While the overall star formation rate in a galaxy appears to depend primarily on the gas mass and density, with the timescale for conversion of gas into stars given by the dynamical time, turbulence and explosions are still important for the process of star formation because they control the birth correlations in space and time. Most star formation appears triggered by some specific process, whether it is a galactic spiral shock, the expansion of a superbubble, the compression of a bright-rimmed globule, or some seemingly random compressive event in a supersonically turbulent flow. These processes give space and time sequences for star birth that are well observed. Many examples were given at this conference. Shocks are the link between large-scale but weak galactic processes and small-scale but strong final collapses. The rate limiting step is on the largest scale, where the dynamical time is slowest. Both gravitational instabilities and pressurized triggering seem to work on the same local dynamical time, making it difficult to tell that star formation is highly triggered when observing only galactic scales.

The Reynolds stress model (RSM) for turbulent convection motion is compared to the MLT in solar model. The free parameters involved in the RSM are also tested with the aid of helioseismology. It is found that, the structure of solar convection zone is differ from the MLT when using the RSM, especially for the Reynolds correlations and the temperature gradient. Both the local and non-local RSM can improve the calculated solar p-mode oscillation frequencies with the appropriate choice of the parameters' value.

We have assembled large samples of galaxies at redshift z ~ 4, 5 and 6 (totalling >4300 objects, >1000 objects, >500 objects, respectively) from all the deep HST ACS and NICMOS data taken to date (over 2000 orbits of data). From these we have derived rest-frame UV luminosity functions, luminosity densities, and star formation rates in a very robust and consistent way to very faint luminosities (0.01L* to 0.04L*). The faint-end slopes α of these luminosity functions are remarkably uniform and steep (α ~ −1.7), indicating very little evolution from z ~ 6 to z ~ 4. The characteristic luminosity L* brightens considerably (by ~1 mag) over this period, but the overall change in the luminosity function is such as to lead to little change in the luminosity density and star formation rate over this time. We also have detected galaxies at z ~ 7 − 8 and set strong limits at z ~ 10 directly from deep HST NICMOS observations. Spitzer observations of these z ~ 7 galaxies have been used to estimate masses and ages, suggesting substantial formation at z ~ 10 or earlier. These results show that this hierachical build-up continues into the reionization epoch.

Although the subject of this meeting is triggered star formation in a turbulent interstellar medium, it remains unsettled what role magnetic fields play in the star formation process. This paper briefly reviews star formation model predictions for the ratio of mass to magnetic flux, describes how Zeeman observations can test these predictions, describes new results – an extensive OH Zeeman survey of dark cloud cores with the Arecibo telescope, and discusses the implications. Conclusions are that the new data support and extend the conclusions based on the older observational results – that observational data on magnetic fields in molecular clouds are consistent with the strong magnetic field model of star formation. In addition, the observational data on magnetic field strengths in the interstellar medium strongly suggest that molecular clouds must form primarily by accumulation of matter along field lines. Finally, a future observational project is described that could definitively test the ambipolar diffusion model for the formation of cores and hence of stars.

We give a brief summary of the ongoing Abastumani Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring Program started in the May 1997. More than 110000 frames are obtained during more than 1300 nights of observations for about 50 target objects, among them gamma-ray, X-ray and optical blazars. All observations were done in the BVRI bands using ST-6 CCD based photometer attached to the Newtonian focus of 70-cm meniscus telescope.

The AKARI (formerly known as ASTRO-F) mission is the first Japanese satellite dedicated for large area surveys in the infrared (Murakami et al. 2004). AKARI was launched successfully on February 22nd 2006 (JST) from JAXA's Uchinoura Space Centre, Japan. AKARI is now orbiting around the Earth in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit at the altitude of 700 km. The 68.5 cm aperture telescope and scientific instruments are cooled to 6K by liquid Helium and mechanical coolers. The expected liquid Helium holding time is now found to be at least one year after the successful aperture lid-opening on 2006 April 13th (JST). AKARI will perform the most advanced all-sky survey in 6 mid- to far-infrared wavebands since the preceding IRAS mission over 2 decades ago. Deep imaging and spectroscopic surveys near the ecliptic poles with pointed observations are also on-going in 13 wavelength bands at 2-160 μm (see Table 1, details are given in Matsuhara et al. 2006). AKARI is a perfect complement to Spitzer in respect of its wide sky area and wavelength coverage. Two unique aspects of the pointing deep surveys with AKARI are: many imaging bands including the wavelength gap of Spitzer (8-24 μm), and the slitless spectroscopic capability (Ohyama et al. in this proceeding). Not only the All-Sky Survey but also the deep pointing surveys near the ecliptic poles over ~15 deg2 in total will be particularly well suited to construct the luminosity functions of the infrared galaxies, to evaluate their clustering nature, and also to discover rare, exotic objects at various redshifts out to z ~ 3. AKARI is also capable of detecting and measuring the spectrum and the fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background. The in-orbit sensitivity and spatial resolution of the surveys are found to be sufficient to achive the scientific goals listed above.

In this review paper, we summarise the goals of asteroseismic studies of close binary stars. We first briefly recall the basic principles of asteroseismology, and highlight how the binarity of a star can be an asset, but also a complication, for the interpretation of the stellar oscillations. We discuss a few sample studies of pulsations in close binaries and summarise some case studies. This leads us to conclude that asteroseismology of close binaries is a challenging field of research, but with large potential for the improvement of current stellar structure theory. Finally, we highlight the best observing strategy to make efficient progress in the near future.

The development of large ground-based telescopes and sensitive large format detectors, as well as the develepment of various techniques for the selection of high-z galaxies enabled us to construct large samples of galaxies in the early universe, as reported in the many contributions in this proceedings. The next major step for the comprehensive understanding of the galaxy evolution would be to explore the relationship of galaxies selected with different criteria at different epochs and find links between them. In this contribution we present the properties of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z ~ 5 obtained by deep and wide blank field surveys, and through the comparison with samples at lower redshift ranges we discuss the evolution of star-forming galaxies in the early universe.

Using a large sample of ~40,000 star-forming galaxies selected from the SDSS, we derive oxygen abundance calibrations from strong-line ratios, such as [N II]/Hα, [O III]/[N II], [N II]/[O II], [N II]/[S II], [S II]/Hα, and [O III]/Hβ. The derived analytic calibrations cover a quite wide range of metallicity, from 12+log(O/H)= 7.1 to 9.3. These calibrations can be used as calibration references for the future studies about metallicities of star-forming galaxies.

The hot He-burning horizontal-branch (HB) stars and their progeny are most likely dominant ultraviolet (UV) sources in the old stellar population systems such as globular clusters (GCs). Integrated FUV flux can be an age indicator of GCs and allow us to investigate age distributions of GCs within a given galaxy or between galaxies. The unprecedented set of UV photometry for M31 by Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), coupled with most recent detailed population models enable to study detailed global UV properties of M31 GCs.

This report is a general introduction to Chinese major astronomical projects. It includes the ongoing project ‘Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope’ (LAMOST), and three major projects which have finished their feasibility study and development of key technologies: Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical (radio) Telescope (FAST); Space Solar Telescope (SST); Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). Among them, FAST and HXMT have been approved by government in 2006, and SST is pending for the next five years plan. Besides these major projects, a site survey in the west of China, a plan for developing Antarctic Dome A for astronomy, and a preliminary study of Chinese future giant optical/infrared telescopes are also briefly introduced.

Radio galaxies are identified with the most massive host galaxies known out to z = 5 and can put strong constraints on galaxy evolution models, provided their space density is accurately determined. Here, I present the important role low-frequency radio surveys will have in this by selecting the highest redshift radio galaxies using the steepness of their radio spectra.

We explore the mass-assembly and chemical enrichment histories of star forming galaxies by applying a population synthesis method to a sample of nearly 70k galaxies culled from over 500k galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5. Our method decomposes the entire observed spectrum in terms of a sum of simple stellar populations spanning a wide range of ages and metallicities, thus allowing the reconstruction of galaxy histories. A comparative study of galaxy evolution is presented, where galaxies are grouped onto bins of nebular abundances or mass. We find that galaxies whose warm interstellar medium is poor in heavy elements are slow in forming stars. Their stellar metallicities also rise slowly with time, reaching their current values (Z⋆ ~ 1/4Z⊙) in the last ~100 Myr of evolution. Systems with metal rich nebulae, on the other hand, assembled most of their mass and completed their chemical evolution long ago, reaching Z⋆ ~ Z⊙ already at lookback times of a few Gyr. These same trends, which are ultimately a consequence of galaxy downsizing, appear when galaxies are grouped according to their stellar mass. The reconstruction of galaxy histories to this level of detail out of integrated spectra offers promising prospects in the field of galaxy evolution theories.

It has been established that massive stars form in dense clusters, when large molecular clouds collapse. However, the high obscuration and small spatial scales make it difficult to investigate the earliest stage of high–mass protostellar objects (HMPOs). Therefore methanol masers are of special interests as they are closely associated with HMPOs and offer high spatial resolution; they probe the massive star formation environment at the unique scale of a few AU (1 mas corresponds to 5 AU at 5 kpc).

We present VLBI observations of methanol masers discovered in an unbiased survey along the Galactic plane. We compare their positions with infrared surveys. In general, the masers do not coincide with infrared objects. That implies they are already present at a very early evolution stage of HMPOs when the dense surroundings still absorb other radiation. In addition we present maps of five methanol masers towards HMPOs with milliarcsecond resolution taken with the recently extended European VLBI Network. These sources show a wide variety of morphologies, indicating they arise in different events going on in close surroundings of HMPOs, i.e. outflows, discs or shocks. One source G23.657−00.127 displays a regularly shaped ring which appears as a great laboratory for further research of a single HMPO. Proper motion studies should reveal an expansion or rotation of the maser components in 2–3 years.

The hot molecular core, W3(H2O), contains a massive protobinary system that is cocooned by dense gas (n(H2) ~ 107 cm−3), with about 1 arcsec (~ 2000 AU) separation of the binary system. We investigate chemical properties of the gas components around this binary system using the mm-wave transitions of complex molecules, CH3CN, SiO, HNCO, and CH3CH2CN, observed with the BIMA array. The two protostellar objects, A and C in W3(H2O), can be distinguished using chemical properties, suggesting that the source A may be younger than the source C within the time scale of less than 104 years. The hot core around the source C, traced by CH3CH2CN and the K=6 component of CH3CN, seems to have more time for chemical evolution than the source A. The SiO emission in this region suggests that there was an influence from the outside of the W3(H2O) and W3(OH) hot cores. The nitrogen chemistry may be more active in the later stage than the oxygen chemistry, but the chemical evolution of the protostellar envelopes may not be monotonic as previously suggested.

The eccentricities of catalogued binaries show that tidal interactions extend to periods of at least 1000 days. The maximum periods for complete circularization probably depend on age, rather than mass. For the longest periods all eccentricities are equally probable. For shorter periods the highest eccentricities disappear first. For the same periods, the SB2's have larger mean eccentricities than the SB1's, in accord with Keplers Third Law.

It is known that most of stars are formed as clusters (Lada & Lada 2003, ARAA 41, L57) and clusters are formed by triggering. However, the relationships of molecular clouds' conditions and properties of formed stars by triggering is not well studied. To clarify differences between triggered and spontaneous star formation through physical properties of molecular clouds (e.g. mass, density, morphology), we observed the W5-East HII region. The W5-East HII region is located at 2 kpc and has a 10 pc extent of HII region. This region has 3 Bright Rimmed Clouds (BRCs; Sugitani et al. 1991, ApJS 77, S59), which are interface between HII regions and molecular clouds, and known as sites of triggered star formation. The molecular clouds surround the W5-East (Karr et al. 2003, ApJ, 595, 900), thus we expect molecular clouds morphology is affected by the HII region and the cloud evolution is supposed to be dominated by the expanding HII region.