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Emeritus Professors' Social Service for Embracing Multicultural Families
Korea has become a melting pot over recent years, with many families embracing diverse nationalities, cultures, and ethnicities. A group of KAIST emeritus professors volunteered to help these multicultural families, which are often formed through international marriages, better cope with life in Korea by creating a continuing education program called “Multicultural Mother School.”
The school admitted a total of ten non-Korean mothers for its first class and held an entrance ceremony for the students on March 14, 2015, at the IFC Hope Church in Daejeon. Classes began since March 16, 2015, offering the first lecture to students remotely via the Internet.
Professor Emeritus Byung-Kyu Choi, who organized the volunteering program and is the director of the Multicultural Mother School, said, “About 5% of newborns in Korea currently come from multicultural families. It is important that we should support them to assimilate well into the Korean society. Since 60% of multicultural children have yet to enter the public school system, particularly at the elementary schools level, offering their mothers opportunities to learn more about Korea will serve a greater good.”
2015.03.14 View 6404 -
KAIST Introduces New UI for K-Glass 2
A newly developed user interface, the “i-Mouse,” in the K-Glass 2 tracks the user’s gaze and connects the device to the Internet through blinking eyes such as winks. This low-power interface provides smart glasses with an excellent user experience, with a long-lasting battery and augmented reality.
Smart glasses are wearable computers that will likely lead to the growth of the Internet of Things. Currently available smart glasses, however, reveal a set of problems for commercialization, such as short battery life and low energy efficiency. In addition, glasses that use voice commands have raised the issue of privacy concerns.
A research team led by Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of the Electrical Engineering Department at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has recently developed an upgraded model of the K-Glass (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/tkai-kdl021714.php) called “K-Glass 2.”
K-Glass 2 detects users’ eye movements to point the cursor to recognize computer icons or objects in the Internet, and uses winks for commands. The researchers call this interface the “i-Mouse,” which removes the need to use hands or voice to control a mouse or touchpad. Like its predecessor, K-Glass 2 also employs augmented reality, displaying in real time the relevant, complementary information in the form of text, 3D graphics, images, and audio over the target objects selected by users.
The research results were presented, and K-Glass 2’s successful operation was demonstrated on-site to the 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held on February 23-25, 2015 in San Francisco. The title of the paper was “A 2.71nJ/Pixel 3D-Stacked Gaze-Activated Object Recognition System for Low-power Mobile HMD Applications” (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp).
The i-Mouse is a new user interface for smart glasses in which the gaze-image sensor (GIS) and object recognition processor (ORP) are stacked vertically to form a small chip. When three infrared LEDs (light-emitting diodes) built into the K-Glass 2 are projected into the user’s eyes, GIS recognizes their focal point and estimates the possible locations of the gaze as the user glances over the display screen. Then the electro-oculography sensor embedded on the nose pads reads the user’s eyelid movements, for example, winks, to click the selection. It is worth noting that the ORP is wired to perform only within the selected region of interest (ROI) by users. This results in a significant saving of battery life. Compared to the previous ORP chips, this chip uses 3.4 times less power, consuming on average 75 milliwatts (mW), thereby helping K-Glass 2 to run for almost 24 hours on a single charge.
Professor Yoo said, “The smart glass industry will surely grow as we see the Internet of Things becomes commonplace in the future. In order to expedite the commercial use of smart glasses, improving the user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX) are just as important as the development of compact-size, low-power wearable platforms with high energy efficiency. We have demonstrated such advancement through our K-Glass 2. Using the i-Mouse, K-Glass 2 can provide complicated augmented reality with low power through eye clicking.”
Professor Yoo and his doctoral student, Injoon Hong, conducted this research under the sponsorship of the Brain-mimicking Artificial Intelligence Many-core Processor project by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning in the Republic of Korea.
Youtube Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=JaYtYK9E7p0&list=PLXmuftxI6pTW2jdIf69teY7QDXdI3Ougr
Picture 1: K-Glass 2
K-Glass 2 can detect eye movements and click computer icons via users’ winking.
Picture 2: Object Recognition Processor Chip
This picture shows a gaze-activated object-recognition system.
Picture 3: Augmented Reality Integrated into K-Glass 2
Users receive additional visual information overlaid on the objects they select.
2015.03.13 View 16648 -
Professor Sangyong Jon Appointed Fellow of AIMBE
Professor Sangyong Jon of the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST has been appointed a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) fellowship.
Established in 1991, AIMBE is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2% of medical and biological engineers. AIMBE provides policy advice and advocacy for medical and biological engineering for the benefit of humanity. It has had about 1,500 fellows over the past 25 years. Among the members, only 110 are non-American nationalities.
Following the appointment of Dr. Hae-Bang Lee, the former senior researcher at the Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technology, and Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST, Professor Jon is the third Korean to become an AIMBE fellow. He had an induction ceremony for the appointment of his fellowship at the AIMBE’s Annual Event held on March 15-17, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
An authority on nanomedicine, Professor Jon has developed many original technologies including multi-functional Theranostics nano particles for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. He received the Most Cited Paper Award from Theranostics, an academic journal specialized in nanomedicine, last February.
Additionally, Professor Jon is a leading researcher in the field of translational medicine, using a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative, “Bench to Bedside” approach for disease treatment and prevention. He created a biotechnology venture company and transferred research developments to the industry in Korea.
2015.03.12 View 12897 -
KAIST Develops Ultrathin Polymer Insulators Key to Low-Power Soft Electronics
Using an initiated chemical vapor deposition technique, the research team created an ultrathin polymeric insulating layer essential in realizing transistors with flexibility and low power consumption. This advance is expected to accelerate the commercialization of wearable and soft electronics.
A group of researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed a high-performance ultrathin polymeric insulator for field-effect transistors (FETs). The researchers used vaporized monomers to form polymeric films grown conformally on various surfaces including plastics to produce a versatile insulator that meets a wide range of requirements for next-generation electronic devices. Their research results were published online in Nature Materials on March 9th, 2015.
FETs are an essential component for any modern electronic device used in our daily life from cell phones and computers, to flat-panel displays. Along with three electrodes (gate, source, and drain), FETs consist of an insulating layer and a semiconductor channel layer. The insulator in FETs plays an important role in controlling the conductance of the semiconductor channel and thus current flow within the translators. For reliable and low-power operation of FETs, electrically robust, ultrathin insulators are essential. Conventionally, such insulators are made of inorganic materials (e.g., oxides and nitrides) built on a hard surface such as silicon or glass due to their excellent insulating performance and reliability.
However, these insulators were difficult to implement into soft electronics due to their rigidity and high process temperature. In recent years, many researchers have studied polymers as promising insulating materials that are compatible with soft unconventional substrates and emerging semiconductor materials. The traditional technique employed in developing a polymer insulator, however, had the limitations of low surface coverage at ultra-low thickness, hindering FETs adopting polymeric insulators from operating at low voltage.
A KAIST research team led by Professor Sung Gap Im of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department and Professor Seunghyup Yoo and Professor Byung Jin Cho of the Electrical Engineering Department developed an insulating layer of organic polymers, “pV3D3,” that can be greatly scaled down, without losing its ideal insulating properties, to a thickness of less than 10 nanometers (nm) using the all-dry vapor-phase technique called the “initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD).”
The iCVD process allows gaseous monomers and initiators to react with each other in a low vacuum condition, and as a result, conformal polymeric films with excellent insulating properties are deposited on a substrate. Unlike the traditional technique, the surface-growing character of iCVD can overcome the problems associated with surface tension and produce highly uniform and pure ultrathin polymeric films over a large area with virtually no surface or substrate limitations. Furthermore, most iCVD polymers are created at room temperature, which lessens the strain exerted upon and damage done to the substrates.
With the pV3D3 insulator, the research team built low-power, high-performance FETs based on various semiconductor materials such as organics, graphene, and oxides, demonstrating the pV3D3 insulator’s wide range of material compatibility. They also manufactured a stick-on, removable electronic component using conventional packaging tape as a substrate. In collaboration with Professor Yong-Young Noh from Dongguk University in Korea, the team successfully developed a transistor array on a large-scale flexible substrate with the pV3D3 insulator.
Professor Im said, “The down-scalability and wide range of compatibility observed with iCVD-grown pV3D3 are unprecedented for polymeric insulators. Our iCVD pV3D3 polymeric films showed an insulating performance comparable to that of inorganic insulating layers, even when their thickness were scaled down to sub-10 nm. We expect our development will greatly benefit flexible or soft electronics, which will play a key role in the success of emerging electronic devices such as wearable computers.”
The title of the research paper is “Synthesis of ultrathin polymer insulating layers by initiated chemical vapor deposition for low-power soft electronics” (Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number is 10.1038/nmat4237).
Picture 1: A schematic image to show how the initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) technique produces pV3D3 polymeric films: (i) introduction of vaporized monomers and initiators, (ii) activation of initiators to thermally dissociate into radicals, (iii) adsorption of monomers and initiator radicals onto a substrate, and (iv) transformation of free-radical polymerization into pV3D3 thin films.
Picture 2: This is a transistor array fabricated on a large scale, highly flexible substrate with pV3D3 polymeric films.
Picture 3: This photograph shows an electronic component fabricated on a conventional packaging tape, which is attachable or detachable, with pV3D3 polymeric films embedded.
2015.03.10 View 13609 -
System Approach Using Metabolite Structural Similarity Toward TOM Suggested
A Korean research team at KAIST suggests that a system approach using metabolite structural similarity helps to elucidate the mechanisms of action of traditional oriental medicine.
Traditional oriental medicine (TOM) has been practiced in Asian countries for centuries, and is gaining increasing popularity around the world. Despite its efficacy in various symptoms, TOM has been practiced without precise knowledge of its mechanisms of action. Use of TOM largely comes from empirical knowledge practiced over a long period of time. The fact that some of the compounds found in TOM have led to successful modern drugs such as artemisinin for malaria and taxol (Paclitaxel) for cancer has spurred modernization of TOM.
A research team led by Sang-Yup Lee at KAIST has focused on structural similarities between compounds in TOM and human metabolites to help explain TOM’s mechanisms of action. This systems approach using structural similarities assumes that compounds which are structurally similar to metabolites could affect relevant metabolic pathways and reactions by biosynthesizing structurally similar metabolites.
Structural similarity analysis has helped to identify mechanisms of action of TOM. This is described in a recent study entitled “A systems approach to traditional oriental medicine,” published online in Nature Biotechnology on March 6, 2015. In this study, the research team conducted structural comparisons of all the structurally known compounds in TOM and human metabolites on a large-scale. As a control, structures of all available approved drugs were also compared against human metabolites. This structural analysis provides two important results. First, the identification of metabolites structurally similar to TOM compounds helped to narrow down the candidate target pathways and reactions for the effects from TOM compounds. Second, it suggested that a greater fraction of all the structurally known TOM compounds appeared to be more similar to human metabolites than the approved drugs. This second finding indicates that TOM has a great potential to interact with diverse metabolic pathways with strong efficacy. This finding, in fact, shows that TOM compounds might be advantageous for the multitargeting required to cure complex diseases. “Once we have narrowed down candidate target pathways and reactions using this structural similarity approach, additional in silico tools will be necessary to characterize the mechanisms of action of many TOM compounds at a molecular level,” said Hyun Uk Kim, a research professor at KAIST.
TOM’s multicomponent, multitarget approach wherein multiple components show synergistic effects to treat symptoms is highly distinctive. The researchers investigated previously observed effects recorded since 2000 of a set of TOM compounds with known mechanisms of action. TOM compounds’ synergistic combinations largely consist of a major compound providing the intended efficacy to the target site and supporting compounds which maximize the efficacy of the major compound. In fact, such combination designs appear to mirror the Kun-Shin-Choa-Sa design principle of TOM.
That principle, Kun-Shin-Choa-Sa (君臣佐使 or Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi in Chinese) literally means “king-minister-assistant-ambassador.” In ancient East Asian medicine, treating human diseases and taking good care of the human body are analogous to the politics of governing a nation. Just as good governance requires that a king be supported by ministers, assistants and/or ambassadors, treating diseases or good care of the body required the combined use of herbal medicines designed based on the concept of Kun-Shin-Choa-Sa. Here, the Kun (king or the major component) indicates the major medicine (or herb) conveying the major drug efficacy, and is supported by three different types of medicines: the Shin (minister or the complementary component) for enhancing and/or complementing the efficacy of the Kun, Choa (assistant or the neutralizing component) for reducing any side effects caused by the Kun and reducing the minor symptoms accompanying major symptom, and Sa (ambassador or the delivery/retaining component) which facilitated the delivery of the Kun to the target site, and retaining the Kun for prolonged availability in the cells.
The synergistic combinations of TOM compounds reported in the literature showed four different types of synergisms: complementary action (similar to Kun-Shin), neutralizing action (similar to Kun-Choa), facilitating action or pharmacokinetic potentiation (both similar to Kun-Choa or Kun-Sa). Additional structural analyses for these compounds with synergism show that they appeared to affect metabolism of amino acids, co-factors and vitamins as major targets.
Professor Sang Yup Lee remarks, “This study lays a foundation for the integration of traditional oriental medicine with modern drug discovery and development. The systems approach taken in this analysis will be used to elucidate mechanisms of action of unknown TOM compounds which will then be subjected to rigorous validation through clinical and in silico experiments.”
Sources: Kim, H.U. et al. “A systems approach to traditional oriental medicine.” Nature Biotechnology. 33: 264-268 (2015).
This work was supported by the Bio-Synergy Research Project (2012M3A9C4048759) of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning through the National Research Foundation. This work was also supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
The picture below presents the structural similarity analysis of comparing compounds in traditional oriental medicine and those in all available approved drugs against the structures of human metabolites.
2015.03.09 View 10735 -
Interactions Features KAIST's Human-Computer Interaction Lab
Interactions, a bi-monthly magazine published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the largest educational and scientific computing society in the world, featured an article introducing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab at KAIST in the March/April 2015 issue (http://interactions.acm.org/archive/toc/march-april-2015).
Established in 2002, the HCI Lab (http://hcil.kaist.ac.kr/) is run by Professor Geehyuk Lee of the Computer Science Department at KAIST. The lab conducts various research projects to improve the design and operation of physical user interfaces and develops new interaction techniques for new types of computers. For the article, see the link below:
ACM Interactions, March and April 2015
Day in the Lab: Human-Computer Interaction Lab @ KAIST
http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/march-april-2015/human-computer-interaction-lab-kaist
2015.03.02 View 10533 -
Dr. Dong-Hee Chung Honored with OYRA by Korean Physicists in America
Dr. Dong-Hee Chung, a KAIST alumnus (class of 2002) who is currently a professor of the Physics Department at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), received the 2015 Outstanding Young Researcher Award (OYRA) by the Association of Korean Physicists in America (AKPA).
The award ceremony was held on March 3, 2015 at AKPA’s annual conference. According to AKPA, Dr. Chung was recognized for his research achievements in the fields of the early universe, dark energy, and galaxy formation.
Dr. Chung finished both his undergraduate and graduate degrees at KAIST and received his doctorate in 2004 from the University of Texas at Austin. He was appointed a professor at Penn State in 2014.
2015.02.27 View 7363 -
KAIST Develops Subminiature, Power-Efficient Air Pollution Sensing Probe
Professor Inkyu Park and his research team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST have developed a subminiature, power-efficient air-pollution sensing probe that can be applied to mobile devices. Their research findings were published online in the January 30th issue of Scientific Reports.
As air pollution has increased, people have taken greater interest in health care. The developed technology could allow people to measure independently the air pollution level of their surrounding environments.
Previous instruments used to measure air pollution levels were bulky and consumed a lot of power. They also often produced inaccurate results when measuring air pollution in which different toxic gases were mixed. These problems could not be resolved with existing semiconductor manufacturing process.
Using local temperature field control technology, Professor Park’s team succeeded in integrating multiple heterogeneous nanomaterials and fitting them onto a small, low-power electronic chip. This microheating sensor can heat microscale regions through local hydrothermal synthesis. Because it requires a miniscale amount of nanomaterials to manufacture, the sensor is most suitable for mobile devices.
Professor Park said, “Our research will contribute to the development of convergence technology in such field as air pollution sensing probes, biosensors, electronic devices, and displays.”
The team's research was supported by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea.
Figure 1 – The Concept of Multiple Nanomaterial Device and Numerical Simulation Results of Precursor Solutions
Figure 2 - Multiple Nanomaterial Manufactured in a Microscale Region
2015.02.27 View 10991 -
KAIST Signs MOU with Jeonju City
KAIST signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of new industries based on convergence technology with the government of Jeonju City on February 26, 2015. Located in the south west portion of the Korean peninsula, Jeonju City is home to a rich historical and cultural heritage.
Taking advantage of its proximity to the university's campus, the city will cooperate with KAIST to develop the local economy through creating new industries and jobs. To that end, KAIST and Jeonju will foster carbon-based industry, 3D printing technology, the Internet of Things, and emerging technologies. The two organizations also hope this cooperation will produce highly educated manpower for research and development in the city and offer the city to conduct national research projects.
President Sung-Mo Kang and Mayor Seung-Soo Kim pose after signing in the picture below.
2015.02.26 View 7936 -
KAIST Team Wins International Hacking Competition, "SECCON CTF 2014"
KAIST’s white hacker team, “TOFEL Beginner,” secured the first place in an international hacking competition, SECCON CTF 2014. SECCON is an international hacking competition which has operated for more than 20 years. It uses the Capture the Flag (CTF) method. Last year’s competition was held in Tokyo on December 7, 2014.
The TOFEL Beginner team consisted of two KAIST graduate students and two researchers from a private security company based in Korea: In-Soo Yoon of Computer Science, Eun-Soo Kim of the Graduate School of Information Security (GSIS), and Jong-Ho Lee and Jung-Hoon Lee of Raon Secure.
Of 4,186 competitors, 24 teams made it to the finals. The TOFEL Beginner took the lead with 4,506 points compared with HITCON (3,112 points) of Taiwan and PPP (2,858 points) of the USA.
With this victory, the KAIST team qualified to participate in the most renowned international hacking competition, the DEF CON Hacking Conference in 2015.
Professor Yongdae Kim of the Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST, who advised the TOEFL Beginner team, said, “Our members have achieved an outstanding result. By taking advantage of this opportunity, KAIST will continue to offer the best programs in information security in Korea and hopefully beyond.”
2015.02.24 View 10299 -
The Number of KAIST Doctoral Graduates to Reach Over Ten Thousands
The ten-thousandth doctoral graduate received her degree in the commencement ceremony on February 13, 2015.
KAIST has contributed to the development of science, technology, and industry in Korea by fostering talents in advanced science and engineering.
Since its establishment forty-four years ago, more than ten-thousand KAIST alumni have received their doctorates. This year’s graduation ceremony took place on February 13, 2015, at the Sports Complex on campus, awarding the ten-thousandth doctoral degree.
Dr. Sun-Mi Cho of the Department of Biological Sciences received the ten-thousandth doctoral degree. A graduate of Jeon-Nam Science High School, Dr. Cho also received her Bachelor of Science degree from KAIST.
Dr. Cho wrote a dissertation entitled “GABA from reactive astrocytes impairs learning and memory in Alzheimer disease.” Her dissertation adviser was Professor Daesoo Kim of the Department of Biological Sciences.
Dr. Cho, who will be a post-doctorate researcher at the Biological Sciences Department, said, “It was my childhood dream to receive a doctorate from KAIST. I cannot believe that I’m the ten-thousandth doctoral graduate, for which I’m very grateful.” She continued, “I hope to become a neuroscientist where I can be of help to the sick.”
In 1978, KAIST only had two doctoral graduates, but since 1987 there have been more than one hundred graduates each year, two hundred since 1994, and four hundred since 2000. In 2015, 522 doctoral students graduated.
One of the first doctoral graduates, Dong-Yol Yang (class of 1978 in the Mechanical Engineering Department), became a professor at the same department of KAIST. Professor Yang expressed his thoughts on the news, “There was a trend in Korea to go overseas for Ph.D. degrees in the early 1970s, but it changed when KAIST began to select candidates for Master’s degrees in 1973 and Doctoral degrees in 1975. Talented Korean students came to KAIST laboratories, and its graduates were known for their knowledge and skills. Now, we see that the talent is coming from overseas.”
At the 2015 Commencement, KAIST conferred 522 Doctoral, 1,241 Master’s, and 915 Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees.
Since its inception in 1971, KAIST has granted 10,403 doctor's, 26,402 master's, and 51,412 bachelor's degrees.
In the picture below, Professor Dong-Yol Yang (left) seats next to Dr. Sun-Mi Cho (right), the recipient of 10,000th doctoral degree.
2015.02.16 View 10376 -
The 2015 KAIST Commencement
A total of 2,678 students (522 for Doctor's, 1,241 for Master’s, and 915 for Bachelor's) graduated.
Twin brothers received their Ph.D. degrees together.
KAIST held its commencement ceremony on February 13, 2015. Approximately 8,000 people including the graduating class, their families, faculty, staff, and friends attended the ceremony and celebrated this milestone.
President Steve Kang of KAIST congratulated the graduating students and stressed the importance of their “contribution to social growth with a compassionate heart and expertise” in his commencement address. He also mentioned that all graduates would be recognized as a “Very Important Person (VIP)” and laid out the essential characteristics of what constitutes a “true VIP”: vision, innovation, and perseverance.
Among the graduates were twin brothers, Dae-Ok Kim of the Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability (EEWS) Graduate School and Dae-Woo Kim of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who received their doctorates on the same day.
The older brother, Dr. Dae-Ok Kim received both his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and Master’s degrees from KAIST’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and later was admitted to the EEWS Graduate School for his doctorate. His dissertation was an “Investigation on the behaviors of gas molecules in water-filled nanopores: Applications to energy and environmental technology.” Professor Huen Lee of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was his faculty adviser.
Dr. Dae-Ok Kim said, “It was a great advantage to conduct cooperative research with my brother by sharing information and discussing each other’s fields.” After graduating, Dr. Kim plans to research gas hydrates and porous materials at KAIST’s Energy and Environmental Systems Lab for a year and to continue his research on applications in the United States.
The younger brother, Dr. Dae-Woo Kim received his B.S. from KAIST’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and was admitted to the Master of Science-Ph.D. Integrated Degree Program in the same department. His doctoral thesis was on “Direct visualization of large-area domains of two dimensional materials by using optical birefringency.” His faculty adviser was Professor Hee Tae Jung of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Dr. Dae-Woo Kim said, “During my time at the graduate school, I could overcome my difficulties by talking frankly to my brother. Our relationship deepened as we reached our academic goals together at KAIST.”
Dr. Dae-Woo Kim, who published more than 25 papers in international journals such as Nature and Nanotechnology, received the Silver Prize in the Human Tech Paper Awards sponsored by Samsung Electronics Corp. in 2011. After graduating, Dr. Kim will research graphene and 2D material structure control at KAIST’s Organic Opto-Electronic Materials Lab for a year and take up further research on their applications in the United States.
KAIST Commencement 2015
In the picture below, the twins pose together at the 2015 commencement. At the left is Dae-Ok Kim (elder brother) and the right is Dae-Woo Kim.
2015.02.16 View 9035