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Tunable structural colors have a multitude of applications in the beautification of mobile devices, in the decoration of artwork, and in the creation of color filters. In this paper, we describe a Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) design that can be used to systematically tune structural colors by altering the thickness of the top metal and intermediate insulator. Cu and Si3N4 were selected as the top metal and intermediate insulator layers, respectively, and various reflection colors were printed on Al. To protect the Cu surface from scratchiness and oxidation, a number of capping layers, including SiO2, LPSQ, PMMA, and the commercially available clear coat ProtectaClear, were applied. In addition to their ability to protect Cu from a humid environment without deteriorating color quality, ProtectaClear and LPSQ coatings have minimal angle dependency. Furthermore, a bilayer of PMMA/SiO2 can protect the Cu surface from the effects of humidity. In addition, the PMMA/SiO2 and ProtectaClear/SiO2 bilayers can also protect against corrosion on the Cu surface. The colors can be tuned by controlling the thickness of either the metal layer or intermediate insulator layer, and vivid structural colors including brown, dark orange, blue, violet, magenta, cyan, green-yellow, and yellow colors can be printed. The measured dielectric functions of Cu thin films do not provide any evidence of the plasmonic effect, and therefore, it is expected that the obtained colors are attributed to thin-film interference.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) including human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have been extensively studied as an alternative cellular model for recapitulating phenotypic and pathophysiologic characters of human diseases. Particularly, hiPSCs generated from the genetic disease somatic cells could provide a good cellular model to screen potential drugs for treating human genetic disorders. However, the patient-derived cellular model has a limitation when the patient samples bearing genetic mutations are difficult to obtain due to their rarity. Thus, in this study, we explored the potential use of hPSC-derived Wilson’s disease model generated without a patient sample to provide an alternative approach for modeling human genetic disease by applying gene editing technology. Wilson’s disease hPSCs were generated by introducing a R778L mutation in the ATP7B gene (c.2333G>T) using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 system into wildtype hESCs. Established Wilson’s disease hESCs were further differentiated into hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) and analyzed for disease phenotypes and responses against therapeutic agent treatment. R778L mutation in the ATP7B gene was successfully introduced into wildtype hESCs, and the introduction of the mutation neither altered the self-renewal ability of hESCs nor the differentiation capability into HLCs. However, R778L mutation-introduced HLCs exhibited higher vulnerability against excessive copper supplementation than wildtype HLCs. Finally, the applicability of the R778L mutation introduced HLCs in drug screening was further demonstrated using therapeutic agents against the Wilson’s diseases. Therefore, the established model in this study could effectively mimic the Wilson’s disease without patient’s somatic cells and could provide a reliable alternative model for studying and drug screening of Wilson’s disease.

Many researchers have conducted experiments on the position and nozzle conditions in the exhaust pipe of a stage/swirl mixer, as well as the injection position required to satisfy the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations. In this study, an SCR (Selective catalytic reduction) system was designed through basic and detailed designs. The performance of the components was verified through a single-component performance test for the detailed design components, and the total nitrogen oxide (NOx) reduction efficiency was predicted using the proven system. Subsequently, the system was applied to an actual engine, and the performance was verified according to the engine operating conditions using the experimental variables. The NOx reduction rate and NH3 slip characteristics in relation to MCR (Maximum Continuous Rating) conditions using the optimised SCR system indicate that the NOx reduction rate exceeds 80% in all MCR conditions. Finally, the SCR system developed in this study proves that the performance of the SCR system satisfies the IMO regulatory requirements.

We investigate the magnetic shell structure of repulsively interacting two-component Fermi gases trapped in a two-dimensional harmonic potential and loaded on the optical Lieb lattices. We employ the real-space dynamical mean-field theory (R-DMFT) to explicitly consider the trap potential in a self-consistent way. Computing the profiles of particle density and local magnetization across the lattice sites in the trap, we find that the incompressible core with ferrimagnetic ordering appears with the density plateau at the trap center, which is surrounded by the shell of the normal metallic phase. We examine the incompressibility of the core by adding more particles and creating the higher spin-population imbalance. While the core area expands from the outer shell with added particles and increased polarization, the excess particles are prohibited from going inside the core, and thus the density plateau is unchanged at the half-filling with the same magnetic ordering. In addition, we find that the feature of the phase separation differs with the sublattices, where the interstitial sites causing the flat band dispersion shows the signature of the abrupt transition in the density and magnetization at the boundary between the core and surrounding shells.