HcRNAV is a small icosahedral virus that infects the shellfish-killing marine dinoflagellate Heterocapsa circularisquama, which harbors a dicistronic linear single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) genome ca. 4.4 kb in length. Its major capsid protein (MCP) gene sequence is not expressed by various strains of Escherichia coli, possibly because of a codon usage problem. To solve this problem, a chemically modified (i.e., de novo synthesized) gene was designed and cloned into the pCold-GST expression vector, and transformed into E. coli strain C41 (DE3), in which codon usage was universally optimized to efficiently express the polypeptide having the viral MCP amino acid sequence. The bacterially expressed protein, which was purified after a procedure involving denaturation and refolding, successfully formed virus-like particles that significantly resembled native HcRNAV particles. The purified, denatured protein was used as an antigen to immunize rabbits, and the resulting antiserum was shown to be strongly reactive to not only the bacterially expressed recombinant protein, but also to native HcRNAV MCP by Western blotting and dot immunoassays, respectively. These results indicate that an antiserum recognizing native HcRNAV MCP was successfully obtained using bacterially expressed HcRNAV MCP as the antigen.

In age-hardenable Cu-Ti alloys, cold work before aging enhances their mechanical properties and shortens the aging time for obtaining the maximum hardness. In order to discuss hardening behaviors, microstructural evolutions such as dislocation rearrangements, progress of spinodal decomposition, and subsequent precipitation from the spinodal region during aging need to be analyzed precisely. Therefore, we employed a probing method combining the small-and the wide-angle X-ray scattering methods to characterize the precipitate size and the progress of spinodal decomposition, respectively. Sideband peaks appearing adjacent to Bragg reflection peaks in the X-ray diffraction patterns of a copper matrix were analyzed to estimate the development of compositional modulations of titanium accompanied by spinodal decomposition. The results of these analytical procedures revealed that the growth rates of the spinodal region and nanometer-scales precipitates in Cu-Ti alloys are less susceptible to dislocations introduced during cold working before aging, and that dislocations introduced during prior cold working annihilate in the initial aging stage. Consequently, overaging, which is mainly induced by dislocation annihilation, in a cold-worked Cu-Ti alloy occurs after a shorter aging time than in an unworked alloy.

Sample dependence of dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit (zT ) and power factor (PF) were determined for the non-stoichiometric organic conductor (TTT) 2 I 3+δ (TTT = tetrathiatetracene, δ ≤ 0.1) with the simultaneous measurement of the electrical resistivity (ρ), thermopower (S ) and thermal conductivity on small single crystals. Both the zT and PF show large sample dependence between 10 and 310 K, even though all the samples have nearly stoichiometric composition of TTT:I − 3 ∼ 2:1 (δ ∼ 0). It was found that both the electrical conductivity (σ = 1/ρ) and S increase at room temperature as disorder -that is phase mismatch among the iodine chains -becomes more pronounced. This behavior contrasts the usual tendency that the S decreases as the σ increases in conventional conductors; and suggests a new strategy to improve the zT and PF by introducing an appropriate type of disorder.

The effects of precipitation and cold-rolling reduction on recrystallization textures of an Al-Mg-Si alloy were investigated. The sample sheets were prepared by solution heat treatment followed by intermediate annealing (IA) at 623 K for 1 h (IA-1 h) or 110 h (IA-110 h). Other sheets were prepared without IA (non-IA). These samples were rolled at ambient temperature up to 97.5% reduction followed by a final annealing step at 623 K. The recrystallization textures changed depending on the IA conditions. In the IA-1 h sample, the cube texture ({001} 100) increased with increasing reduction. In contrast, in the non-IA sample and IA-110 h sample, the cube texture decreased at high rolling reduction. Shear bands were formed in the cold-rolled non-IA sample. Shear bands could be the nucleation sites of randomly oriented grains in the recrystallization process. Meanwhile, in the IA-110 h sample, the particle stimulated nucleations (PSN) of recrystallized grains by coarse precipitates were observed. Grains generated by PSN are expected to be randomly oriented. Therefore, the nucleation at shear bands and PSN cause a decrease in the cube texture. In addition, decreasing of the cube texture at high reduction is assumed to be caused by increasing of shear bands and deformation zones around coarse precipitates.