In 2018, the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) finalized its first video compression format AV1, which is jointly developed by the industry consortium of leading video technology companies. The main goal of AV1 is to provide an open source and royalty-free video coding format that substantially outperforms state-of-the-art codecs available on the market in compression efficiency while remaining practical decoding complexity as well as being optimized for hardware feasibility and scalability on modern devices. To give detailed insights into how the targeted performance and feasibility is realized, this paper provides a technical overview of key coding techniques in AV1. Besides, the coding performance gains are validated by video compression tests performed with the libaom AV1 encoder against the libvpx VP9 encoder. Preliminary comparison with two leading HEVC encoders, x265 and HM, and the reference software of VVC is also conducted on AOM's common test set and an open 4k set.

Hollow mesoporous polydopamine (HMPDA) microcapsules were prepared by a template method using silica nanoparticles as the templates. The template method was also used for the formation of mesoporous polydopamine (PDA), which is driven by π–π interactions of trimethylbenzene and PDA, in which the PDA wall with mesoporous structure can be obtained after template removal by extraction. Because of its surface mesoporous structure and large central cavity structure, HMPDA microcapsules have unique adsorption properties. Compared with other porous materials, PDA has better biosafety because dopamine itself is a bionic material. The above properties are of great significance for the application of HMPDA microcapsules in the field of biologic medicine, especially in drug carriers.

Underground Nuclear Astrophysics in China (JUNA) will take the advantage of the ultra-low background in Jinping underground lab. High current accelerator with an ECR source and detectors were commissioned. JUNA plans to study directly a number of nuclear reactions important to hydrostatic stellar evolution at their relevant stellar energies. At the first period, JUNA aims at the direct measurements of 25Mg(p,γ)26 Al, 19F(p,α) 16 O, 13C(α, n) 16O and 12C(α,γ) 16O near the Gamow window. The current progress of JUNA will be given.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-cutaneous cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men in the USA. Growing evidence suggests that oxidative stress is involved in the development and progression of prostate cancer. In this study, the association between antioxidants from diet and supplements and biomarkers of oxidative stress in blood (n 278), urine (n 298) and prostate tissue (n 55) were determined among men from the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project. The association between antioxidant intake and oxidative stress biomarkers in blood and urine was determined using linear regression, adjusting for age, race, prostate cancer aggressiveness and smoking status. Greater antioxidant intake was found to be associated with lower urinary 8-isoprostane concentrations, with a 10 % increase in antioxidant intake corresponding to an unadjusted 1·1 % decrease in urinary 8-isoprostane levels (95 % CI −1·7, −0·3 %; P value<0·01) and an adjusted 0·6 % decrease (95 % CI −1·4, 0·2 %; P value=0·16). In benign prostate tissue, thioredoxin 1 was inversely associated with antioxidant intake (P=0·02). No significant associations were found for other blood or urinary biomarkers or for malignant prostate tissue. These results indicate that antioxidant intake may be associated with less oxidative stress among men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The mesoporous and nanorods SnO2 are synthesized by controlling the state of SnCl2·2H2O precursor with SBA-15 as hard template, and the possible formation mechanisms at different assembling modes inside the ordered mesoporous silica templates are proposed. In addition, SnO2 nanoparticles are synthesized by hydrolysis depositing method. The electrochemical tests of as-prepared samples indicate that the reticular stacking structure of the nanorods would limit the Li+ ions to intercalate, but the effect of volume expansion in this case upon cycling is insignificant. The mesostructure SnO2 tends to be stable after partial structural collapse at first few cycles. And the Li+ ions can readily intercalate and de-intercalate into/from its ordered channels structure, which provides a high capacity and an improved cycle property. Although SnO2 nanoparticles deliver high capacity at an early stage, the agglomeration may induce the capacity to drop rapidly after a certain number of cycles.

There are about 70 Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) that are now confirmed or suggested to be in physical contact with molecular clouds (MCs) with six kinds of evidence of multiwavelength observations. Recent detailed CO-line spectroscopic mappings of a series of SNRs reveal them to be in cavities of molecular gas, implying the roles the progenitors may have played. We predict a linear correlation between the wind bubble sizes of main-sequence OB stars in a molecular environment and the stellar masses and discuss its implication for supernova progenitors. The molecular environments of SNRs can serve as a good probe for the γ-rays arising from the hadronic interaction of the accelerated protons, and this paper also discusses the γ-ray emission from MCs illuminated by diffusive protons that escape from SNR shocks.

Elimination of degenerate epitaxy in the growth of icosahedral boron arsenide (B12As2, abbreviated as IBA) was achieved on m-plane 15R-SiC substrates and 4H-SiC substrates intentionally misoriented by 7 degrees from (0001) towards [1-100]. Synchrotron white beam x-ray topography (SWBXT) revealed that only single orientation IBA was present in the epitaxial layers demonstrating the absence of twin variants which dominantly constitute the effects of degenerate epitaxy. Additionally, low asterism in the IBA diffraction spots compared to those grown on other SiC substrates indicates a superior film quality. Cross-sectional high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) both confirmed the absence of twins in the IBA films and their high quality. The ease of nucleation on the ordered step structures present on these unique substrates overrides symmetry considerations that drive degenerate epitaxy and dominates the nucleation process of the IBA.

In this work, 4H-SiC substrates intentionally misoriented from the (0001) plane toward [1-100] direction are shown to eliminate rotational twinning in icosahedral boron arsenide (B12As2, abbreviated here as IBA) epitaxial films. Previous studies of IBA on other substrates, including (100), (110), (111) Si and (0001) 6H-SiC, produced polycrystalline and twinned epilayers. Comparisons of IBA on on-axis and off-axis c-plane 4H-SiC by synchrotron white beam x-ray topography (SWBXT), and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) confirm the single crystalline and much higher quality of the films on the latter substrates. Furthermore, no intermediate layer between the epilayer and substrate was observed for IBA on off-axis 4H-SiC. Steps formed on the off-axis 4H-SiC substrate surface before deposition cause the film to adopt a single orientation, a process that is not seen with substrates with either no misorientation, or those tilted toward the [11-20] direction. This work demonstrates that c-plane 4H-SiC with 7° offcut toward (1-100) is potentially a good substrate choice for the growth of high-quality, untwinned B12As2 epilayers for future device applications.

To increase our understanding of the relationships of trunk fat mass (FMtrunk) and four anthropometric indices in Chinese males, 1090 males aged 20–40 years were randomly recruited from the city of Changsha, China. Waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC) were measured using standardized equipment, and three other anthropometric indices of BMI, waist:hip ratio (WHR) and conicity index (CoI) were calculated using weight, height, HC and WC. FMtrunk (in kg) was measured using a Hologic QDR 4500 W dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scanner. There was an increasing trend of FMtrunk, %FMtrunk (percentage of FMtrunk) and BMI, WC, WHR, CoI in successively older age groups (e.g. the mean FMtrunk values were 4·63 (sd 2·58), 5·39 (sd 2·74), 5·93 (sd 2·82), 6·57 (sd 2·94) in four 5-year age groups, respectively). FMtrunk and %FMtrunk were significantly correlated with four anthropometric indices with the Pearson's correlation coefficients ranging from 0·25 to 0·86. Principal component analysis was performed to form three principal components that interpreted over 99·5% of the total variation of four related anthropometric indices in all age groups, with over 65% of the total variation accounted by principal component 1. Multiple regression analyses showed that three principal components explained a greater variance (R2 70·0–80·1%) in FMtrunk than did BMI or WC alone (R2 57·8–74·1%). The present results suggest that there is an increasing trend of FMtrunk and four anthropometric indices in successively older age groups; that age has important effects on the relationships of FMtrunk and studied anthropometric indices; and that the accuracy of predicting FMtrunk using four anthropometric indices is higher than using BMI or WC alone.