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2017 ICISTS Conference 'Draw the Web: Interactions in Society'
The KAIST undergraduate organization, ICISTS (International Conference for Integration of Science, Technology and Society) will convene its annual conference from July 31 to Aug. 4 at the KAIST Daejeon Campus. This year’s theme is “Draw the Web: Interactions in Society.” More than 300 participants from 60 universities in 20 countries will participate in the international conference hosted and planned by the student organization.
Speakers at the 2017 conference include leaders in technology, business, investment, and entrepreneurship, and many others highlighted by Christoffer O. Hernæs, chief digital officer of Skandiabanken and vice president of strategy and innovation at Sparebank; Vincent C. Müller, professor of the philosophy division of humanities & social sciences at Anatolia College; Nigel Parker, director of developer and platform evangelism at Microsoft APAC; and Jon Gosier, founder and CEO of WoundedMetrics, who was voted as one of the 25 most influential African-Americans in technology by Business Insider in 2013 and 2014.
ICISTS has organized and hosted this event, the largest academic conference hosted and organized by students in Asia, since 2005 as a way to discuss an incredibly challenging issue: how science and technology is being integrated into society. This year’s conference will explore how prominent technological advancements are integrated, and how the interactions between humanity and technology will affect society. This year’s sub-theme is “Settlement, Movement, and Inequality.”
In addition to the main session, ICISTS is preparing discussion sessions in which guest speakers and participants will divide into small groups to discuss their responses to the themes. Various additional events including a culture night and an excursion program will serve as opportunities to network with other participants. For more information on the program and how to register, please visit http://www.icist.org.
2017.05.22 View 9492 -
Study Identifies the Novel Molecular Signal for Triggering Septic Shock
Professor Seyun Kim’s team at the Department of Biological Sciences reported the mechanism by which cellular signaling transduction networks are precisely controlled in mediating innate immune responses, such as sepsis, by the enzyme IPMK (Inositol polyphosphate multikinase) which is essential for inositol biosynthesis metabolism.
In collaboration with Professor Hyun Seong Roh at Seoul National University, the study’s first author, Eunha Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in Department of Biological Sciences, performed a series of cellular, biochemical, and physiological experiments searching for the new function of IPMK enzymes in macrophages. The research findings were published in Science Advances on April 21.
Professor Kim’s team has been investigating various inositol metabolites and their biosynthesis metabolism for several years and has multilaterally identified the signaling actions of IPMK for controlling cellular growth and energy homeostasis.
This research showed that the specific deletion of IPMK enzymes in macrophages could significantly reduce levels of inflammation and increase survival rates in mice when they were challenged by microbial septic shock and endotoxins. This suggests a role for IPMK enzymes in mediating innate inflammatory responses that are directly related to a host’s defense against pathogenic bacterial infection.
The team further discovered that IPMK enzymes directly bind to TRAF6 proteins, a key player in immune signaling, thus protecting TRAF6 proteins from ubiquitination reactions that are involved in protein degradation. In addition, Kim and his colleagues successfully verified this IPMK-dependent immune control by employing short peptides which can specifically interfere with the binding between IPMK enzymes and TRAF6 proteins in macrophage cells.
This research revealed a novel function of IPMK enzymes in the fine tuning of innate immune signaling networks, suggesting a new direction for developing therapeutics targeting serious medical conditions such as neuroinflammation, type 2 diabetes, as well as polymicrobial sepsis that are developed from uncontrolled host immune responses. This research was funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
(Figure: Deletion of IPMK (inositol polyphosphate multikinase) in macrophages reduces the stability of TRAF6 protein which is the key to innate immune signaling, thereby blocking excessive inflammation in response to pathological bacterial infection.)
2017.05.11 View 10014 -
Gout Diagnostic Strip Using a Single Teardrop
A novel diagnostic strip for gout patients using a single teardrop has been announced by KAIST research team. This technology analyzes biological molecules in tears for a non-invasive diagnosis, significantly reducing the time and expense previously required for a diagnosis.
The research team under Professor Ki-Hun Jeong of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering succeeded in developing an affordable and elaborate gout diagnostic strip by depositing metal nanoparticles on paper. This technology can not only be used in diagnostic medicine and drug testing, but also in various other areas such as field diagnoses that require prompt and accurate detection of a certain substance.
Gout induces pain in joints due to needle-shaped uric acid crystal build up. In general, therapeutic treatments exist to administer pain relief, stimulate uric acid discharge, and uric acid depressant. Such treatments work for temporary relief, but there have significant limitations. Thus, patients are required to regularly check uric acid concentrations, as well as control their diets. Therefore, simpler ways to measure uric acid would greatly benefit gout control and its prevention in a more affordable and convenient manner.
Existing gout diagnostic techniques include measuring uric acid concentrations from blood samples or observing uric acid crystals from joint synovial fluid under a microscope. These existing methods are invasive and time consuming. To overcome their limitations, the research team uniformly deposited gold nanoislands with nanoplasnomics properties on the surface of paper that can easily collect tears.
Nanoplasnomics techniques collect light on the surface of a metal nanostructure, and can be applied to disease and health diagnostic indicators as well as for genetic material detection. Further, metals such as gold absorb stronger light when it is irradiated, and thus can maximize light concentration on board surfaces while maintaining the properties of paper. The developed metal nanostructure production technology allows the flexible manufacturing of nanostructures on a large surface, which in turn allows flexible control of light concentrations.
The research team grafted surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy on paper diagnostic strips to allow uric acid concentration measurements in teardrops without additional indicators. The measured concentration in teardrops can be compared to blood uric acid concentrations for diagnosing gout.
Professor Jeong explained, “Based on these research results, our strip will make it possible to conduct low-cost, no indicator, supersensitive biological molecule analysis and fast field diagnosis using tears.” He continued, “Tears, as well as various other bodily fluids, can be used to contribute to disease diagnosis and physiological functional research.”
Ph.D. candidate Moonseong Park participated in the research as the first author of the paper that was published in the online edition of ACS Nano on December 14, 2016. Park said, “The strip will allow fast and simple field diagnosis, and can be produced on a large scale using the existing semiconductor process.”
(Figure 1. Optical image of paper gout diagnostic strip covered with gold)
(Figure 2. Scanning delectron microscopic image of paper gout diagnostic strip)
(Figure 3. Scanning electron microscope image of cellulos fiber coated with gold nanoislands)
(Figure 4. Gout diagnosis using tears)
2017.04.27 View 9634 -
Professor Lee Recognized by the KMS as Best Paper Awardee
Professor Ji Oon Lee of the Department of Mathematical Sciences was selected as the 2017 Best Paper Awardee by the Korean Mathematical Society. The award will be presented during the KMS spring meeting on April 29. Dr. Lee is being honored for proving a necessary and sufficient condition for the Tracy-Wisdom law of Wigner matrices. In a paper titled ‘A Necessary and Sufficient Condition for Edge Universality of Wigner Matrices,’ he proposed a solution for one of the many unanswered problems in the field of random matrix theory that have existed for decades. The paper, co-authored with Professor Jun Yin at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, was published in the Duke Mathematical Journal in 2014. Professor Lee joined KAIST in 2010 after finishing his Ph.D. at Harvard University. He was named a ‘POSCI Science Fellow’ and received the ‘Young Scientist Award’ from the KMS in 2014.
2017.04.27 View 10901 -
Professor Jinah Park Received the Prime Minister's Award
Professor Jinah Park of the School of Computing received the Prime Minister’s Citation Ribbon on April 21 at a ceremony celebrating the Day of Science and ICT. The awardee was selected by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and Korea Communications Commission.
Professor Park was recognized for her convergence R&D of a VR simulator for dental treatment with haptic feedback, in addition to her research on understanding 3D interaction behavior in VR environments. Her major academic contributions are in the field of medical imaging, where she developed a computational technique to analyze cardiac motion from tagging data.
Professor Park said she was very pleased to see her twenty-plus years of research on ways to converge computing into medical areas finally bear fruit. She also thanked her colleagues and students in her Computer Graphics and CGV Research Lab for working together to make this achievement possible.
2017.04.26 View 11363 -
Newdin Contents Donates 'Strikezon'
Newdin Contents, an online and mobile game maker, made a gift of ‘Strikezon' to KAIST on April 19. The screen game valued at 100 million KRW will be placed in the lobby of the School of Computing, enriching the diverse physical activity options for the KAIST community. The donation was made at a ceremony attended by KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin, the CEO of the Newdin, Hyo-Kyum Kim, and Head of the School of Computing Professor Myoung Ho Kim.
At the Strikezon, students can enjoy mini baseball games indoors including a batting challenge and a pitching mode indoors for free.
President Shin thanked Mr. Kim of Newdin Contents, saying the donation will be a stepping stone for possible mutual collaborations which will play a synergistic role for technological development. Mr. Kim noted, “We are very pleased to donate the program to KAIST, which is the alma mater of Joon-Mo Hwang, the developer of Strikezon.” He added that Newdin Contents will make every effort to produce advanced game products with state of the art technology.
(Photo caption:President Sung-Chul Shin hits the ball at the Strikezon on April 19.)
2017.04.19 View 5838 -
Professor Otfried Cheong Named as Distinguished Scientist by ACM
Professor Otfried Cheong (Schwarzkopf) of the School of Computing was named as a Distinguished Scientist of 2016 by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
The ACM recognized 45 Distinguished Members in the category of Distinguished Scientist, Educator, and Engineer for their individual contributions to the field of computing. Professor Cheong is the sole recipient from a Korean institution. The recipients were selected among the top 10 percent of ACM members with at least 15 years of professional experience and five years of continuous professional membership.
He is known as one of the authors of the widely used computational geometry textbook Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications and as the developer of Ipe, a vector graphics editor. Professor Cheong joined KAIST in 2005, after earning his doctorate from the Free University of Berlin in 1992. He previously taught at Ultrecht University, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Eindhoven University of Technology.
2017.04.17 View 9230 -
Improving Traffic Safety with a Crowdsourced Traffic Violation Reporting App
KAIST researchers revealed that crowdsourced traffic violation reporting with smartphone-based continuous video capturing can dramatically change the current practice of policing activities on the road and will significantly improve traffic safety.
Professor Uichin Lee of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Graduate School of Knowledge Service Engineering at KAIST and his research team designed and evaluated Mobile Roadwatch, a mobile app that helps citizen record traffic violation with their smartphones and report the recorded videos to the police.
This app supports continuous video recording just like onboard vehicle dashboard cameras. Mobile Roadwatch allows drivers to safely capture traffic violations by simply touching a smartphone screen while driving. The captured videos are automatically tagged with contextual information such as location and time. This information will be used as important evidence for the police to ticket the violators. All of the captured videos can be conveniently reviewed, allowing users to decide which events to report to the police.
The team conducted a two-week field study to understand how drivers use Mobile Roadwatch. They found that the drivers tended to capture all traffic risks regardless of the level of their involvement and the seriousness of the traffic risks. However, when it came to actual reporting, they tended to report only serious traffic violations, which could have led to car accidents, such as traffic signal violations and illegal U-turns. After receiving feedback about their reports from the police, drivers typically felt very good about their contributions to traffic safety.
At the same time, some drivers felt pleased to know that the offenders received tickets since they thought these offenders deserved to be ticketed. While participating in the Mobile Roadwatch campaign, drivers reported that they tried to drive as safely as possible and abide by traffic laws. This was because they wanted to be as fair as possible so that they could capture others’ violations without feeling guilty. They were also afraid that other drivers might capture their violations.
Professor Lee said, “Our study participants answered that Mobile Roadwatch served as a very useful tool for reporting traffic violations, and they were highly satisfied with its features. Beyond simple reporting, our tool can be extended to support online communities, which help people actively discuss various local safety issues and work with the police and local authorities to solve these safety issues.”
Korea and India were the early adaptors supporting video-based reporting of traffic violations to the police. In recent years, the number of reports has dramatically increased. For example, Korea’s ‘Looking for a Witness’ (released in April 2015) received more than half million reported violations as of November 2016. In the US, authorities started tapping into smartphone recordings by releasing video-based reporting apps such as ICE Blackbox and Mobile Justice. Professor Lee said that the existing services cannot be used while driving, because none of the existing services support continuous video recording and safe event capturing behind the wheel.
Professor Lee’s team has been incorporating advanced computer vision techniques into Mobile Roadwatch for automatically capturing traffic violations and safety risks, including potholes and obstacles. The researchers will present their results in May at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2017) in Denver, CO, USA. Their research was supported by the KAIST-KUSTAR fund.
(Caption: A driver is trying to capture an event by touching a screen. The Mobile Radwatch supports continuous video recording and safe event captureing behind the wheel.)
2017.04.10 View 11712 -
Expanding the Genetic Code of Mus Musculus
Professor Hee-Sung Park of the Department of Chemistry, who garnered attention for his novel strategy of installing authentic post-translational modifications into recombinant proteins, expanded his research portfolio to another level. Professor Park’s team was the first to report the generation of a mouse strain with an expanded genetic code, allowing site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids.
Professor Park published the research on the new chemical biology method for achieving selective chemical modifications in proteins in Science last September. The research team, this time in collaboration with Professor Chan Bae Park of the Department of Physiology at the Ajou University School of Medicine, demonstrated temporal and spatial control of protein acetylation in various organs of the transgenic mouse using a recombinant green fluorescent protein as a model protein. This research was published in the online edition of Nature Communications on February 21.
This approach enables the rapid onset of position-specific acetylation of a target protein at any developmental stage, facilitating temporal and spatial control of protein acetylation in various organs of the transgenic mouse. Such temporal and spatial control of protein acetylation will be of prime importance for investigating many essential biological processes and human diseases at the tissue and organism level.
Almost all human proteins, the products of about 25,000 genes, are known to undergo various post-translational modifications during and after synthesis. Post-translation modifications regulate the function of cellular proteins, playing a key role in many essential processes such as delivering signals and body growth. However, the unusual protein modifications, aroused from genetic and/or environmental factors, trigger severe diseases including cancer, dementia, and diabetes.
The team inserted transgenes into the mouse genome to allocate the site-specific addition of unnatural amino acids. The researchers inserted a modified version of lysine into the house mice, which allowed for the control of the acetylation. They used recombinant green fluorescent proteins from transgenic house mice as models for control of the acetylation.
The team was also able to regulate the acetylation of specific temporal and spatial frames in the mice, restraining the abnormality in proteins to certain organs such as the liver and kidneys. The research team said the strategy will provide a powerful tool for systematic in vivo study of cellular proteins in the most commonly used mammalian model organisms for human physiology and disease. Professor Park said, “This method can be easily extended to generate a wide range of custom-made transgenic mouse strains for further investigating diverse proteins of interest.” He added, “This method can be further extended to generate a wide range of custom-made transgenic mouse strains, opening a new paradigm for investigating anti-cancer and cerebral disease treatments.
This work was supported by grants from KAIST Systems Healthcare and the Medicinal Bioconvergence Research Center and the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center of the Global Frontier Project funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
(Figure:Temporal and spatial control of in vivo protein acetylation)
(a) Temporal expression of acetylated GFPuv in the AcK-GFPamber mouse. The expression of GFPuv in skeletal muscle, liver, and lung tissues was detected only in the AcK-injected mouse. Scale bar, 200 µm. (b) Western blotting of anti-FLAG-immunoprecipitated proteins from tissues of the AcK-GFPamber mouse. Acetylated GFPuv was produced after AcK injection. (c) Spatial expression of acetylated GFPuv in the AcK-GFPamber mouse. Acetylated GFPuv was observed only in skeletal muscle when AcK was directly delivered to the tissues. Sacle bar, 200 µm.
2017.03.27 View 10607 -
ANSYS Korea Donates Engineering Simulation Software
ANSYS Korea made an in-kind donation of engineering simulation software, Multiphysics Campus Solution, to KAIST on March 24. ANSYS Korea donated 10,000 copies for education and 1,000 copies for research valued at about 4 billion KRW (about 200 billion KRW commercially).
The ANSYS software will benefit the engineering simulation work in nine departments and 60 labs for three years, including the departments of mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, nuclear and quantum engineering, chemical and bimolecular engineering, bio and brain engineering, materials science and engineering, and the Cho Chun Shik Graduate School of Green Transportation.
ANSYS is a global engineering simulation company. It provides ANSYS CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) software products in various industries in the world as well as various support, training, and consulting services. Deemed an exemplary model of university-industry R&D collaboration especially in the Industry 4.0 era, their donation will help create the best engineering education environment possible at KAIST.
ANSYS's multi-physics campus solution is a comprehensive software suite that spans the entire range of physics, providing access to virtually any field of engineering simulation that a design process requires. It expands the fields of fluids, structures, electromagnetics, and semiconductors. Undergraduates use it to learn physics principles and gain hands-on, real-world experience that can lead to a deeper understanding of engineering concepts. Postgraduate researchers apply simulation tools to solve complex engineering problems and produce data for their theses.
"Engineering simulations are playing a stronger role in science and engineering. ANSYS software will help our undergraduates and our researchers learn the principles of physics and deepen their understanding of engineering concepts. We hope this will serve as an instrumental tool for multidisciplinary studies, critical to fostering our students," said President Sung-Chul Shin.
ANSYS Korea CEO Yong-Won Cho added, "We sincerely hope our software will help KAIST students and researchers experience the best engineering education and achieve significant research results."
(Photo caption: President Shin (left) poses with ANSYS Korea CEO Yong-Won Cho at the donation ceremony on March 24 at KAIST)
2017.03.24 View 10131 -
A Transport Technology for Nanowires Thermally Treated at 700 Celsius Degrees
Professor Jun-Bo Yoon and his research team of the Department of Electrical Engineering at KAIST developed a technology for transporting thermally treated nanowires to a flexible substrate and created a high performance device for collecting flexible energy by using the new technology.
Mr. Min-Ho Seo, a Ph.D. candidate, participated in this study as the first author. The results were published online on January 30th in ACS Nano, an international journal in the field of nanoscience and engineering. (“Versatile Transfer of an Ultralong and Seamless Nanowire Array Crystallized at High Temperature for Use in High-performance Flexible Devices,” DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.6b06842)
Nanowires are one of the most representative nanomaterials. They have wire structures with dimensions in nanometers. The nanowires are widely used in the scientific and engineering fields due to their prominent physical and chemical properties that depend on a one-dimensional structure, and their high applicability.
Nanowires have much higher performance if their structure has unique features such as an excellent arrangement and a longer-than-average length. Many researchers are thus actively participating in the research for making nanowires without much difficulty, analyzing them, and developing them for high performance application devices.
Scientists have recently favored a research topic on making nanowires chemically and physically on a flexible substrate and applies the nanowires to a flexible electric device such as a high performance wearable sensor.
The existing technology, however, mixed nanowires from a chemical synthesis with a solution and spread the mixture on a flexible substrate. The resultant distribution was random, and it was difficult to produce a high performance device based on the structural advantages of nanowires. In addition, the technology used a cutting edge nano-process and flexible materials, but this was not economically beneficial. The production of stable materials at a temperature of 700 Celsius degrees or higher is unattainable, a great challenge for the application.
To solve this problem, the research team developed a new nano-transfer technology that combines a silicon nano-grating board with a large surface area and a nano-sacrificial layer process. A nano-sacrificial layer exists between nanowires and a nano-grating board, which acts as the mold for the nano-transfer. The new technology allows the device undergo thermal treatment. After this, the layer disappears when the nanowires are transported to a flexible substrate.
This technology also permits the stable production of nanowires with secured properties at an extremely high temperature. In this case, the nanowires are neatly organized on a flexible substrate. The research team used the technology to manufacture barium carbonate nanowires on top of the flexible substrate. The wires secured their properties at a temperature of 700℃ or above. The team employed the collection of wearable energy to obtain much higher electrical energy than that of an energy collecting device designed based on regular barium titanate nanowires.
The researchers said that their technology is built upon a semiconductor process, known as Physical Vapor Deposition that allows various materials such as ceramics and semiconductors to be used for flexible substrates of nanowires. They expected that high performance flexible electric devices such as flexible transistors and thermoelectric elements can be produced with this method.
Mr. Seo said, “In this study, we transported nanowire materials with developed properties on a flexible substrate and showed an increase in device performance. Our technology will be fundamental to the production of various nanowires on a flexible substrate as well as the feasibility of making high performance wearable electric devices.”
This research was supported by the Leap Research Support Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Fig. 1. Transcription process of new, developed nanowires (a) and a fundamental mimetic diagram of a nano-sacrificial layer (b)
Fig. 2. Transcription results from using gold (AU) nanowires. The categories of the results were (a) optical images, (b) physical signals, (c) cross-sectional images from a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and (d-f) an electric verification of whether the perfectly arranged nanowires were made on a large surface.
Fig. 3. Transcription from using barium titanate (BaTiO3) nanowires. The results were (a) optical images, (b-e) top images taken from an SEM in various locations, and (f, g) property analysis.
Fig. 4. Mimetic diagram of the energy collecting device from using a BaTiO3 nanowire substrate and an optical image of the experiment for the miniature energy collecting device attached to an index finger.
2017.03.22 View 10277 -
13 KAIST Faculty Named as Inaugural Members of Y-KAST
The Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) launched the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST) and selected 73 scientists as its inaugural members on February 24. Among them, 13 KAIST faculty were recognized as the inaugural members of Y-KAST.
Y-KAIST, made up of distinguished mid-career scientists under the age of 45, will take the leading role in international collaboration as well as innovative agenda-making in science and technology.
The inaugural members include Professor Hyotcherl Ihee of the Department of Chemistry and Dr. Sung-Jin Oh of the Center for Mathematical Challenges at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), affiliated with KAIST. Professor Ihee is gaining wide acclaim in the fields of physics and chemistry, and in 2016, Dr. Oh was the youngest ever awardee of the Presidential Award of Young Scientist.
The other Y-KAIST members are as follows: Professors Haeshin Lee of the Department of Chemistry; Mi Young Kim, Byung-Kwan Cho, and Ji-Joon Song of the Department of Biological Sciences; Song-Yong Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Sang-il Oum of the Department of Mathematical Sciences; Jung Kyoon Choi of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering; Seokwoo Jeon, Sang Ouk Kim, and Il-Doo Kim of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Jang Wook Choi of the Graduate School of EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability); and Jeong Ho Lee of the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering.
The leading countries of the Academy of Science, which include Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Canada, and Japan, have established the Young Academy of Science since 2010 in order to encourage the research activities of their young scientists and to establish a global platform for collaborative research projects through their active networking at home and abroad.
President Myung-Chul Lee of KAST said, “We will spare no effort to connect these outstanding mid-career researchers for their future collaboration. Their networking will make significant impacts toward their own research activities as well as the global stature of Korea’s science and technology R&D.
(Photo caption: Members of Y-KAST pose at the inaugural ceremony of Y-KAST on February 24.)
2017.03.02 View 19863