Prof. Jian-Sheng ChenT. M. Tripp and D. V. BowenC. W. Churchill and G. G. Kacprzak and C. C. SteidelP. PetitjeanJ. T. Stocke and B. A. Keeney and S. V. PentonD. G. York et al.B. Aracil and T. M. Tripp and D. V. BowenH. W. ChenL. Christensen et al.G. G. Kacprzak and C. W. Churchill and C. C. SteidelB. Menard et al.D. B. Nestor and D. A. Turnshek and S. M. RaoJ. L. RosenbergD. A. Turnshek et al.M. A. Zwaan et al.S. M. RaoA. M. WolfeN. Kanekar and J. N. ChengalurN. Lehner et al.R. Srianand et al.P. M. Vreeswijk et al.T. TheunsH. J. Mo et al.S. Bertone and S. D. M. White and F. StoehrJ. S. Bolton et al.J. L. Hou et al.W. P. Lin and G. Borner and H. J. MoA. H. MallerA. H. Nelson and D. K. Churches and M. G. EdmundsM. RauchM. VielJ. Bergeron and S. Herbert-FortS. L. EllisonA. Aguirre and J. SchayeM. Dessauges-Zavadsky et al.T. S. KimV. P. Kulkarni et al.S. Muller et al.R. E. Schulte-Ladbeck and B. Konig and B. CherinkaG. VladiloJ. F. Wang et al.K. L. AdelbergerS. R. FurlanettoG. D. Becker and W. L. W. Sargent and M. RauchE. M. Hu et al.I. T. Iliev et al.C. Peroux et al.H. Rottgering and M. van Haarlem and G. MileyX. Y. Xia et al.A. Aghaee et al.W. H. Bian and Y. H. Zhao and L. P. ChengN. Bouche et al.S. Caucci et al.H. Chand et al.S. Cristiani et al.D. Dultzin-Hacyan et al.Z. Y. Huo et al.E. R. Kasimova and Yu. A. ShchekinovB. A. Keeney et al.P. Khare et al.B. Lawton et al.C. Ledoux et al.C. Ledoux and P. Petitjean and R. SrianandM. Lemoine-Busserolle et al.Y. C. Liang et al.S. Lopez et al.Y. Minowa et al.T. Misawa et al.T. Misawa et al.P. Molaro et al.K. Okoshi and M. NagashimaJ. M. O'Meara et al.G. E. Prochter et al.P. Richter et al.E. Ryan-WeberA. Smette et al.T. Tepper-Garia and U. Fritze-v. AlvenslebenY. X. Zhang and H. W. Zheng and Y. H. ZhaoW. Zheng et al.

Preface	p. xiii
Welcome address	p. xv
The organising committee	p. xvii
Conference participants	p. xix
The conference in photographs	p. xxi
Part 1 The Absorber-Galaxy Connection
The connections between QSO absorption systems and galaxies: low-redshift observations (Review)	p. 5
Mgii absorption through intermediate redshift galaxies (Invited)	p. 24
The sizes of absorption line systems (Invited)	p. 42
The relationship between Ly[alpha] forest absorbers and galaxies: finding the keys at the lowest redshifts (Invited)	p. 50
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey QSO absorption line catalogue (Invited)	p. 58
Ovi: nature and correlation with galaxies	p. 65
Unmasking damped Ly[alpha] absorbing galaxies at z	p. 68
A survey for DLA galaxies with integral field spectroscopy	p. 74
Galaxy morphology - halo gas connections	p. 80
Constraining MgII absorber systems with the SDSS	p. 86
Towards an understanding of the physical nature of MgII absorption systems	p. 92
The Hi properties and environment of Lyman-[alpha] absorbers	p. 98
The mean metallicity - kinematics relation in high column density MgII absorbers and selection effects in DLA surveys	p. 104
Local galaxies as damped Lyman-[alpha] absorber analogues	p. 114
Part 2 Lyman-Alpha Systems
Damped Lyman [alpha] surveys and statistics: a review (Review)	p. 125
Star formation in damped Ly[alpha] systems (Invited)	p. 148
Hi 21cm absorption studies of damped Lyman-[alpha] systems	p. 156
The distribution and baryon content of Hi absorbers at z	p. 162
Molecular hydrogen at high-z: physical conditions in protogalaxies	p. 168
DLA systems in GRB afterglows	p. 174
Part 3 Models and Numerical Simulations
Numerical simulations of quasar absorbers (Review)	p. 185
Cold gas in dark matter halos and the formation of late-type galaxies (Invited)	p. 205
The effects of galactic winds on the IGM in semi-analytic simulations	p. 213
Constraints on the meta-galactic hydrogen ionisation rate from the Lyman-[alpha] forest opacity	p. 219
Star formation and chemical evolution of DLAs with semi-analytical models	p. 225
Low-redshift quasar absorption-line systems: inside and around galaxies	p. 231
Multi-phase galaxy formation and quasar absorption systems	p. 237
DLAs in simulated galaxies and dust obscuration	p. 243
Expansion and collapse in the cosmic web	p. 249
The Lyman-[alpha] forest as a probe of fundamental physics	p. 255
Part 4 Abundances and Dust
Highly ionised absorbers at high redshift (Review)	p. 265
Absorption systems in radio-selected QSO surveys (Invited)	p. 281
Observational tests of intergalactic enrichment models	p. 289
Chemical variations and star formation histories of damped Ly[alpha] systems	p. 295
The metallicity of the high column density Ly[alpha] forest at 2	p. 301
The evolution of damped Ly-[alpha] absorbers: metallicities and star formation rates	p. 307
Probing isotopic ratios at redshift z = 0.89: molecular line absorption toward PKS 1830-211	p. 313
Chemical abundances in star-forming galaxies and damped Lyman alpha systems	p. 319
Dust obscuration of DLA galaxies	p. 325
Detection of the 2175 A dust feature from The Sloan Digital Sky Survey first and second data releases	p. 331
Part 5 High Redshift: Theory and Observations
Galaxies, intergalactic absorption lines, and feedback at high redshift (Invited)	p. 341
Quasar absorption lines at high redshift: through a glass darkly (Invited)	p. 349
The very high-redshift Ly[alpha] forest at high resolution	p. 357
Spectroscopic studies of z [tilde] 5.7 and z [tilde] 6.5 galaxies: implications for reionisation	p. 363
Ionisation fronts and their interaction with density fluctuations: implications for reionisation	p. 369
Total gas mass [Omega subscript Hi+Heii] at z > 2	p. 375
LOFAR - a new low-frequency radio telescope	p. 381
IR QSOs at low and high redshifts	p. 387
Part 6 Posters
The mean Hi optical depth of the intergalactic medium	p. 397
Active galactic nuclei and their host galaxies	p. 400
Measuring the halo mass of Mgii absorbers from their cross-correlation with Luminous Red Galaxies	p. 403
The topology of the intergalactic medium from multiple lines of sight to quasars	p. 406
Probing the variation of the fine-structure constant using QSO absorption lines	p. 409
Probing the 3-D matter distribution at z [tilde] 2 with QSO multiple lines of sight	p. 412
BAL QSOs in the eigenvector 1 context: toward a self-consistent model of the line absorbing/emitting regions	p. 415
Chandra observations of isolated early-type galaxies	p. 418
Self-consistent modelling of the dust evolution in damped Ly-alpha systems	p. 421
Does the Milky Way produce a starburst wind?	p. 424
Evidence for the presence of dust in intervening QSO absorbers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey	p. 427
A search for organic molecules in intermediate redshift DLAs	p. 430
The mass-metallicity relation for high-redshift damped Ly[alpha] galaxies	p. 433
The VLT-UVES survey for molecular hydrogen in high-redshift damped Lyman-[alpha] systems	p. 436
Physical properties of lensed high-redshift galaxies	p. 439
The metallicities of Luminous Infrared Galaxies at z [tilde] 0.7, hints to the evolution of galaxies	p. 442
A damped Ly[alpha] system along two lines of sight at z = 0.93	p. 445
Adaptive optics imaging search for damped Ly[alpha] absorbers toward APM 08279 +5255	p. 448
The evolution of weak Mgii absorption lines	p. 451
H I gas in higher density regions of the IGM	p. 454
VLT/UVES shows no cosmological variability of [alpha]	p. 457
Evolution of damped Lyman-alpha galaxies from hierarchical structure formation models	p. 460
Chemical history at z [greater than or equal] 2.0: first results from the Magellan + Keck survey of Lyman limit systems	p. 463
The MIKE/HIRES Lyman limit survey: first results	p. 466
Hunting for the missing baryons in the warm-hot intergalactic medium	p. 469
Correlation of low z Lyman-[alpha] absorbers with Hi-selected galaxies	p. 472
Evidence for a magnitude-dependent bias in the Hamburg/ESO survey for damped Lyman-[alpha] systems	p. 475
The stochastic effects of Ly[alpha] absorbers on the broadband luminosities of galaxies	p. 478
Preselecting AGN candidates from multi-wavelength data by ADTree	p. 481
Progress in studies of intergalactic Heii absorption	p. 484
Author index	p. 491