We investigate Tukey functions from the ideal of all closed nowhere-dense subsets of 2ℕ. In particular, we answer an old question of Isbell and Fremlin by showing that this ideal is not Tukey reducible to the ideal of density zero subsets of ℕ. We also prove non-existence of various special types of Tukey reductions from the nowhere-dense ideal to analytic P-ideals. In connection with these results, we study families of clopen subsets of 2ℕ with the property that for each nowhere-dense subset of 2ℕ there is a set in not intersecting it. We call such families avoiding.

We prove that the Calabi–Yau equation can be solved on the Kodaira–Thurston manifold for all given T2-invariant volume forms. This provides support for Donaldson's conjecture that Yau's theorem has an extension to symplectic 4-manifolds with compatible but non-integrable almost complex structures.

We study the conditional distribution of zeros of a Gaussian system of random polynomials (and more generally, holomorphic sections), given that the polynomials or sections vanish at a point p (or a fixed finite set of points). The conditional distribution is analogous to the pair correlation function of zeros but we show that it has quite a different small distance behaviour. In particular, the conditional distribution does not exhibit repulsion of zeros in dimension 1. To prove this, we give universal scaling asymptotics for around p. The key tool is the conditional Szegő kernel and its scaling asymptotics.

The article discusses the local solvability (or lack thereof) of various classes of smooth, complex vector fields that vanish on some non-empty subset of the base manifold.