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Brain Cognitive Engineering Experts from Korea and Abroad Gather at KAIST
The symposium presents recent and future research trends in brain and cognitive engineering.
KAIST hosted the Brain Cognitive Engineering Symposium on September 24, 2015, at the Dream Hall of the Chung Moon Soul building on campus. Around 100 experts in the field of neuroscience participated.
Organized by the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering at KAIST, the symposium celebrated the establishment of the Brain Cognitive Engineering Program at the university and examined the recent research trends in neuroscience.
Six neuroscience experts presented their research and held discussions.
Professor Paul M. Thompson of the University of Southern California (USC), a renowned scientist in neurology imaging genetics, gave a speech entitled “The ENIGMA Project: Mapping Disease and Genetic Effects on the Human Brain in 30,000 People Worldwide.”
Professor Jae-seung Jeong of KAIST’s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, Director Sung-Gi Kim of IBS Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Professor Sung-Hwan Lee of Korea University’s Department of Brain Engineering, Professor Cheil-Moon of DGIST’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, and Professor Jun-Tani of KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering also participated in the symposium.
Participants discussed the most recent findings in the field of brain science such as the education and research trends of brain cognitive engineering, trends of the world’s brain integrated science, the prospects of brain cognitive engineering program, brain activities that induce blood flow and fMRI, activity production in the brain cortex model as well as the development of functional hierarchy for the motor visual perception, and the neurorobotics research.
Professor Jeong said that “this symposium is a place for examination of the most recent research findings in the field of neuroscience as well as for discussion of its education,”and that “it would be an important opportunity for learning research on brain’s basic mechanisms as well as its applications.”
2015.09.25 View 7723 -
KAIST and Oberthur Technologies Agree for Research and Development in Mobile Security
Professor Kwangjo Kim of the School of Computing at KAIST has signed a research and development (R&D) agreement with Marc Bertin, the Chief Technology Officer of Oberthur Technologies (OT), a French security solutions firm, on September 18, 2015 in Paris.
Under the agreement, KAIST and OT will conduct joint research on mobile security as well as implement an internship program for KAIST graduate students to work either at OT’s R&D center in Korea or in France.
OT has established a research center in Korea in July 2014, which was the fourth of its research centers in Asia.
Professor Kim said, “Our goal at KAIST is to cultivate top-level security experts in security technologies. By partnering with such a leader in security technologies as OT, we know that we will both help shape tomorrow’s security solution for the IoT (Internet of Things) space.”
In the picture, Professor Kwangjo Kim (left) shakes hands with Marc Bertin, the Chief Technology Officer of Oberthur Technologies (right), after the signing of a memorandum of understanding.
2015.09.24 View 6780 -
Discovery of Redox-Switch of KEenzyme Involved in N-Butanol Biosynthesis
Research teams at KAIST and Kyungpook National University (KNU) have succeeded in uncovering the redox-switch of thiolase, a key enzyme for n-butanol production in Clostridium acetobutylicum, one of the best known butanol-producing bacteria.
Biological n-butanol production was first reported by Louis Pasteur in 1861, and the bioprocess was industrialized usingClostridium acetobutylicum. The fermentation process by Clostridium strains has been known to be the most efficient one for n-butanol production. Due to growing world-wide issues such as energy security and climate change, the biological production of n-butanol has been receiving much renewed interest. This is because n-butanol possesses much better fuel characteristics compared to ethanol, such as higher energy content (29.2 MJ/L vs 19.6 MJ/L), less corrosiveness, less hygroscopy, and the ease with which it can be blended with gasoline and diesel.
In the paper published in Nature Communications, a broad-scope, online-only, and open access journal issued by the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), on September 22, 2015, Professor Kyung-Jin Kim at the School of Life Sciences, KNU, and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, have proved that the redox-switch of thiolase plays a role in a regulation of metabolic flux in C. acetobutylicum by using in silico modeling and simulation tools.
The research team has redesigned thiolase with enhanced activity on the basis of the 3D structure of the wild-type enzyme. To reinforce a metabolic flux toward butanol production, the metabolic network of C. acetobutylicum strain was engineered with the redesigned enzyme. The combination of the discovery of 3D enzyme structure and systems metabolic engineering approaches resulted in increased n-butanol production in C. acetobutylicum, which allows the production of this important industrial chemical to be cost competitive.
Professors Kim and Lee said, "We have reported the 3D structure of C. acetobutylicum thiolase-a key enzyme involved in n-butanol biosynthesis, for the first time. Further study will be done to produce butanol more economically on the basis of the 3D structure of C. acetobutylicum thiolase."
This work was published online in Nature Communications on September 22, 2015.
Reference: Kim et al. "Redox-switch regulatory mechanism of thiolase from Clostridium acetobutylicum," Nature Communications
This research was supported by the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), Korea, the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the Advanced Biomass Center through the Global Frontier Research Program of the MEST, Korea.
For further information, contact Dr. Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea (leesy@kaist.ac.kr, +82-42-350-3930); and Dr. Kyung-Jin Kim, Professor, KNU, Daegu, Korea (kkim@knu.ac.kr, +82-53-950-6088).
Figure 1: A redox-switch of thiolase involves in butanol biosynthesis in Clostridium acetobutylicum. Thiolase condenses two acetyl-CoA molecules for initiating four carbon flux towards butanol.
Figure 2: Thiolase catalyzes the condensation reaction of acetyl-CoA to acetoacetyl-CoA. Two catalytic cysteine residues at 88th and 378th are oxidized and formed an intermolecular disulfide bond in an oxidized status, which results in inactivation of the enzyme for n-butanol biosynthesis. The intermolecular disulfide bond is broken enabling the n-butanol biosynthesis, when the environment status is reduced.
2015.09.23 View 9870 -
KAIST Makes a List of Top Ten Most Innovative Universities around the World
Reuters News released a list of the World’s Top 100 Most Innovative Universities on September 15, 2015.
Nine of the top ten universities on the list were American institutions. KAIST took tenth place, the only non-American and Asian university to do so.
Stanford University ranked first, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in second, and Harvard University in third.
The inaugural Reuters Top 100 survey based its rankings on ten criteria: patent volume, patent successes, global patents, patent citations, patent citation impact, percent of patents cited, patent to article citation impact, industry article citation impact, percent of industry collaborative articles, and the total number of science papers.
Japan had nine universities in the survey, more than all countries except for the United States. South Korea has a total of eight universities on the list including Pohang University of Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, and Hanyang University.
For the full details of the survey, see
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/15/idUSL1N11K16Q20150915.
2015.09.23 View 4312 -
Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy at KAIST Creates the Next Generation Open Forum 2045
Open forums for envisioning the next 30 years for Korea from the perspective of young people will be held in five metropolitan cities in Korea. Organized by KAIST and hosted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the Committee for the 70th Anniversary of Korean Liberation, the Next Generation Open Forum 2045 invites young people to shape the future image of Korea for the upcoming 100th anniversary of Korean liberation. It will start off with its first event on September 22 in the Millennium Hall of Konkuk University in Seoul.
In this event, a panel and invited guests will discuss employment issues with a view to ameliorating problems prevalent in the society. A robotics scientist, Dr. JK Han will address the impact of robot automation on the job issue as a keynote speaker, and a performance featuring human-size robot actor will follow his talk to celebrate the opening of the event.
Invited guests can actively participate in the discussion by suggesting their opinions on job issue of the future and by voting on their smartphone apps during the event. Every opinion conveyed during the discussion will be printed and put in a time capsule, which will be opened in 2045 for the celebration of 100th anniversary of Korean liberation.
The Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy of KAIST will organize events in five cities including Daegu, Daejeon, Busan, and Gwangju with topics including education, science and technology, unification diplomacy, and culture. The event will end with a symposium held in Seoul. Perspective applicants can apply for free to the Next Generation Open Forum 2045 on the official website of the Committee for the 70th Anniversary of Korean Liberation.
2015.09.22 View 4819 -
KAIST Ranks 13th in Engineering and Technology and 43rd in Overall Ranking in the 2015 QS World University Rankings
For the first time, the university has broken into the ranks of top 50 global universities since the first release of the rankings in 2004. The 2015 QS World University Rankings were released on September 15, 2015. Overall, KAIST ranked 43rd, advancing eight steps up from last year’s results. Its engineering and technology rank now places it 13th in the global rankings, but it is first in Korea's rankings. Both represent the highest record KAIST has ever attained since the QS Rankings began in 2004. The QS Rankings uses six performance indicators to assess universities’ global reputation, research impact, staffing levels, and international complexion. The indicators are: academic reputation (40%), employer reputation (10%), student-to-faculty ratio (20%), number of citations per faculty publications (20%), international to domestic faculty ratio (5%), and international to domestic student ratio (5%). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the 2015 list, with Harvard University coming in second place. The University of Cambridge and Stanford University jointly ranked third. For details on the 2015 QS World University Rankings, see http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/qs-world-university-rankings-201516-out-now.
2015.09.17 View 4385 -
KAIST and Chongqing University of Technology in China Open an International Program
With the help of KAIST, Chongqing University of Technology (CQUT) in China established an electrical engineering and computer science program and admitted their first 66 freshmen this fall semester.
The joint program was created to foster skilled engineers in the fields of electrical engineering and computer science, which are necessary for the development of the Korean and Chinese Industrial Complex located in Chongqing City.
KAIST has provided CQUT with a majority of the program’s curricula currently offered to its students in Daejeon, Korea.
Under the jointly administered program, KAIST takes on education and research while CQUT is responsible for student selection and administration.
KAIST has dispatched eight professors to teach the related fields in English, and 17 CQUT professors will teach the rest of the curricula.
In August 2014, KAIST and CQUT singed a cooperation agreement for education and research exchange and created the CQUT-KAIST Education Cooperation Center, which is headed by Professor Young-Nam Han of the Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST.
The two universities will expand their collaboration to include graduate programs by 2016.
In the picture below, President Steve Kang of KAIST (right) shakes hands with President Shi Xiaohui of Chongqing University of Technology (left).
2015.09.17 View 8697 -
Professor Woontack Woo Demonstrates an Optical Platform Technology for Augmented Reality at Smart Cloud Show
Professor Woontack Woo of the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST participated in the Smart Cloud Show, a technology exhibition, hosted by the university’s Augmented Human Research Center and presented the latest development of his research, an optical platform system for augmented reality.
This event took place on September 16-17, 2015 at Grand Seoul Nine Tree Convention Center in Seoul.
At the event, Professor Woo introduced a smart glass with an embedded augmented reality system, which permits remote collaboration between an avatar and the user’s hand.
The previous remote collaboration was difficult for ordinary users to employ because of its two-dimensional screen and complicated virtual reality system.
However, with the new technology, the camera attached to artificial reality (AR) glasses recognizes the user’s hand and tracks it down to collaborate. The avatar in the virtual space and the user’s hand interact in real space and time.
The key to this technology is the stable, real-time hand-tracking technique that allows the detection of the hand’s locations and the recognition of finger movements even in situations of self-occlusion.
Through this method, a user can touch and manipulate augmented contents as if they were real-life objects, thereby collaborating remotely with another user who is physically distant by linking his or her movements with an avatar.
If this technology is adopted widely, it may bring some economic benefits such as increased productivity due to lower costs for mobility and reduction in social overhead costs from the decrease in the need of traveling long distance.
Professor Woo said, “This technology will provide us with a greater opportunity for collaboration, not necessarily restricted to physical travelling, which can be widely used in the fields of medicine, education, entertainment, and tourism.”
Professor Woo plans to present his research results on hand-movement tracking and detection at the 12th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2015), to be held on October 28-30, 2015, at Kintex in Goyang, Korea.
He will also present a research paper on remote collaboration at the ICAT-EGVE 2015 conference, the merger of the 25th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT 2015) and the 20th Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments (EGVE 2015), which will take place on October 28-30, 2015 at the Kyoto International Community House, Kyoto, Japan.
2015.09.16 View 7684 -
Professor Seok-Jung Kang Is Appointed the Director of the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology
Professor Seok-Jung Kang of the Material Sciences and Engineering Department at KAIST has been appointed to the position of the third Director of the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering and Technology. His three-year term will begin September 9, 2015.
An authority in the field of ceramics, Professor Kang has taught at KAIST since 1980. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at Seoul National University, his master’s degree at KAIST, and his doctoral degree at the Ecole Centrale de Paris.
Professor Kang received the Robert B. Sosman Award in 2011, an annual prize given by the American Society of Ceramics to recognize outstanding achievement in basic science in an area that results in significant impact to the field of ceramics. He was the first Asian recipient of the award.
He also received the 2015 Professor Sir Richard Brooke Award, a prestigious bi-annual prize presented to an outstanding scholar by the European Society of Ceramics.
2015.09.15 View 5709 -
KAIST's Doctoral Candidate Receives the 2015 Google Ph.D. Fellowship
Shin-Ae Woo, a doctoral student of Professor Su-Bok Moon of KAIST’s School of Computer Engineering, has received the 2015 Google Ph.D. Fellowship.
The fellowship’s term lasts one year, starting September 2015.
The fellowship awarded Ms. Woo with USD 10,000 of cash prize, an opportunity to meet a Google research mentor, and a summer internship at the company.
Created in 2009, the Google Ph.D. Fellowship annually recognizes outstanding doctoral students around the world in computer science and its related fields.
This year, a total of 44 doctoral students including Ms. Woo, who is studying networking and distributed system, have been nominated.
She has also received the NSDI (Networked Systems Design and Implementation) 2015 Community Award and the 2014 Samsung Human Technology Journal Silver Prize for her research work on “Design and Implementation of Highly Scalable User-level TCP Stack for Multicore Systems” and “Comparison of Caching Strategies in Modern Cellular Backhaul Networks.”
Currently, Ms. Woo is working with UC Berkeley faculty on next-generation data centers for a research exchange program.
2015.09.15 View 5700 -
KAIST Participates in the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2015 in China
KAIST’s president and its professors actively engage in discussions of major issues on higher education, technology innovation, and industry-university collaboration with global leaders from across all sectors.
President Steve Kang of KAIST participated in the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2015 (a.k.a., Summer Davos Forum) hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). With the theme of “Charting a New Course for Growth,” the Summer Davos Forum took place on September 9-11, 2015 in, Dalian, China.
Currently, KAIST is a member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) of WEF, a gathering of the presidents of the top 25 universities in the world, including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Tokyo, University of Oxford, Peking University, and National University of Singapore. GULF allows university leaders an opportunity to have high-level dialogues on higher education and research and explore prospects for cooperative ventures.
President Kang led the discussion of the GULF session at the Summer Davos Forum, which was held on September 10, 2015, with 25 university leaders as well as two business leaders from Chinese companies: Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., and Sanofi China. The participants shared candid perspectives on industry-university collaboration, particularly the need for such partnerships in Asia.
In addition, KAIST hosted the fourth IdeasLab session, entitled “Bio versus Nano Materials, on September 9, 2015. At the session, four KAIST professors held an in-depth debate and discussion with the audience on whether the next industrial revolution would be driven by advances in biomaterials or nanomaterials.
The topics under discussion were:
- New materials that mimic biology by Professor Hea Shin Lee
- Bio-based materials that replace petroleum-based materials by Professor Sang Yup Lee
- New materials designed at sub-nano scale by Professor Hee Tae Jung
- A hydrogen economy with nanomaterials by Professor Eun Ae Cho
Since its establishment in 2007, the Summer Davos Forum has become the biggest business and political gathering in Asia, held annually either in Dalian or Tianjin, China. The Forum has attracted more than 1,500 participants primarily from emerging nations such as China, India, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, and has offered an open platform to address issues important to the region and the global community.
2015.09.14 View 7520 -
KAIST to Hold a Colloquium on the Internet of Things and Open Stack
With the support of the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of Korea, KAIST hosted a colloquium on the Internet of Things (IoT) and Open Stack at the KAIST Research Center for Global Cooperation located in Pangyo. The upcoming event was organized to provide an overview of the technological trends to IT companies and foster their success in the global market.
The colloquium invited numerous field-experts as speakers and discussed the influence of IoT and OpenStack on the small- and medium-sized companies in Korea.
Professor Gwan-Hoo Lee from the American University joined as a speaker and shared his insights of how IoT would change the global business environment. He introduced various business models developed by Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, and Cisco and discussed how Korean companies could utilize the existing tools and strategy to succeed in the global market. His talk focused specifically on the importance of overseas partnerships and technology stack analysis.
President Hyun-Jung Jang from the Korean OpenStack Community also gave a speech on global partnership through OpenStack. He discussed the future trends of OpenStack and why companies should invest in the field.
KAIST used the event as an opportunity to provide information to domestic companies that are interested in building partnerships with overseas companies and in developing new IoT and OpenStack technology.
More information about the event can be provided online at www.ictc.or.kr.
2015.09.11 View 4764