We study the topological $4$-dimensional surgery problem for a closed connected orientable topological $4$-manifold $X$ with vanishing second homotopy and $\pi_1(X)\cong A * F(r)$, where $A$ has one end and $F(r)$ is the free group of rank $r\ge 1$. Our result is related to a theorem of Krushkal and Lee, and depends on the validity of the Novikov conjecture for such fundamental groups.

We prove that the neighborhood complex $\N(G)$, the box complex $\B(G)$, the homomorphism complex $\Hom(K_2,G)$and the Lov\'{a}sz complex $\L(G)$ have the same simple $\Z_2$-homotopy type in the sense of Whitehead. We show that these graph complexes are simple $\Z_2$-universal.

In this article, we give an explicit formula to compute the non abelian twisted sign-deter\-mined Reidemeister torsion of the exterior of a fibered knot in terms of its monodromy. As an application, we give explicit formulae for the non abelian Reidemeister torsion of torus knots and of the figure eight knot.