The South Pole Telescope survey of 2500 deg^2 in the southern sky has enabled the selection of a large sample of massive galaxy clusters extending to z~1.5 through their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Dark Energy Survey deep, optical multiband imaging is enabling studies of the galaxy populations within those clusters and constraints on the masses of the systems through weak lensing. Analyses of the population of SZE selected clusters from SPT indicates cosmological constraints that are in good agreement with other cosmological probes and that together with other probes provide among the most precise constraints yet on the growth rate of cosmic structure and the equation of state of the dark energy. Improved mass constraints from weak lensing and new cluster finding experiments in the X-ray through eROSITA promise to open the window on new studies of cosmology and structure evolution.

Neutrinos are surely the most enigmatic fundamental particles in Nature. Wolfgang Pauli postulated the neutrino as an undetectable particle, however nowadays neutrinos can be detected routinely thanks to very large advanced detectors. Many of the developments in the neutrino field were triggered by the pioneering experiment of Ray Davis observing too few neutrinos from the Sun compared to expectations. Surprisingly the solar neutrino problem was caused by our incomplete understanding of the particle physics. The solution was: Neutrinos have mass and oscillate, changing from one flavor to another. It was for these findings that the Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 was awarded to Takaaki Kajita (from Super-Kamiokande Experiment) and Arthur B. McDonald (from SNO Experiment). Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaborations. The talk will retrace the history of the neutrino and discoveries in the neutrino field. A particular focus will be on the discovery of neutrino oscillations. Future efforts in neutrino oscillation physics and neutrino astronomy will be discussed and their potential for more discoveries evaluated.

Gaia is an ESA satellite project launched at Dec. 2013. It will map our Galaxy in 3D by measuring six astrometric parameters (i.e. two positions, two proper motions, parallax, and radial velocity) of one billion stars over the whole sky. Astrometric accuracy of Gaia for G type star is 5-16 μas for bright stars, 24 μas at V = 15 mag and 540 μas at V = 20 mag, which is the highest accuracy that has ever been achieved. Gaia simultaneously obtains low-resolution spectrum of each star using Blue and Red Photometer (BP and RP: 330-680nm and 640-1000nm, respectively). By the nature of Gaia, it will produce enormous amount of complex data. Analyzing Gaia data is thus a challenging and huge task requiring big-data experts and dedicated computing powers as well. In this talk, I will give an overview of the Gaia mission and efforts for Gaia data analysis in DPAC (Data Processing and Analysis Consortium).

The early phases of supernovae (SNe) reveal very important characteristics of their stellar progenitors and their explosion mechanisms. On the one hand, the shock breakout, which is the first electromagnetic signature occuring when the shock emerges at the surface, carries key information on the structure of the exploding star. Secondly, for core-collapse SNe the rise behaviour is directly related to the properties of the collapsing star while for thermonuclear SNe the unknown companion of the exploding white dwarf can leave an imprint in the first hours to days of the light-curve. We present past and current results of early light-curve studies of different SN types and lay out the exciting landscape that the new high-cadence surveys like the KMTNet Supernova Project (KSP) and the High-cadence Transient Survey (HiTS) will bring along.

Brown dwarfs are the objects that bridge the realms of stars and planets, making them important benchmarks for testing star and planet formation theories. In particular, studies of brown dwarfs at young ages are crucial for understanding the mass dependence in the formation and early evolution of stars. Star forming regions and young clusters harbour large populations of these substellar objects, including some with masses comparable to those of giant planets. Our deep survey SONYC (Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters) was designed to provide a census of the substellar population in nearby star forming regions, and characterize their Initial Mass Functions down to unprecedented masses below 10 MJup. In this talk I will present the current status of the studies of the low-mass IMF, discuss the effects of environment, and outline the impact on our understanding of star formation.

Galaxies are the end product of the hierarchical universe. Understanding them thus requires reliable physics on all scales, from individual stellar populations to structure formation. As an ab-initio approach, semi-analytic models (SAMs) for galaxy formation and evolution are widely used to investigate galaxy properties. In this talk, I will give a brief introduction of a new SAM, ySAM, which has been developed by utilising halo merger trees extracted from N-body simulations and up-to-date physical prescriptions. Since halo merger trees are the essential backbones of SAMs, the impact of different halo merger tree building algorithms on ySAM will be presented. Galaxy mergers and in-situ star formation are considered to be two main channels for galaxy mass growth. I will show the contribution of mergers to stellar mass assembly histories according to the wide range of halo and galaxy mass. Finally, I will briefly report some issues on galaxy chemical evolution in ySAM.

Materials exposed to the harsh space environment are altered over time in both physical and compositional properties. The general definition of space weathering simply refers to this alteration. There are multiple processes, however, that can and do alter materials on the surface of an airless body: comminution, melting, vaporization by energetic impacts; gardening of a particulate soil and mixing with local and foreign materials by repeated impacts; sputtering at the atomic/molecular scale by solar wind; crystal damaging by UV radiation and energetic particles; structural fatigue from diurnal thermal cycling; mobility or loss of volatile species by radiant heating and sublimation; etc. Thus, space weathering takes many forms and its alteration products are a direct function of a) location in the solar system, b) composition and texture of the surface, c) mass and magmatic evolution of the body, and d) length of time exposed. The regolith of only two extraterrestrial bodies has been directly sampled (The Moon and Itokawa). These samples and the ongoing detailed analyses in Earth-based laboratories provide a cornerstone for recognizing and understanding some aspects of space weathering effects. A handful of additional bodies have been visited by spacecraft and studied in detail for extended periods with remote sensors (Mercury, Eros, Vesta, and most recently the dwarf planet Ceres and comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko). Seven additional asteroids have been observed with instruments during a spacecraft flyby, while the satellites of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, have been studied to different degrees through multiple flybys. A few of the various forms of space weathering that are now recognized (or hypothesized) will be discussed and illustrated.