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Let G be a Lie group with finitely many connected components and let K be a maximal compact subgroup. We assume that G satisfies the rapid decay (RD) property and that G/K has non-positive sectional curvature. As an example, we can take G to be a connected semisimple Lie group. Let M be a G-proper manifold with compact quotient M/G. In this paper we establish index formulae for the C^*-higher indices of a G-equivariant Dirac-type operator on M. We use these formulae to investigate geometric properties of suitably defined higher genera on M. In particular, we establish the G-homotopy invariance of the higher signatures of a G-proper manifold and the vanishing of the A-hat genera of a G-spin, G-proper manifold admitting a G-invariant metric of positive scalar curvature., 20 pages, revised version, the main changes are in section 2.3

Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely generated discrete group satisfying the rapid decay condition. We give a new proof of the higher Atiyah-Patodi-Singer theorem on a Galois $\Gamma$-coverings, thus providing an explicit formula for the higher index associated to a group cocycle $c\in Z^k (\Gamma;\mathbb{C})$ which is of polynomial growth with respect to a word-metric. Our new proof employs relative K-theory and relative cyclic cohomology in an essential way.