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Professor Sung Yong Kim Presents a Keynote Speech at the International Ocean Color Science Meeting (IOCS) 2015
Professor Sung Yong Kim of the Mechanical Engineering Department at KAIST delivered a keynote speech at the International Ocean Color Science Meeting (IOCS) 2015 held in San Francisco on June 15-18, 2015. His speech was entitled “Research and Applications Using Sub-mesoscale GOCI (Geostationary Ocean Color Imager) Data.”
The IOCS, organized by the International Ocean Color Coordinating Group (IOCCG), is a community consultation meeting providing communication and collaboration between space agencies and the ocean color community, building strong ties among international representatives of the ocean color communities, and providing a forum for discussion and the evolution of community thinking on a range of issues.
Professor Kim was recognized for his contribution towards the development of remote exploration of sub-mesoscale processes including eddies, fronts, and environmental fluid dynamics.
He also attended the 26th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) in Prague, the Czech Republic, on June 22, 2015 and gave a presentation on the sub-mesoscale eddies circulation research.
2015.06.12 View 7885 -
Science and Technology Policy Professor Chihyung Jeon Awarded Rachel Carson Fellowship
KAIST Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy Professor Chihyung Jeon has been awarded the Rachel Carson Fellowship 2015-2016.
Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society is a research center for environmental humanities and social sciences, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It was founded by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany and the Deutsches Museum as a joint initiative in 2009.
Rachel Carson Center supports researches in humanities and social sciences on the interactions between the environment and the society, following the footsteps of Rachel Cason, who raised awareness on the chemical environmental damage and started global environmental movement through her published book “Silent Spring” in 1962.
The center is awarding Rachel Carson Fellowships to established researchers to fund their writing and promote exchange of research. This year, 31 fellowships were awarded.
Professor Jeon will conduct research on "A Dredged Nation: The Four Rivers Restoration Project and the Envirotechnical Transformation of South Korea" and will also hold an additional post of International Curatorial Fellow at the Deutsches Museum.
2015.06.11 View 8364 -
KAIST to support the Genetic Donguibogam Research Project for global market entry of a new natural drug produced by Green Cross Corporation HS
In the wake of the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), sales of immune-enhancing products in Korea such as red and white ginseng have risen dramatically. Ginseng is one of Korea’s major health supplement it exports, but due to the lack of precise scientific knowledge of its mechanism, sales of ginseng account for less than 2% of the global market share.
The Genetic Donguibogam Research Project represents a group of research initiatives to study genes and environmental factors that contribute to diseases and to discover alternative treatments through Eastern medicine. The project is being led by KAIST’s Department of Bio & Brain Engineering Professor Do-Heon Lee.
Professor Lee and Chief Executive Officer Young-Hyo Yoo of Green Cross Corporation HS, a Korean pharmaceutical company, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), as well as a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to develop a naturally derived drug with an enhanced ginsenoside, pharmacological compounds of ginseng, for the global market entry of BST204 on June 10, 2015.
Donguibogam is the traditional Korean source for the principles and practice of Eastern medicine, which was compiled by the royal physician Heo Jun and first published in 1613 during the Joseon Dynasty of Korea.
Cooperating with Green Cross Co., HS, KAIST researchers will use a multi-component, multi-target (MCMT)-based development platform to produce the new natural drug, BST204. This cooperation is expected to assist the entry of the drug into the European market.
Green Cross Co., HS has applied a bio-conversion technique to ginseng to develop BST204, which is a drug with enhanced active constituent of aginsenosides. The drug is the first produced by any Korean pharmaceutical company to complete the first phase of clinical trials in Germany and is about to start the second phase of trials.
Professor Do-Heon Lee, the Director of the project said, “Genetic Donguibogam Research Project seeks to create new innovative healthcare material for the future using integrated fundamental technologies such as virtual human body computer modelling and multi-omics to explain the mechanism in which natural ingredients affect the human body.” He continued, “Especially, by employing the virtual human body computer modelling, we can develop an innovative new technology that will greatly assist Korean pharmaceutical industry and make it the platform technology in entering global markets.”
Young-Hyo Yoo, the CEO of Green Cross Co., HS, said, “For a new naturally derived drug to be acknowledged in the global market, such as Europe and the US, its mechanism, as well as its effectiveness and safety, should be proven. However, it is difficult and costly to explain the mechanism in which the complex composition of a natural substance influences the body. Innovative technology is needed to solve this problem.”
Professor Do-Heon Lee (left in the picture), the Director of Genetic Donguibogam Research Project, stands abreast Young-Hyo Yoo (right in the picture), the CEO of Green Cross Co., HS.
2015.06.10 View 7693 -
KAIST's DRC-HUBO Wins the DARPA Robotics Challenge 2015
DRC-HUBO finished all eight assignments in less than 45 minutes, taking first place among 24 international teams and claiming the USD 2 million prize offered by a US defense research agency.
The Robotics Challenge Finals 2015 hosted by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) took place on June 5-6, 2015 at the Fairplex in Pomona, California.
Team KAIST of the Republic of Korea led by Professor Jun-Ho Oh of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Professor In-So Kweon of the Electrical Engineering Department, and researchers from Rainbow Co., the university’s spin-off company that builds the robots, won the DARPA Finals. The team received USD 2 million as a prize.
The DARPA’s Robotics Challenge (DRC) promotes a competition of robot systems and software teams which seek to develop robots capable of assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident in 2011. The DRC consists of three competitions: a software-based Virtual Robotics Challenge which took place in June 2013; the Robotics Challenge Trials in Homestead, Florida, in December 2013; and the Finals in June 2015.
A total of 24 teams from universities and private and public research institutes from Korea, the US, Hong Kong, Germany, Japan, and Italy participated in the Finals. The participating teams had to finish eight assignments in 60 minutes, during which their robots were untethered and operated wirelessly without communication from their engineers.
Each team was assigned a series of tasks: they included driving a vehicle, getting out of a vehicle, opening a door, turning a valve, drilling a hole in a wall, a surprise task such as pushing a button or turning on a switch, walking over rubble or debris, and climbing stairs. Robots scored a point each time they completed their missions. To win, a team had to complete all the tasks successfully in the shortest amount of time possible.
Team KAIST completed the entire course in 44 minutes and 28 seconds, followed by the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) Robotics in Pensacola, Florida in 50:26, and Team TARTAN Rescue of the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University in 55:15.
For details, see an article below from the New York Times:
New York Times, June 6, 2015
“Korean Robot Makers Walk Off With $2 Million Prize”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/science/korean-robot-makers-walk-off-with-2-million-prize.html?_r=1
DRC-HUBO sticks a plug into an outlet for the surprise task at the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge on June 5-6, 2015, in Pomona, California.
DRC-HUBO turns a valve in a clockwise direction.
DRC-HUBO drills to cut a circle into the wall.
Members of Team KAIST pose together after the award ceremony on June 6, 2015.
2015.06.07 View 22438 -
KAIST to Kick-Start the Exchange of Young Researchers with Northern European Universities
KAIST promotes research exchange and cooperation with three universities in Northern Europe.
KAIST has signed a letter of intent (LOI) for the mutual exchange of young researchers and cooperation to collaborate with KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Lund University, both based in Sweden on June 2, 2015, and with Aalto University in Finland on June 4, 2015.
This LOI was the result of the cooperative projects of Korea-Sweden and Korea-Finland Joint Committees on Science and Technology supervised by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of Korea.
As agreed in the LOI, KAIST will conduct joint research projects with the three universities by providing students and researchers with opportunities to visit each other through internship programs and workshops and by sharing information on education and research.
Sung-Hyon Mayeng, the Associate Vice President of the International Relations Office at KAIST, said, “It’s an encouraging sign that universities and governments recognize the importance of increasing exchanges among academic and research communities. Expecting more vibrant relationships to be formed between KAIST and the three northern European universities in coming years, I hope that today’s agreement becomes a good basis to spur technological innovations that will not only benefit the regions but also the world.”
Established in 1827, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology is the largest and oldest technical university in Sweden, accounting for one-third of the nation’s technical research and engineering education capacity at university level. The university offers education and research programs from natural sciences to all branches of engineering including architecture, industrial management, and urban planning. According to the QS World University Rankings in 2014, KTH Royal Institute of Technology ranked 27th in engineering and 1st in Northern Europe.
Lund University, Sweden, is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in northern Europe, consistently ranking among the world’s top 100 universities. In particular, its biological sciences and engineering have shown great strength, placing within the top 60 universities by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. The university also receives the largest amount of research funding from the Swedish government.
Aalto University in Finland was created as a merger of three leading Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology (established 1849), the Helsinki School of Economics (established 1904), and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (established 1871). The university nurtures the close collaborations across science, business, and arts to foster multi-disciplinary education and research.
2015.06.04 View 7324 -
The Acoustical Society of America Names Yang Hann Kim of KAIST the Recipient of the 2015 Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education
The award, given to Dr. Kim in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of acoustics education, will be presented during the 170th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America on November 2-6, 2015 in Jacksonville, Florida.
The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) announced today that Professor Yang Hann Kim of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) was the 12th recipient of the Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education. Dr. Kim is the first recipient selected from a non-English-speaking nation.
The Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education was established in 2003 from a generous gift made to the ASA Foundation by Thomas D. Rossing to recognize an individual who has made significant contributions to the advancement of acoustics education through distinguished teaching, creation of educational materials, textbook writing, and other activities.
During 25 years of teaching and conducting research in acoustics, noise, and vibration at KAIST, Dr. Kim has advised 26 doctorates and published over 200 research papers in journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Sound and Vibration, and Journal of Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing. He also wrote two acoustics textbooks for university education, which has been widely read worldwide. The textbook titles are: Sound Propagation: An Impedance Based Approach (Wiley, July 2010) and with the co-author, Dr. Jung-Woo Choi, Sound Visualization and Manipulation (Wiley, September 2013).
Since 2009, Professor Kim has lectured an online course entitled “Introduction to Acoustics,” offering students and the general public throughout the world guidance to study acoustics through the basic concept of impedance, for example, on vibrations and waves.
Dr. Kim will receive the award during ASA’s 170th conference to be held on November 2-6, 2015 at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
For the list of previous recipients of the Rossing Prize in Acoustics Education,
see:http://acousticalsociety.org/funding_resources/prizes#rossing
2015.06.04 View 7753 -
KAIST-Taiwanese Team: Zinc Supplements May Help Treat Autism
A KAIST and Taiwanese research team has recently discovered strong evidence that Zinc is associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and improves social interaction in mouse models with ASD. The research findings, titled “Trans-synaptic zinc mobilization improves social interaction in two mouse models of autism through NMDAR activation,” were published in Nature Communications on May 18, 2015. For details, please see an article below:
The China Post, June 4, 2015
“Zinc supplements may help treat autism: study”
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/health/mental-health/2015/06/04/437612/Zinc-suppliments.htm
2015.06.04 View 6474 -
BBC Feautres KAIST's Jellyfish Robot
Click, a weekly BBC television program covering news and recent developments in science and technology, introduced KAIST’s robotics project, JEROS, which has been conducted by Professor Hyun Myung of the Urban Robotics Lab (http://urobot.kaist.ac.kr/). JEROS is a robotics system that detects, captures, and removes jellyfish in the ocean. For the show, please click the link below:
BBC News, Click, June 2, 2015
The Robot Jellyfish Shredders
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32965841
2015.06.03 View 8805 -
President Steve Kang Receives the John Choma Education Award from the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) 2015 took place at the Cultural Centre of Belem in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 24-27, 2015.
President Steve Kang attended the conference and presented a paper entitled “Memrister-based Synapses and Neurons for Neuromorphic Computing” on May 26, 2015. On the same day, he received the John Choma Education Award.
The award was established to commemorate the lifetime achievement of the late Professor John Choma of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Southern California. Dr. Choma was an eminent scientist, scholar, and educator, who earned global recognition in the field of integrated circuits and very-large-scale-integration (VLSI).
The IEEE ISCAS selects, among its members, the recipient of the John Choma Education Award, who has made significant contributions to the education of circuits and systems.
President Kang advised 60 doctorates while teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California at Santa Cruz and published 450 research papers in the past 40 years. He also received Meritorious Service Award, Charles Desoer Technical Achievement Award, and Mac Van Valkenburg Society Award, all from the IEEE ISCAS.
2015.06.03 View 6379 -
World Renowned Wireless Technology Experts Gathered in KAIST
KAIST hosted the 2015 IEEE WoW from June 5 to 6, 2015
Wireless power transfer technologies, such as wireless electric vehicles, trains and batteries, are increasingly in use. A conference, The 2015 IEEE WoW (Workshop on Wireless Power), was held in KI Building for two days starting June 5, 2015 to exchange ideas on the new trends and issues of the world wireless power technology.
The wireless power conference hosted by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), IEEE WoW, was sponsored by its societies, PELS, IAS, IES, VTS, MAG, and PES.
This year’s conference took place in Korea for the first time and was titled “IEEE PELS Workshop on Emerging Technologies: Wireless Power.” The event was attended by around 200 experts in wireless power from 15 countries to discuss the international standards and current trends.
Keynote speakers were President Don Tan of IEEE; Professor Grant Covic of the University of Auckland; Andrew Daga, the CEO at Momentum Dynamics Corporation; Professor Ron Hui of the City University of Hong Kong; and Jung Goo Cho, the CEO of Green Power Technologies.
The forum included plenary speaking sessions on “The Futures of EV and Power Electronics,” “Development of IPT at the University of Auckland,” “Interoperable Solution for Wireless EV Charging,” “Development of IPT for Factory Automation,” “Commercialization of High Power WPT,” and “WPT: From Directional Power to Omni-directional Power.”
Notably, KAIST Professor Dong-Ho Cho, responsible for KAIST’s On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) development, spoke on “The Development of Shaped Magnetic Field Systems for EVs and Trains” to introduce the KAIST OLEV bus and OLEV trains developed in cooperation with Korea Railroad Research Institute.
The Dialog Sessions on “The Futures of Wireless Electric Vehicles” were led by John M. Miller of JNJ Miller and “Road Charged EV and WPT Regulation and Standard for EV in Japan” by Yoichi Hori of University of Tokyo.
The General Chair of this year’s IEEE WoW, KAIST Professor Chun T. Rim said, “This forum serves a great assistance to the industry using wireless power technology in areas such as smartphones, home appliances, Internet of Things, and wearable devices.”
2015.05.29 View 8197 -
KAIST International Food Festival
The KAIST International Students Association (KISA) hosted the 2015 International Food Festival in front of Creative Learning Building, KAIST, on May 22, 2015.
This was the 11th International Food Festival for KAIST where international students introduced food from their home countries to strengthen cultural exchanges with Korean students. This year’s festival was the biggest international festival in Daejeon in which around 500 students and staff from KAIST, Chungnam National University (CNU), the University of Science & Technology (UST), and the public participated.
KAIST’s President Steve Kang opened the festival with a welcoming speech, followed by congratulatory speeches by CNU President Sang-Chul Jung and UST President Un-Woo Lee.
The first section of the event was the food festival where around 40 kinds of food from ten countries including Kenya, Kazakhstan, India, and Turkey were presented. Students from each country offered cooking demonstrations in booths, and participants purchased the food.
Cheryl Wanderi, a Kenyan student who recently received a Master’s degree from KAIST’s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering last February said, “I am delighted to introduce Mandazi, a Kenyan donut, to not only Korean students but also other international students.”
The second half of the event consisted of cultural performances from different countries. There were eight teams performing including an Indonesian traditional Saman dance team, a Kazakh group that performed on traditional instruments, and an Azerbaijani K-POP dance team.
Sung-Hyon Myaeng, the Associate Vice President of KAIST’s International Office, said, “Despite their busy lives, students from three different universities planned this event to get to know each other. I hope international students and Korean students can come together and enjoy the festival.”
Edrick Kwek, the President of KISA, said, “This food festival is an event showing the cultural diversity of KAIST in the most splendid way.”
2015.05.27 View 8821 -
Seven Graduates of KAIST S+ Convergence AMP Publish a Book, "The First Penguin"
Seven graduates of KAIST’s S+ Convergence Advanced Management Program (KAMP) have published a book containing their business success stories, The First Penguin, hoping that in telling their story, they will inspire readers who want to become entrepreneurs. The book is available only in Korean.
The title of the book refers to a penguin that enters the water first when other penguins hesitate to dive into the ocean, symbolizing the need to make the first move. The book reflects the experiences of the seven authors, for example, how they marched forward with a conviction to an unknown field and succeeded in creating startups.
The authors are Sung-Jin Kim, the CEO of i-KAIST; Hyung-Jin Kim, the Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Sejong Telecom Inc.; Beom-Gu Seo, the CEO of EM Life Science Research Institute; Mi-Sung Seog, the CEO of Luckstone; Jang-won Lee, the CEO of Bluebird Soft; Chung Hee Lee, the CEO of ETRO; and Mi-Oak Jang, the CEO of I Top Asset.
The recurring message in the book is “Have strong convictions. Do not give up. Then, you can do it.” The authors hope to give strength and courage to readers in an era of uncertainty and to support those who take challenges to realize their dreams.
KAMP will continue to publish their graduates’ stories in an essay format from this year onwards. The program aims to train students to become multidisciplinary future leaders who are able to transcend the borders among business, management, science and technology, and information communications.
2015.05.26 View 7666