Smoothing Riemannian Metrics with Ricci Curvature Bounds
  We prove that Riemannian metrics with an absolute Ricci curvature bound and a conjugate radius bound can be smoothed to having a sectional curvature bound.   Using this we derive a number of results about structures of manifolds with Ricci curvature bounds. 
Xianzhe Dai, Guofang Wei and Rugang Ye