Title: 
       Toward a Quantitative and Physical Interpretation of
          Mid-Infrared Emission from Galaxies

Abstract:

   Through its well-recognised advantages and the availability of
   powerful new facilities, mid-infrared emission is becoming an
   increasingly used tool for the study of, amongst other things, the
   energetics of bolometrically luminous--and often dust
   enshrouded--galaxies.  Although much progress can be made using
   observations of local, and hopefully well-understood, galaxies as
   templates for the interpretation of other observations, a more
   satisfactory approach is to make use of physically based models to
   directly compare to the observations.

   I will present some such models, based on a comprehensive dust
   model and relatively simple radiative transfer, and illustrate
   their application to objects in the near-by universe with good
   multi-wavelength data including some new high resolution
   mid-infrared imaging (NGC 520 and Arp 220). The implications for
   the interpretation of general mid-infrared observations will then
   be discussed.