Evolution of star formation and gas
  In these lectures I review observations of star-forming molecular clouds in
our Galaxy and nearby galaxies to develop a physical intuition for
understanding star formation in the local and high-redshift Universe. A lot of
this material is drawn from early work in the field since much of the work was
done two decades ago and this background is not generally available in the
present literature. I also attempt to synthesise our well-developed
understanding of star formation in low-redshift galaxies with constraints from
theory and observations at high redshift to develop an intuitive model for the
evolution of galaxy mass and luminosity functions in the early Universe.
  The overall goal of this contribution is to provide students with background
helpful for analysis of far-infrared (FIR) observations from Herschel and
millimetre/submillimetre (mm/submm) imaging with ALMA (the Atacama Large
Millimetre/submillimetre Array). These two instruments will revolutionise our
understanding of the interstellar medium (ISM) and associated star formation
and galaxy evolution, both locally and in the distant Universe. To facilitate
interpreting the FIR spectra of Galactic star-forming regions and high-redshift
sources, I develop a model for the dust heating and radiative transfer in order
to elucidate the observed infrared (IR) emissions. I do this because I am not
aware of a similar coherent discussion in the literature.
