Median-likelihood estimates of star formation rate averaged over the last 10⁸ yrs ψ , plotted against stellar mass M_∗a) and dust mass M_db) for 15 of our ULIRGs with (red points), and 1538 local star-forming galaxies of lower infrared luminosities () selected from the SDSS-IRAS sample of da Cunha et al. 2010 (grey points). The errors bars correspond to the 16th–84th percentile range of the parameter likelihood distributions. The light grey lines show the fit to the SDSS points: a) best fit using a slope of 0.77 as found in Elbaz et al. (2007): log (ψ) = −7.467 + 0.77log (M_∗); b) log (M_d) = 7.107 + 1.11log (ψ), as found by da Cunha et al. (2010).