Relative Behrend functions        
-- Davesh Maulik, December 3, 2010

<p>                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                          
Given a smooth projective threefold, Donaldson-Thomas
invariants encode virtual enumerative information about its
moduli space of sheaves.  In the case of Calabi-Yau     
threefolds, one lucrative approach to studying these invariants
(and various conjectures) is to express them in terms of
certain constructible functions, canonically     
associated to the moduli space. In this talk, we'll recap some
of these ideas and explain some work in progress to extend them
to other geometries.