We report our systematic survey observations of protostellar sources with the SubMillimeter Array (SMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The purpose of our survey is to investigate formation mechanism of protoplanetary disks, precursors of planetary systems, out of ~1000 AU-scale protostellar envelopes surrounding the protostars. We found that in the early protostars (B335, NGC1333 IRAS 4B), the envelopes do not show significant rotating motions but infalling motions toward the central protostars. In more evolved protostars (L1527 IRS, L1448-mm, L1551 IRS 5), the envelopes are infalling and rotating with the conserved specific angular momenta (that is, vrot ∝ r−1). In most evolved sources (L1551 NE, TMC-1A, L1489 IRS) large-scale (≳100 AU) disks in Keplerian rotation or protoplanetary disks are evident. These results demonstrate a systematic evolutionary trend of envelope gas motions toward the disk formation.

In situ laboratory-based and in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction techniques were employed to study quantitatively the strain-induced austenite-to-martensite (A–M) transformation in thermally cycled (TC) superelastic NiTi alloys. The propagation of the A–M interfaces and the evolution of the microstructure were traced during uniaxial tensile loading. It was shown that the TC material exhibits localized transformation via the propagation of transformation bands. The amount of the martensite phase depends approximately linearly on the applied strain. Analysis of the broadening of the austenite diffraction lines indicates the presence of highly deformed austenite grains within the transformation bands. Analysis of the austenite diffraction-line shifts indicates that the overall lattice strain in the (retained) austenite in the transformation bands differs from that of the austenite in the adjacent untransformed regions.