Computing the homology of groups: the geometric way. (Q420743)

Group cohomology is classically described either in algebraic terms, by a resolution of the group, or in topological terms, by the classifying space of the group. For computation the former has generally been preferred, since the topological approach often involves infinite spaces even for quite small groups. The development of effective homology circumvented this problem, and the authors build on this work and try to provide bridges between the two approaches. They extend the Kenzo system with modules for constructing the effective homology of a classifying space from a given resolution, and for constructing the effective homology of higher Eilenberg-MacLane spaces. They also consider computation of homology groups of some 2-types and of the effective homology of central extensions.