives a purely representation theoretic approach to many of the basic fundamental results in the theory of Hopf algebras. Furthermore, we introduce a general concept of Frobenius algebra, which makes sense for infinite dimensional and for topological algebras, and specializes to the classical notion in the finite case. This will be a topological algebra $A$ that is isomorphic to its complete topological dual $A^\vee$. We show that $A$ is a (quasi)Frobenius algebra if and only if $A$ is the dual $C^*$ of a (quasi)co-Frobenius coalgebra $C$. We give many examples of co-Frobenius coalgebras and Hopf algebras connected to category theory, homological algebra and the newer q-homological algebra, topology or graph theory, showing the importance of the concept.

We introduce a new approach to an enumerative problem closely linked with the geometry of branched coverings, that is, we study the number $H_{\alpha}(i_2,i_3,\dots)$ of ways a given permutation (with cycles described by the partition $\a$) can be decomposed into a product of exactly $i_2$ 2-cycles, $i_3$ 3-cycles, \emph{etc.}, with certain minimality and transitivity conditions imposed on the factors. The method is to encode such factorizations as planar maps with certain \emph{descent structure} and apply a new combinatorial decomposition to make their enumeration more manageable. We apply our technique to determine $H_{\alpha}(i_2,i_3,\dots)$ when $\a$ has one or two parts, extending earlier work of Goulden and Jackson. We also show how these methods are readily modified to count \emph{inequivalent} factorizations, where equivalence is defined by permitting commutations of adjacent disjoint factors. Our technique permits us to generalize recent work of Goulden, Jackson, and Latour, while allowing for a considerable simplification of their analysis.

We introduce a natural Hopf algebra structure on the space of noncommutative symmetric functions. The bases for this algebra are indexed by set partitions. We show that there exists a natural inclusion of the Hopf algebra of noncommutative symmetric functions in this larger space. We also consider this algebra as a subspace of noncommutative polynomials and use it to understand the structure of the spaces of harmonics and coinvariants with respect to this collection of noncommutative polynomials and conclude two analogues of Chevalley's theorem in the noncommutative setting.

A coplactic class in the symmetric group $\Sym_n$ consists of all permutations in $\Sym_n$ with a given Schensted $Q$-symbol, and may be described in terms of local relations introduced by Knuth. Any Lie element in the group algebra of $\Sym_n$ which is constant on coplactic classes is already constant on descent classes. As a consequence, the intersection of the Lie convolution algebra introduced by Patras and Reutenauer and the coplactic algebra introduced by Poirier and Reutenauer is the direct sum of all Solomon descent algebras.

We study the coordinate rings~$k[\Cmubar\cap\hbox{\Frakvii t}]$ of scheme-theoretic intersections of nilpotent orbit closures with the diagonal matrices. Here $\mu'$ gives the Jordan block structure of the nilpotent matrix. de Concini and Procesi~\cite{deConcini&Procesi} proved a conjecture of Kraft~\cite{Kraft} that these rings are isomorphic to the cohomology rings of the varieties constructed by Springer~\cite{Springer76,Springer78}. The famous $q$-Kostka polynomial~$\Klmt(q)$ is the Hilbert series for the multiplicity of the irreducible symmetric group representation indexed by~$\lambda$ in the ring $k[\Cmubar\cap\hbox{\Frakvii t}]$. \LS~\cite{L&S:Plaxique,Lascoux} gave combinatorially a decomposition of~$\Klmt(q)$ as a sum of ``atomic'' polynomials with non-negative integer coefficients, and Lascoux proposed a corresponding decomposition in the cohomology model. Our work provides a geometric interpretation of the atomic decomposition. The Frobenius-splitting results of Mehta and van der Kallen~\cite{Mehta&vanderKallen} imply a direct-sum decomposition of the ideals of nilpotent orbit closures, arising from the inclusions of the corresponding sets. We carry out the restriction to the diagonal using a recent theorem of Broer~\cite{Broer}. This gives a direct-sum decomposition of the ideals yielding the $k[\Cmubar\cap \hbox{\Frakvii t}]$, and a new proof of the atomic decomposition of the $q$-Kostka polynomials.

Pieri's formula describes the intersection product of a Schubert cycle by a special Schubert cycle on a Grassmannian. We present a new geometric proof, exhibiting an explicit chain of rational equivalences from a suitable sum of distinct Schubert cycles to the intersection of a Schubert cycle with a special Schubert cycle. The geometry of these rational equivalences indicates a link to a combinatorial proof of Pieri's formula using Schensted insertion.

Symplectic and orthogonal Schur functions can be defined combinatorially in a manner similar to the classical Schur functions. This paper demonstrates that they can also be expressed as determinants. These determinants are generated using planar decompositions of tableaux into strips and the equivalence of these determinants to symplectic or orthogonal Schur functions is established by Gessel-Viennot lattice path techniques. Results for rational (also called {\it composite}) Schur functions are also obtained.