Obtaining presentations from group actions without making choices - [pdf]
[ps]
Algebr. Geom. Topol. 11 (2011), 1737-1766.
Abstract :
Consider a group $G$ acting nicely on a simply-connected
simplicial complex $X$. Numerous classical methods exist
for using this group action to produce a presentation for $G$. For
the case that $X/G$ is $2$-connected, we give a new method that
has the novelty that one does not have to identify a fundamental domain
for the action. Indeed, the resulting presentation is canonical in
the sense that no arbitrary choices need to be made. It can be viewed
as a nonabelian analogue of a simple result in the study of equivariant homology.