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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 7171 -
Parasitic Robot System for Turtle's Waypoint Navigation
A KAIST research team presented a hybrid animal-robot interaction called “the parasitic robot system,” that imitates the nature relationship between parasites and host.
The research team led by Professor Phil-Seung Lee of the Department of Mechanical Engineering took an animal’s locomotive abilities to apply the theory of using a robot as a parasite. The robot is attached to its host animal in a way similar to an actual parasite, and it interacts with the host through particular devices and algorithms.
Even with remarkable technology advancements, robots that operate in complex and harsh environments still have some serious limitations in moving and recharging. However, millions of years of evolution have led to there being many real animals capable of excellent locomotion and survive in actual natural environment.
Certain kinds of real parasites can manipulate the behavior of the host to increase the probability of its own reproduction. Similarly, in the proposed concept of a “parasitic robot,” a specific behavior is induced by the parasitic robot in its host to benefit the robot.
The team chose a turtle as their first host animal and designed a parasitic robot that can perform “stimulus-response training.” The parasitic robot, which is attached to the turtle, can induce the turtle’s object-tracking behavior through repeated training sessions.
The robot then simply guides it using LEDs and feeds it snacks as a reward for going in the right direction through a programmed algorithm. After training sessions lasting five weeks, the parasitic robot can successfully control the direction of movement of the host turtles in the waypoint navigation task in a water tank.
This hybrid animal–robot interaction system could provide an alternative solution of the limitations of conventional mobile robot systems in various fields. Ph.D. candidate Dae-Gun Kim, the first author of this research said that there are a wide variety of animals including mice, birds, and fish that could perform equally as well at such tasks. He said that in the future, this system will be applied to various exploration and reconnaissance missions that humans and robots find it difficult to do on their own.
Kim said, “This hybrid animal-robot interaction system could provide an alternative solution to the limitations of conventional mobile robot systems in various fields, and could also act as a useful interaction system for the behavioral sciences.”
The research was published in the Journal of Bionic Engineering April issue.
2017.05.19 View 9395 -
Policy Debate Series for Industry 4.0
(Photo caption: President Shin takes the podium as the first speaker of a year-long monthly policy dabate series on Industry 4.0 on May 11.)
KAIST will kick off a monthly policy debate series on Industry 4.0 every Thursday from May 11 at the Startup KAIST building. The year-long series, featuring professors from key technology fields associated with Industry 4.0, is designed to help policy makers from government, industry, and research institutes respond better to the ramifications that Industry 4.0 brings about in each sector.
The series will help them establish the vision and strategy that will work for the new industrial environment to take the lead in the new industrial era.
Twelve professors, including President Sung-Chul Shin, from departments that are researching emerging technologies will speak on the megatrend of new technology, while facilitating debates and Q& A sessions with participants.
The participants will include officials from the government complexes in Sejong and Daejeon cities, government-funded research institutes in Daejeon, and businessmen, among others. For registration, please go to https://startup.kaist.ac.kr/register.
Schedule
Speaker
Theme
May 11
President Sung-Chul Shin
Challenges and Innovations of KAIST in the Era of Industry 4.0
June 8
Professor Jonghwan Kim
Machine Intelligence and Deep Learning
July 6
Professor Jun Ho Oh
Robot Technology and the Future
Aug. 3
Professor Hyunchul Shim
Unmanned Vehicle Technology and Industry 4.0
Sept. 7
Professor Hawoong Jeong
Complex Systems and Data Science
Oct. 12
Professor Yongdae Kim
Technology, Policy, and the Fostering of Talents: Industry 4.0 and Information Protection
Nov. 9
Professor Sang Yup Lee
The Role of Biotechnology in Industry 4.0
Dec. 7
Professor Meeyoung Cha
AI-Based Research for Fake News Detection
2018 Jan. 4
Professor Joungho Kim
Innovation for the Korean Semiconductor Industry: Kim’s Law
Feb. 8
Professor Jaekyun Moon
Education for Industry 4.0
March 8
Professor Sang Kil Cha
Artificial Intelligence Cyber Warfare: Its Present and Future
April 5
Professor Jaeseung Jeong
The Future of Brain Engineering and Artificial Intelligence
2017.05.08 View 8770 -
Seeking a New Economic and Industrial Paradigm
The School of Humanities & Social Science will offer the open lecture course titled ‘Seeking a New Economic and Industrial Paradigm’ from May11 to June 7. This is part of a quarterly lecture series run by the school and open to the public.
The open lecture is designed to provide opportunities for the public to identify future challenges and opportunities for Korea’s economy and industry. Experts in macroeconomics, finance, and global collaboration will provide glimpses of new directions for each sector as well as megatrends of emerging technologies on the heels of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Jin Hyuk Yoo from the Bank of Korea will speak on the ‘Outlook and Challenges of the Korean Economy.’ He will identify the current economic situation and explain how to build on sustainable long-term economic growth in the opening course.
Won-Bin Lee of the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade will present on the ‘New Industrial Policy in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.’ His lecture will focus on fostering the local industry and creating its own ecosystem for furthering regional industries.
Dong-Hoon Lee of Donga ST will speak on the implications that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring about in the medical industry. Won-Suk Choi of FnPricing will introduce the FN business model, presenting the risks and benefits of fintech in his lecture ‘Finance: Human and Technology.’
Jae-Hong Choi of the Institute of International Development Cooperation at Korea University will give a talk titled ‘Toward the World through Global Cooperation.’ He will present on the history of Korea’s global cooperation initiatives and the role of KOICA, introducing its emerging economic and industrial cooperation model.
Professor Jeounghoon Kim, who is responsible for the public lecture program, said, “Korea now faces very diverse social economic and industrial challenges and we seem to be lost while searching for a solution. The public will have an opportunity to understand the current economic situation and its industrial implications.”
For registration and more info, please visit http://hss.kaist.ac.kr.
2017.04.26 View 6966 -
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 7967 -
Professor Duck-Joo Lee Awarded the 21st Century Grand Prize
Professor Duck-Joo Lee of the Department of Aerospace Engineering was awarded the 21st Century Grand Prize in the field of technology development by the New Industry Management Academy and the 21st Leaders Club on April 13.
Professor Lee was honored in recognition of his contribution to the helicopter industry. He played a part in domestic helicopter development projects including the KUH-1 Surion (Korean Attack Helicopter), a twin-engine, transport utility helicopter as well as LAH (Light Armed Helicopter) and LCH (Light Civil Helicopter) projects.
Since joining KAIST in 1988, Professor Lee supervised more than 26 PhDs and 27 MSs. He was responsible for hosting the 1st Asian-Australian Rotorcraft Forum and Exhibition and currently serves as vice president of the American Helicopter Society and the Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association. He also participated in open online courses on K-MOOC and Coursera.
(Caption: Professor Lee (second from left in the first row) poses after receiving the award.)
2017.04.26 View 6540 -
FinTech Conference by KAIST, EDHEC-Risk Institute, Princeton, and Tsinghua
KAIST will partner with EDHEC-Risk Institute, Princeton University, and Tsinghua University to host a series of annual rotation conference on FinTech. The inaugural conference will be held in Princeton on April 26 and is entitled ‘Four-University Rotating FinTech Conference: Wealth Management Systems for Individual Investors.’
The conference will facilitate discussion among all interest parties of academics, practitioners, and regulators from around the world. Professor Woo Chang Kim of the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering will represent KAIST. Professor Kim is also the head of the Center for Wealth Management Technologies at KAIST.
In addition to Professor Kim, leading experts from the US, Asia, and Europe will present at the conference, including Andrew Yao (Turing Award recipient and founder of IIIS FinTech Center at Tsinghua University), John Bogle (founder of the Vanguard Group, and president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center), Lionel Martellini (director of EDHEC-Risk Institute), John Mashey (Bell Labs/Silicon Valley computer scientist/corporate executive), and John Mulvey (professor and founding member of the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University).
This year’s conference will feature following sessions:
· Mass-Customization of Goal-Based Investment Solutions: The New Frontier in Digital Wealth Management Services
· Goal-Based Investment via Multi-Stage Stochastic Goal Programming for Robo-Advisor Services
· Big Data – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
· Applying Machine Learning Concepts for Asset Allocation and ALM
· FinTech: Drawing Strengths from Computing Theories
· Savings and Investing to Achieve Retirement Goals: An Update Given Current Market Assumptions · The Rise of Robo-Advisors: A Threat or an Opportunity for the Wealth Management Industry?
The conference will include the participation of official partner Samsung Asset Management.
2017.04.20 View 7722 -
2017 Summer Nuclear Nonproliferation Education Program
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Education and Research Center (NEREC) at KAIST announced its 30 scholarship recipients for the 2017 Summer Nuclear Nonproliferation Education Program on April 18. The six-week program, starting from July 10, will be run in Korea, Japan, and China.
The program provides young global scholars with focused and challenging nuclear nonproliferation studies. Young scholars will be exposed to diverse science and technology policies and practices concurrently conducted in many countries and the future direction for enhancing nuclear nonproliferation. They will participate in a series of seminars, projects, international conferences, and field trips.
Since its launch in 2014, the program has educated 71 young scholars. This year, more than 150 scholars from 37 countries applied for the program, reflecting the growing reputation of the program both at home and abroad. The director of the NEREC, Professor Man-Sung Yim of the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at KAIST said that young scholars from very prestigious foreign universities have shown strong interest in the program. According to Professor Yim, this year’s recipients are from 26 universities from 16 countries including Harvard University, Oxford University, the National Research Nuclear University of Russia, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology
2017.04.19 View 6954 -
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 6718 -
Professor Won Do Heo Receives 'Scientist of the Month Award'
Professor Won Do Heo of the Department of Biological Sciences was selected as the “Scientist of the Month” for April 2017 by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Professor Heo was recognized for his suggestion of a new biological research method developing various optogenetics technology which controls cell function by using light. He developed the technology using lasers or LED light, without the need for surgery or drug administration, to identify the cause of diseases related to calcium ions such as Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
The general technique used in optogenetics, that control cells in the body with light, is the simple activation and deactivation of neurons.
Professor Heo developed a calcium ion channel activation technique (OptoSTIM1) to activate calcium ions in the body using light. He also succeeded in increasing calcium concentrations with light to enhance the memory capacity of mice two-fold.
Using this technology, the desired amount and residing time of calcium ion influx can be controlled by changing light intensity and exposure periods, enabling the function of a single cell or various cells in animal tissue to be controlled remotely.
The experimental results showed that calcium ion influx can be activated in cells that are affected by calcium ions, such as normal cells, cancer cells, and human embryonic stem cells. By controlling calcium concentrations with light, it is possible to control biological phenomena, such as cellular growth, neurotransmitter transmission, muscle contraction, and hormone control.
Professor Heo said, “Until now, it was standard to use optogenetics to activate neurons using channelrhodopsin. The development of this new optogenetic technique using calcium ion channel activation can be applied to various biological studies, as well as become an essential research technique in neurobiology.
The “Scientist of the Month Award” is given every month to one researcher who made significant contributions to the advancement of science and technology with their outstanding research achievement. The awardee will receive prize money of ten million won.
2017.04.07 View 7346 -
Professor Jae Kyoung Kim Receives the 2017 HSFP Award
The Human Frontier Science Program (HSFP), one of the most competitive research grants in life sciences, has funded researchers worldwide across and beyond the field since 1990. Each year, the program selects a handful of recipients who push the envelope of basic research in biology to bring breakthroughs from novel approaches. Among its 7,000 recipients thus far, 26 scientists have received the Nobel Prize. For that reason, HSFP grants are often referred to as “Nobel Prize Grants.”
Professor Jae Kyoung Kim of the Mathematical Sciences Department at KAIST and his international collaborators, Professor Robert Havekes from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Professor Sara Aton from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the United States, and Professor Matias Zurbriggen from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, won the Young Investigator Grants of the 2017 HSFP.
The 30 winning teams of the 2017 competition (in 9 Young Investigator Grants and 21 Program Grants) went through a rigorous year-long review process from a total of 1,073 applications submitted from more than 60 countries around the world. Each winning team will receive financial support averaging 110,000-125,000 USD per year for three years.
Although Professor Kim was trained as a mathematician, he has extended his research focus into biological sciences and attempted to solve some of the most difficult problems in biology by employing mathematical theories and applications including nonlinear dynamics, stochastic process, singular perturbation, and parameter estimation.
The project that won the Young Investigator Grants was a study on how a molecular circadian clock may affect sleep-regulated neurophysiology in mammals. Physiological and metabolic processes such as sleep, blood pressure, and hormone secretion exhibit circadian rhythms in mammals. Professor Kim used mathematical modeling and analysis to explain that the mammalian circadian clock is a hierarchical system, in which the master clock in the superchiasmatic nucleus, a tiny region in the brain that controls circadian rhythms, functions as a pacemaker and synchronizer of peripheral clocks to generate coherent systematic rhythms throughout the body.
Professor Kim said, “The mechanisms of our neuronal and hormonal activities regulating many of our bodily functions over a 24-hour cycle are not yet fully known. We go to sleep every night, but do not really know how it affects our brain functions. I hope my experience in mathematics, along with insights from biologists, can find meaningful answers to some of today’s puzzling problems in biological sciences, for example, revealing the complexities of our brains and showing how they work.”
“In the meantime, I hope collaborations between the fields of mathematics and biology, as yet a rare phenomenon in the Korean scientific community, will become more popular in the near future.”
Professor Kim received his doctoral degree in Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics in 2013 from the University of Michigan and joined KAIST in 2015. He has published numerous articles in reputable science journals such as Science, Molecular Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature Communications.
Both the Program Grants and Young Investigator Grants support international teams with members from at least two countries for innovative and creative research. This year, the Program Grants were awarded to research topics ranging from the evolution of counting and the role of extracellular vesicles in breast cancer bone metastasis to the examination of obesity from a mechanobiological point of view.
The Young Investigator Grants are limited to teams that established their independent research within the last five years and received their doctoral degrees within the last decade. Besides Professor Kim’s study, such topics as the use of infrasound for navigation by seabirds and protein formation in photochemistry and photophysics were awarded in 2017.
Full lists of the 2017 HFSP winners are available at: http://www.hfsp.org/awardees/newly-awarded.
About the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP):
The HFSP is a research funding program implemented by the International Human Frontier Science Program (HFSPO) based in Strasbourg, France. It promotes intercontinental collaboration and training in cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research specializing in life sciences. Founded in 1989, the HFSPO consists of the European Union and 14 other countries including the G7 nations and South Korea.
2017.03.21 View 9074 -
Prof. Woo Chang Kim Is Appointed as Managing Editor of Quantitative Finance
Professor Woo Chang Kim of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department has been elected as the Managing Editor of Quantitative Finance.
Founded in 2001, Quantitative Finance has been an internationally-acclaimed peer-reviewed journal in the field of financial engineering, along with Mathematical Finance.
This is the first time for a Korean researcher to be named for the editorial board, which consists of eminent scholars from around the world, including four Nobel laureates.
Professor Kim’s expertise lies in financial optimization, portfolio management, and asset liability management. In recent years, he has focused his research on robo-advisors in the area of FinTech, and for this contribution, he was appointed as managing editor.
Professor Kim also served as an editor, deputy editor, and a member of the editorial boards for various journals, including the Journal of Portfolio Management and Optimization and Engineering. Currently, he serves as a member of the Korean National Pension Fund’s Electoral Commission, an adviser to Samsung Asset Management Co., Ltd., and the director of the KAIST Asset Management for Future Technology Research Center that was opened in October 2016.
2017.02.23 View 7419