I review the current status of understanding when, how long, and how giant elliptical galaxies formed, focusing on the globular clusters. Several observational evidences show that massive elliptical galaxies formed at z > 2 (> 10 Gyr ago). Giant elliptical galaxies show mostly a bimodal color distribution of globular clusters, indicating a factor of ≈ 20 metallicity difference between the two peaks. The red globular clusters (RGCs) are closely related with the stellar halo in color and spatial distribution, while the blue globular clusters (BGCs) are not. The ratio of the number of the RGCs and that of the BGCs varies depending on galaxies. It is concluded that the BGCs might have formed 12-13 Gyr ago, while the RGCs and giant elliptical galaxies might have formed similarly 10-11 Gyr ago. It remains now to explain the existence of a gap between the RGC formation epoch and the BGC formation epoch, and the rapid metallicity increase during the gap (Δt ≈ 2 Gyr). If hierarchical merging can form a significant number of giant elliptical galaxies > 10 Gyr ago, several observational constraints from stars and globular clusters in elliptical galaxies can be explained.

Recent observations of galaxy clusters in radio and X-ray indicate that cosmic rays and magnetic fields may be energetically important in the intracluster medium. According to the estimates based on theses observational studies, the combined pressure of these two components of the intracluster medium may range between 10% ~ 100% of gas pressure, although their total energy is probably time dependent. Hence, these non-thermal components may have influenced the formation and evolution of cosmic structures, and may provide unique and vital diagnostic information through various radiations emitted via their interactions with surrounding matter and cosmic background photons. We suggest that shock waves associated with cosmic structures, along with individual sources such as active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies, supply the cosmic rays and magnetic fields to the intracluster medium and to surrounding large scale structures. In order to study 1) the properties of cosmic shock waves emerging during the large scale structure formation of the universe, and 2) the dynamical influence of cosmic rays, which were ejected by AGN-like sources into the intracluster medium, on structure formation, we have performed two sets of N-body /hydrodynamic simulations of cosmic structure formation. In this contribution, we report the preliminary results of these simulations.

We have measured the correlation functions of the optically selected clusters of galaxies in the Abell and the APM catalogs, and of the X-ray clusters in the X-ray-Brightest Abell-type Clusters of galaxies (XBACs) catalog and the Brightest Clusters Sample (BCS). The same analysis method and the same method of characterizing the resulting correlation functions are applied to all observational samples. We have found that the amplitude of the correlation function of the APM clusters is much higher than what has been previously claimed, in particular for richer subsamples. The correlation length of the APM clusters with the richness R ≥ 70 (as defined by the APM team) is found to be r0 = 25.4 -3.0 +3.1 h-1 Mpc. The amplitude of correlation function is about 2.4 times higher than that of Croft et al. (1997). The correlation lengths of the Abell clusters with the richness class RC ≥ 0 and 1 are measured to be r0 = 17.4 -1.1 +1.2 and 21.0 -2.8 +2.8 h-1 Mpc, respectively, which is consistent with our results for the APM sample at the similar level of richness. The richness dependence of cluster correlations is found to be r0= 0.40dc + 3.2 where dc is the mean intercluster separation. This is identical in slope with the Bahcall & West (1992)'s estimate, but is inconsistent with the weak dependence of Croft et al. (1997). The X-ray bright Abell clusters in the XBACs catalog and the X-ray selected clusters in the BCS catalog show strong clustering. The correlation length of the XBACs clusters with Lx ≥ 0.65×10 44 h-2 erg s-1 is 30.3 -6.5 +8.2 h-1 Mpc, and that of the BCS clusters with Lx ≥ 0.70×10 44 h-2erg s-1 is 30.2 -8.9 +9.8 h-1 Mpc. The clustering strength of the X-ray clusters is much weaker than what is expected from the optical clusters.

We review the early historical developement of astronomical spectrographs, properties of emission line spectra of HII regions in spiral galaxies, and absorption line features of galactic globular clusters. Emission line spectra of HII regions within three spiral galaxies NGC 300, NGC 1365, and NGC 7793, which were observed from AAT/IPCS, had been analysed, and we discuss the abundances of elements in HII regions and the radial abundace gradients through the galaxies. The radial UBV color variations of two globular clusters, NGC 1851 and NGC 2808, were examined for correlations with radial variations of several absorption lines in the integrated spectra, which were obtained from SAAO 74 inch telescope and image tube spectrograph. Nine giant star's spectra in NGC 3201 were also obtained and analysed for the radial abundance gradients in the globular cluster. The results show that the presence of a radial color gradient in a globular cluster is correlated with the presence of abundance gradients. Finally, we suggest some scientific programs for the new high dispersion spectrograph, which will be installed to the BOAO 1.8m telescope.

We have found that the two-point correlation function of the APM clusters of galaxies has an amplitude much higher than that claimed by the APM group. As the richness limit increases from R = 53 to 80, the correlation length increases from 17.5 to 28.9 h-1Mpc. This indicates that the richness dependence of the APM cluster correlation function is also much stronger than what the APM group has reported. The richness dependence can be represented by a fitting formula ro = 0.53dc + 0.01, which is consistent with the Bahcall's formula ro = 0.4dc. We have tried to find the possible reason for discrepancies. However, our estimates for the APM cluster correlation function are found to be robust against variation of the method of calculation and of sample definition.

Assuming that particles can be accelerated to high energies via diffusive shock acceleration process at the accretion shocks formed by the infalling flow toward the clusters of galaxies, we have calculated the expected spectrum of high-energy protons from the cosmological ensemble of the cluster accretion shocks. The model with Jokipii diffusion limit could explain the observed cosmic ray spectrum near 10 19eV with reasonable parameters and models if about 10-4 of the infalling kinetic energy can be injected into the intergalactic space as the high energy particles.

The photometry is reported for galaxies in two clusters A1983, 2065 with redshifts 0.046, 0.072 respectively. The luminosity segregation is observed only within a magnitude from the brightest galaxy. The alignment of the galaxy major axis is observed in the Corona Borealis cluster. The intermediate distance clusters (0.05 < z < 0.15) will be studied by CCD mounted on 125cm RCh and 70cm meniscus type telescopes.