Decompositions into codimension two spheres and approximate fibrations (Q1074184)

\textit{D. S. Coram} and \textit{P. F. Duvall} [Gen. Topology Appl. 10, 239-246 (1979; Zbl 0417.54014)] exploited the notion of approximate fibration to show that maps from \(S^ 3\) to \(S^ 2\) whose point inverses all have the shape of \(S^ 1\) are approximate fibrations over the complement of at most two points. Moreover, under certain conditions they show that the decomposition space is a 2-sphere. In contrast to the Coram-Duvall result the authors study decompositions of manifolds and associated decomposition maps to unknown decomposition spaces. In particular, for an \((n+2)\)-manifold M without boundary and upper semicontinuous decomposition G of M into compacta having the shape of \(S^ n\), \(n\geq 1\), they prove that M/G is a 2-manifold, possibly with boundary in case \(n=1\) and M is nonorientable. Furthermore, the decomposition map is an approximate fibration when \(n\geq 2\), and it is almost an approximate fibration when \(n=1\) and M is orientable.