The following thesis has been undertaken primarily as an observational study. Accordingly, theoretical discussion and speculations have been kept to a minimum, formulas in most case being early quoted and references given for their derivations. Since the observational techniques used are nearly all in standard practice, they have not been fully described, while descriptions of their reductions have been relegated to appendices.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Toledo, 2009. / Typescript. "Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Physics." Bibliography: leaves 113-121.

There has been many recent observations in the area of star formation. High-resolution observations of other galaxies enabled a study of extragalactic star formation in more detailed while large scale surveys of the Milky Way enabled a more comprehensive study of Galactic star formation. The main goal of this thesis is to use multi-wavelength, large-scale observations of the Milky Way to connect Galactic to extragalactic star formation and to study star formation regulation in molecular clouds. We tested the use of extragalactic star formation rate tracers on nearby molecular clouds and found that the total infrared and 24 μm luminosity underestimate star formation rates of nearby molecular clouds by a large factor, indicating a problem of using extragalactic tracers of star formation on small regions and regions with low mass or low star formation rates. We studied the relation between star formation and molecular gas distribution in a 11 square degree of the Galactic Plane on various spatial scales starting from a clump scale of around few parsecs to a scale of ≈ 200 parsec. The result shows a good correlation between molecular gas and star formation on a scale above ≈ 5 − 8′. The star formation relation that is seen on disk-averaged scales in other galaxies shows a large scatter on the small scales. We built a catalog of Galactic molecular clouds with measured star formation rates and studied the relations between properties of molecular clouds and star formation. We tested several models of star formation on the catalog of molecular clouds. We found that the dense gas mass shows significant correlations with star formation rates but the depletion time of dense gas varies with other properties of the clouds. We found that the free- fall efficiency is higher in dense gas compared to the general molecular gas of the clouds.

Thesis (PhD) - Swinburne University of Technology, 2008. / A dissertation presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Swinburne University of Technology - 2008. Typescript. Bibliography: p. 133-145.

Thesis--Harvard University. / Bibliography: leaves 175-183.

This thesis describes the results of a survey of the HI42ɑ recombination line emission at 2.3 GHz from HII regions in the Southern Milky Way, carried out with the 26 m diameter Hartebeesthoek radio telescope. The Galactic Longitude range covered was 290° to 40°. Single recombination lines were detected from 375 positions. Multiple lines were observed towards 90 positions in the inner Galaxy. No line emission could be detected in 28 positions. Continuum antenna temperatures were estimated from drift scans or radio maps observed for the purpose. LTE electron temperatures and turbulent velocities of the HII regions were calculated where possible. The properties of the sample were compared to those observed in HI09ɑ surveys. The lines observed from over 50 positions were first detections, of which half were associated with optically-identified HII regions. In about 150 cases the lines were only the second to be detected from those HII regions. The processes of the radio emission, detection, and analysis were simulated numerically. The detectability of the emission and the magnitude of non-LTE effects and pressure-broadening in multi-component HII regions was predicted and compared to observations. The radio luminosity function of the HII regions was determined over a range of three orders of magnitude in intrinsic brightness for the first time, using techniques which corrected for different types of incompleteness in the samples. The luminosity function was compared to those in five selected spiral galaxies, and shown to lie between those of M33 and M81. An alternate form of the luminosity function was developed for use with a numerical model of the spiral arm structure of the Milky Way. The physical parameters defining the major spiral arms were established by comparing synthesized diagrams of radial velocity versus Galactic Longitude with those actually observed. The faint, extended HII regions S9 and RCW129 in Scorpius, the Barnard Loop in Orion, and S296 in Canis Major were analyzed, using all available data. All the recombination lines from these HII regions were first detections

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Physics and Astronomy." Includes bibliographical references.

Proefschrift--Groningen. / An investigation of dark areas in the Milky way to find the amount of light absorption and the distance of the absorbing clouds. cf. p. l.

Proefschrift--Groningen. / Preliminary note in Dutch.