On the singularities of foliations and of vector bundle maps

LetF be a (smooth) Γ _q ^∞ -stucture (often called a codimension-q Haefliger structure) on a compact manifoldX ⁿ . Cohomological invariants associated to the singularities ofF are defined whose vanishing is shown to be a necessary condition for deformingF to a codimension-q foliation onX ⁿ . An analagous approach to vector bundle maps is then utilized to prove a general theorem concerning the possibility of embedding a vector bundle in the tangent bundle ofX ⁿ , and applications to the planefield problem are given. In the final section geometric realizations of the singularity classes associated toF are constructed.