This chapter summarizes the optical properties of X-ray binaries, with special emphasis on the class of low mass X-ray binaries and soft X-ray transients. The latter provide the most compelling evidence for the existence of black holes in the Universe, with nine well-established dynamical studies. We review the techniques employed to extract the

Integral field optical spectroscopy with the INTEGRAL fiber-fed system is used to investigate the properties of the tidal-induced star formation in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 12112+0305. Implications for the study of the SCUBA sources are briefly mentioned.

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In this contribution we present our on-going project about the understanding of the evolution of galactic OB associations and the implications on the global understanding of massive star evolution. Galactic OB associations are the ideal laboratory for testing our current knowledge about the stellar and chemical evolution, and the interaction of

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We use Hα measurements of complete sets of HII regions in disc galaxies to compute the fraction of ionizing photons which escape from them using the hypothesis of density bounding. The escaping flux is more than enough to ionize the observed diffuse ionized gas (DIG) and the balance implies that an important fraction of the flux escapes into the