Official URL: http://www.springerlink.com

To a topological space V we assign the bordism group Ndef n (V ) of reg- ularly defective maps f : M◦→V on closed n-dimensional manifolds M. These are triples (M,
, f) where
is a closed submanifold
⊂ M and f a continuous map f : M r
→ V . We briefly review the construction of the defect complex DV given by M. Rost in [17] and show that Ndef n (V ) is isomorphic to ordinary bordism Nn(DV ). The bordism classes in Ndef n (V ) ∼= Nn(DV ) are detected by characteristic numbers twisted with cohomology classes of DV . Some of these numbers can be described without reference to the defect complex. As an example we treat the case of the circle V = S1. We compute Ndef n (S1), construct a basis and a complete set of characteristic numbers.