I review the progress made in understanding the physics and modes of star cluster formation through the use of direct self-gravitating hydrodynamical simulations, including those that have recently been performed incorporating radiative transfer and magnetic fields.

NGC 6611, Trumpler 14, Trumpler 15, Trumpler 16, and Collinder 232 are very young open clusters located in star-formation regions in the Eagle Nebula and Carina in the Milky Way, and NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. With different instrumentation and techniques, it has been possible to detect and classify new Herbig Ae/Be and classical Be stars and to provide new tests/comparisons of the Be stars' appearance models. Special (He-strong) stars in these star-formation regions are also discussed.

We describe the methodology required for estimation of photometric estimates of metallicity based on the SDSS gri passbands, which can be used to probe the properties of main-sequence stars beyond ~10 kpc, complementing studies of nearby stars from more metallicity-sensitive color indices that involve the u passband. As a first application of this approach, we determine photometric metal abundance estimates for individual main-sequence stars in the Virgo Overdensity, which covers almost 1000 deg2 on the sky, based on a calibration of the metallicity sensitivity of stellar isochrones in the gri filter passbands using field stars with well-determined spectroscopic metal abundances. Despite the low precision of the method for individual stars, internal errors of σ[Fe/H]~0.1 dex can be achieved for bulk stellar populations. The global metal abundance of the Virgo Overdensity determined in this way is 〈[Fe/H]〉 = −2.0±0.1 (internal) ±0.5 (systematic), from photometric measurements of 0.7 million stars with heliocentric distances from ~10 kpc to ~20 kpc. A preliminary metallicity map, based on results for 2.9 million stars in the northern SDSS DR-7 footprint, exhibits a shift to lower metallicities as one proceeds from the inner- to the outer-halo population, consistent with recent interpretation of the kinematics of local samples of stars with spectroscopically available metallicity estimates and full space motions.

In a survey of 18 nearby Seyfert nuclei, we find evidence for geometrically thick gas disks on scales of tens of parsecs. Mapping the interstellar medium traced by H2 ν = 1–0 S(1) emission using the infrared integral field spectrometers OSIRIS and SINFONI reveals general disk rotation with an additional significant component of random bulk motion implied by the high local velocity dispersion. The size scale of the typical nuclear gas disk is ~30 pc in radius with a comparable vertical height, and the distribution and kinematics suggest the gas is spatially mixed with the nuclear stellar population. Based on the estimated characteristic gas mass fraction of 10%, the average gas mass within this region is ~107M⊙. This suggests column densities of NH ~ 5 × 1023 cm−2, but the significantly lower densities implied by the stellar continuum extinction indicate that the gas distribution on these scales is dominated by dense clumps. We discuss the feasibility of constraining the masses of the central black holes via modeling of the gas disk kinematics, highlighting the importance of properly accounting for the gas velocity dispersion, and the use of these direct mass estimates to calibrate masses derived from the method of reverberation mapping.

Using the ESO NTT/SUSI2 telescope, we observed TWA22AB during five different observing runs over 1.2 years to measure its trigonometric parallax and proper motion. HARPS at the ESO 3.6m telescope was also used to measure the system's radial velocity over 2 years. Based on trigonometric-parallax, proper-motion and radial-velocity measurements, we re-analyzed the membership of TWA22AB of the young, nearby associations TW Hydrae, β Pictoris and Tucana–Horologium.

To present a summary of IAU Symposium 265 it is perhaps best to first step back and ask the question “Why did we meet in Rio to discuss chemical abundances?”. Part of the scientific rationale was to host a meeting that brought together researchers who probe chemical abundances and chemical evolution in all of the different astrophysical environments. All meetings should be planned such that they have an outcome and, with such a diverse set of abundance specialists brought together in one place to talk about their favorite topics, the stated outcome for IAUS265 was to provide, within our current understanding of the universe, a unified picture of the production of chemical elements over cosmic time; such a view is what I think of as cosmochemistry.

We report on preliminary results of spectroscopic determination of the atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances of the parent stars of the recently discovered transiting planets CoRoT-2b and CoRoT-4b. We found a flat distribution of the relative abundances as a function of their condensation temperatures. Also, we introduce a new methodology to investigate a relation between the abundances of these stars and the internal migration of their planets.

We present a strong correlation between 12μm mid-IR and intrinsic X-ray (2–10 keV) luminosities of local Seyferts. This work is based on new diffraction-limited mid-IR observations with the 8-m Very Large Telescope (VLT), resulting in the least-contaminated core fluxes of 42 Seyferts to date.

Fluid disks and tori around black holes are discussed within different approaches and with the emphasis on the role of disk gravity. We first review the prospects for investigating the gravitational field of a black hole–disk system by analytical solutions of stationary, axially symmetric Einstein equations. More detailed considerations are focused on the middle and outer parts of extended disk-like configurations where relativistic effects are small and the Newtonian description is adequate. As an example, we investigate the case of a torus near a massive black hole that is a member of the black-hole binary system.

We present new evidence of X-ray absorption variability on time scales from a few hours to a few days for several nearby bright AGNs. The observed NH variations imply that the X-ray absorber is made of clouds eclipsing the X-ray source with velocities in excess of 103 km s−1, and densities, sizes and distances from the central black hole typical of BLR clouds. We conclude that the variable X-ray absorption is due to the same clouds emitting the broad emission lines in the optical/UV. We then concentrate on the two highest signal-to-noise spectra of eclipses, discovered in two long observations of NGC 1365 and Mrk 766, and we show that the obscuring clouds have a cometary shape, with a high density head followed by a tail with decreasing NH. Our results show that X-ray time resolved spectroscopy can be a powerful way to directly measure the physical and geometrical properties of BLR clouds.