Recent results from large surveys of the local universe show that the galaxy-black hole connection is linked to host morphology at a fundamental level and that there are two fundamentally different modes of black hole growth. The fraction of early-type galaxies with actively growing black holes, and therefore the AGN duty cycle, declines significantly with increasing black hole mass. Late-type galaxies exhibit the opposite trend: the fraction of actively growing black holes increases with black hole mass. Issues of AGN selection bias and prospects for near-future efforts with high redshift data are discussed.

The current status of numerical simulations of galaxy formation is reviewed. After a description of the main numerical simulation techniques, I will present several applications in order to illustrate how numerical simulations have improved our understanding of the galaxy formation process.

Observations of large samples of galaxies from low to high redshifts are composing a picture of remarkable simplicity: (1) The star formation rate (SFR) of starforming galaxies scales almost linearly with mass, strongly decline with cosmic time, and exhibits very small scatter around the average relation. (2) Due to the high observed SFRs the mass of galaxies at high redshifts must increase very rapidly, and yet the mass function of star forming galaxies evolves only very slightly with redshift. (3) At all redshifts the fraction of quenched (passively evolving) galaxies increases with galactic stellar mass and with local overdensity, with the remarkable property that the relative efficiency of "mass quenching" is independent of environment, and that of "environment quenching" is independent of mass. In a recent paper by the zCOSMOS collaboration, Peng et al. (2010) demonstrate that these three empirical facts suffice to account for the observed evolution of the galaxy mass function and naturally generate the "double-Schechter" mass function for quenched galaxies.

The origin of the galaxies represents an important focus of current cosmological research, both observational and theoretical. Its resolution involves a comprehensive understanding of star formation and evolution, galaxy dynamics, supermassive black holes, and the cosmology of the very early universe. In this paper, I will review our current understanding of galaxy formation and review some of the challenges that lie ahead. Specific issues that I address include the galaxy luminosity function, feedback by supernovae and by AGN, and downsizing. I argue that current evidence favours two distinct modes of star formation in the early universe, in order to account for the origin of disk and massive spheroidal galaxies. However perhaps the most urgent need is for a robust theory of star formation.

We present results of a test-study of the large-scale survey using the multi-beam receiver system recently installed on the 14 m telescope at Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory (TRAO). We have tested several modes of mapping, and found suitable (time-saving) mapping parameters of 'ON-SOURCE' = 8, 'OFF-SOURCE' = 1 when using 'RPT' = 3 as a position-switching mode. We observed 504 spectra towards the NGC 7538, a star forming molecular cloud in the transition of J = 1 - 0 of 12CO . From the Outer Galaxy Survey database (Heyer et al., 1998) we obtained 504 spectra for the same region. We compared integrated intensities, line profiles of two databases, and found that they are consistent to each other. From the intensity ratio of these two databases we also found that the value of forward spillover scattering of the TRAO telescope system is 0.58.

JHK near-infrared photometry of star clusters in the dwarf irregular/dwarf starburst galaxy NGC 1569 are presented. After adopting several criteria to exclude other sources (foreground stars, background galaxies, etc.), 154 candidates of star clusters are identified in the near-infrared images of NGC 1569, which include very young star clusters. Especially, from analysis based on theoretical background, we found ten very young star clusters near the center of NGC 1569. The total reddening values toward these clusters are estimated to be AV=1-9 mag from comparison with the theoretical estimates given by the Leitherer et al. (1999)'s star cluster model.

We investigated the circumnuclear region of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 5728, using the CFHT 3.6 m OASIS [S ΙΙ], [O ΙΙΙ] & Hβ, spectral images complemented with the IUE spectra. The physical condition of the circumnuclear zone has been derived: the gas density (indicated by [S ΙΙ]6716/31 ratio) around the C core is generally similar to that around the NW core, i.e., ~ 500 cm-3. However, there appears to be evidence of a higher density shell in front of the NW core, ~ 104 cm -3 at -250 km s-1. The IUE Si ΙΙΙ]1892/C ΙΙΙ]1909 ratio implies a possible presence of a broad emission region of gas densities of ~1010 cm-3. The SE cone and surrounding area show several prominent features, while the NW cone does not show any particular structure: we identified three prominent blobs in the SE cone and one possible candidate in the NW cone. The outflow activities exist within the relatively large conic opening angle. We discussed the possibility of inflow or outflow activities of blobs found in the circumnuclear region of NGC 5728. The gas around two cores, two cones, and several blobs, is likely to be excited by the AGN hot source(s).