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A KAIST graduate named one of seven Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows for 2014
Yong-Yeol Ahn, a professor of the School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington (IUB), has been selected as one of the seven winners for the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship 2014. He received his Ph.D. in 2008 from KAIST.
Each year, since 2005, Microsoft Research has recognized innovative, promising new faculty members in computer science from a number of research institutions to join the ranks of Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows. The winners are awarded $200,000 grants to further advance their research.
For details, below please see a press release issued by IUB on June 12, 2014.
IU Bloomington Newsroom
Press Release, June 12, 2014
IU informaticist Y.Y. Ahn named one of seven Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows
http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/06/yy-ahn-microsoft-research-faculty-fellow.shtml
2014.06.15 View 8378 -
KAIST Made Great Improvements of Nanogenerator Power Efficiency
The energy efficiency of a piezoelectric nanogenerator developed by KAIST has increased by almost 40 times, one step closer toward the commercialization of flexible energy harvesters that can supply power infinitely to wearable, implantable electronic devices.
NANOGENERATORS are innovative self-powered energy harvesters that convert kinetic energy created from vibrational and mechanical sources into electrical power, removing the need of external circuits or batteries for electronic devices. This innovation is vital in realizing sustainable energy generation in isolated, inaccessible, or indoor environments and even in the human body.
Nanogenerators, a flexible and lightweight energy harvester on a plastic substrate, can scavenge energy from the extremely tiny movements of natural resources and human body such as wind, water flow, heartbeats, and diaphragm and respiration activities to generate electrical signals. The generators are not only self-powered, flexible devices but also can provide permanent power sources to implantable biomedical devices, including cardiac pacemakers and deep brain stimulators.
However, poor energy efficiency and a complex fabrication process have posed challenges to the commercialization of nanogenerators. Keon Jae Lee, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST, and his colleagues have recently proposed a solution by developing a robust technique to transfer a high-quality piezoelectric thin film from bulk sapphire substrates to plastic substrates using laser lift-off (LLO).
Applying the inorganic-based laser lift-off (LLO) process, the research team produced a large-area PZT thin film nanogenerators on flexible substrates (2cm x 2cm).
“We were able to convert a high-output performance of ~250 V from the slight mechanical deformation of a single thin plastic substrate. Such output power is just enough to turn on 100 LED lights,” Keon Jae Lee explained.
The self-powered nanogenerators can also work with finger and foot motions. For example, under the irregular and slight bending motions of a human finger, the measured current signals had a high electric power of ~8.7 μA. In addition, the piezoelectric nanogenerator has world-record power conversion efficiency, almost 40 times higher than previously reported similar research results, solving the drawbacks related to the fabrication complexity and low energy efficiency.
Lee further commented,
“Building on this concept, it is highly expected that tiny mechanical motions, including human body movements of muscle contraction and relaxation, can be readily converted into electrical energy and, furthermore, acted as eternal power sources.”
The research team is currently studying a method to build three-dimensional stacking of flexible piezoelectric thin films to enhance output power, as well as conducting a clinical experiment with a flexible nanogenerator.
This research result, entitled “Highly-efficient, Flexible Piezoelectric PZT Thin Film Nanogenerator on Plastic Substrates,” was published as the cover article of the April issue of Advanced Materials. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201305659/abstract)
YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Fny7Xb9ig
Over 100 LEDs operated by self-powered flexible piezoelectric thin film nanogenerator
Flexible PZT thin film nanogenerator using inorganic-based laser lift-off process
Photograph of large-area PZT thin film nanogenerator (3.5cm × 3.5cm) on a curved glass tube and 105 commercial LEDs operated by self-powered flexible piezoelectric energy harvester
2014.05.19 View 14761 -
KAIST and Hancom Inc. Join Hands for Software Development Projects
KAIST
(Steve Kang) and Hancom Inc. (Sang-Chul Kim) made an agreement on the 8th
of April for a partnership to jointly develop software industry. After the
ceremony, a TFT (Task Force Team) for industry-university collaboration was
established and a seminar to discuss cooperative projects ensued.
KAIST and
Hancom Inc. agreed to cooperate in three main areas at the seminar. They
included enhancing manpower in the Korean software industry, the technical
development of software applications, and creating a business model for the
expansion of the Korean software market globally.
KAIST
president Steve Kang said, "Noteworthy research achievements will result
from this great partnership with Hancom Inc. I believe this alliance will play an
important role in the development of Korean software industry."
“The
combination of KAIST's excellent talents and Hancom's software know-hows will produce market-winning results. We hope that mutual developments from the
two organizations through this practical industry-university collaboration will inspire many software companies to follow suit,” said Sang-Chul Kim, the president of Hancom
Inc.
2014.04.11 View 7905 -
Partnership Agreement between KAIST and SK Telecom for Cyber Security
KAIST
and SK Telecom, one of the largest wireless telecommunications operators in
Korea, signed a memorandum of understanding on the industry and university cooperation
to establish a research center for cyber security on March 18, 2014.
The
center will conduct research projects to improve privacy protection, develop core
technologies needed for cyber security, train engineers and researchers, and
host seminars and conferences.
The
two organizations will implement the first joint research project on the
development of software-defined network-based solutions and universal subscriber
identity module-based personal identification solutions.
2014.03.26 View 7427 -
Professor Jin-Hyung Kim appointed as the founding director of the Software Policy Research Center
Professor Jin-Hyung Kim from the Department of Computer Science at KAIST was appointed as the founding director of the newly established research institute, the Software Policy Research Center. He will serve as director for three years. The research center will undertake studies and analysis on software policy, statistics, and new software technology.
2014.01.05 View 8611 -
KAIST College of Business ranks no.1 in Asia for executive education
KAIST College of Business ranked 28th in the world and 1st in Asia in the UK Financial Times (FT) 2012 Executive Education open ranking, making it the only school in Korea to be included.
The FT ranking selects the world’s top 65 business graduate schools based on executive education course design, teaching methods & materials, faculty, new skills & learning, quality of participants, and several other criteria. Last year, the KAIST executive education program ranked 29th in the world and 2nd in Asia. This year, it surpassed China’s CEIBS to rank 1st in Asia and has now been included in the ranking for three consecutive years.
Looking at the individual criteria, KAIST ranked highly in course preparation (11th), international location (11th), facilities (12th), and follow-up (5th) and saw increases in aims achieved (31st) and course design (29th).
KAIST attributed its success to the differentiation and specialization of education courses based on position, industry, and enterprise. KAIST College of Business operates an integrative course that fuses business management with science & technology, information media, medicine and innovation. The school runs both a chief and junior executive program to cater to different positional needs and provides specialized lectures that consider a company’s industry and size.
The ‘international location’ criteria saw a huge leap from 23rd to 11th due to the use of both long term and short term overseas exchange programs. The ‘Global Leader’ course created in 2011 is taught only in English and allows students to study abroad in a partner school in the second semester. The college’s knowhow in the MBA program also achieved recognition with high rankings in new skills & learning (18th) as well as in teaching methods & materials (24th).
College of Business President Lee Byung Tae said that the school’s success was achieved through a specialized curriculum that considers the market and explained that the ranking reflects the school’s competitiveness. He also said that KAIST will continue to provide the best educational services appropriate for KAIST’s outstanding reputation.
In the overall ranking, Swiss IMD was ranked number 1, followed by the Harvard Business School. In Asia, China’s CEIBS (29th), Singapore’s Aalto University (42nd), and the National University of Singapore Business School (64th) followed suit.
2012.05.17 View 10094 -
KAIST placed the 5th in top 50 global universities for international patent applications
New York Times released an article, dated March 19, 2012, on the statistics of international patent applications filed by global universities during 2011, and with 103 applications published, KAIST was listed the fifth among the top 50 universities, right behind four US universities: University of California (277), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (179), the University of Texas System (127), and Johns Hopkins University (111). A total of seven Korean universities including KAIST made the top 50 list. For the article, please check the link below:
New York Times, March 19, 2012
“U.S. Universities Retain Lead in Patent Applications”
By Christopher F. Schuetze
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/world/asia/us-universities-retain-lead-in-patent-applications.html
In addition, for the press release by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the UN agency responsible for the Patent Cooperation Treaty, on international patent filings in 2011, please click the following link:
“International Patent Filings Set new Record in 2011”
http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2012/article_0001.html
2012.03.21 View 10035
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Research Conducted on the Development Policy of Medical Researchers in United States
The topic dealt in the paper was “The Vietnam War and Medical Research: Untold Legacy of the U.S. Doctor Draft and the NIH ‘Yellow Berets’” and basically deals how a Doctor Draft made a positive impact on improving the basic research of clinical medicine.
Professor Park received his Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and came to KAIST in 2007.
Summary of Dissertation
From the start of the Korean War in 1950 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 a large number of medical school graduates were drafted to the army. Of those drafted, 100 personnel were chosen annually to focus on researching in the National Institute of Health who developed into leaders of the field.
For example, those who worked as a researcher at the National Institute instead of their armed services were 1.5 times more likely to become a tenured professor, 2 times more likely to be promoted to Dean of the department, and 3 times more likely to be the Dean. In addition, 9 out of 50 Nobel Prize winners in fields of natural sciences between 1985 and 2007 were from the same pool of researchers, and 10 out of 76 recipients of National Medal of Science were also from the same pool of researchers.
They were named the ‘Yellow Berets’ like the special forces ‘Green Berets’ and made great contribution to the field in implementing and executing the bench to beside culture that involves development in laboratories to clinical testing.
Professor Park maintains that there has to be improvements made in current policies to encourage research work in medical graduate schools.
2011.05.31 View 11306
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Businessweek: How Twitter Could Unleash World Peace, April 11, 2011
A KAIST graduate scholar, Meeyoung Cha, conducted a joint study with international researchers and released a paper on the aspect of twitter as an emerging cyber arena for political and social debates and discussions. An article on the paper from Businessweek follows:
Businessweek
April 11, 2011, 9:08PM EST text size: TT
How Twitter Could Unleash World Peace
Researchers from Britain, Korea, and Germany have determined that the amount of fresh information you get on Twitter is less a matter of what you follow than whom—and who follows you
By Bobbie Johnson
On certain days, Twitter can feel like the world"s biggest, fastest echo chamber. Since we tend to follow people who are similar to us, we often see our own views reflected back—meaning a gloomy cloud of irritation can rapidly swirl into a cyclone of outrage as we hear from other people who feel as we do. A group of computer scientists have discovered that the opposite may also be true. Can Twitter be part of the solution, not merely part of the problem?
In a study to be presented at a conference in July, a team of researchers from the U.K."s University of Cambridge, Korea"s Graduate School of cultural Technology-KAIST, and Germany"s Max Planck Institute for Software Systems show how Twitter can provide users greater access to more varied political viewpoints and media sources than they might otherwise get.
The paper, called "The Media Landscape in Twitter(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jac22/out/twitter-diverse.pdf)," explains how the team made surprising discoveries when they looked into the site"s usage patterns. First they looked at who follows whom and discovered that Twitter is a highly politicized space. Then they examined patterns of tweeting and retweeting to try to understand how people receive information on Twitter—and what they might see. Their conclusion: Although Twitter is a pretty partisan space, it can offer unprecedented opportunities to break down the barriers that plague local, national, and international politics.
How? Through retweets and interaction—what the authors call "indirect media exposure." As they put it, this "expands the political diversity of news to which users are exposed to a surprising extent, increasing the range by between 60 percent and 98 percent. These results are valuable because they have not been readily available to traditional media and they can help predict how we will read news and how publishers will interact with us in the future."
If you"re interested in the way Twitter works, I recommend reading the paper, which isn"t very long. Meanwhile, let"s boil it down to a few key pieces of data and see what lessons they can teach.
Most Twitter users are political. Just over half (50.8 percent) of all Twitter users studied showed a distinct political bias in the media outlets and individuals they followed. Most of those lean to the left of the political spectrum, accounting for 62 percent of users who demonstrated some bias. Thirty-seven percent were doggedly centrist. Just 1 percent of Twitter users who showed a political preference were right-wing.
Here are a couple of caveats about reading too much into the sharp divide the authors found. Given that Twitter"s user base is younger and more metropolitan than the societal norm, it"s not surprising that it"s weighted to the left. It"s worth noting that this study was undertaken more than a year ago; since then, Twitter has grown dramatically, while global politics have largely skewed back toward the right. Twitter"s user base today might reflect a more-balanced political picture. Either way, there"s a big split.
Twitter has secondary and tertiary benefits. Most organizations comprehend Twitter in simple terms: More followers means more exposure. But the study shows that it"s not just about those you follow, but those your followers follow—essentially the people in your extended network. The network offers a number of routes for information from fresh sources to get to you. According to the study, some 80 percent of users choose to follow at least 10 media sources, but they are exposed to between 6 and 10 times as many media sources through their friends.
People outweigh brands. Many of the biggest Twitter accounts are big media brands such as CNN (TWX) and Time, but the study suggests that Twitter"s active users tend to prefer individuals over outlets. So while the average follower of @NYTimes (NYT) has six followers apiece, individual journalists have followers who boast a median following count of around 100. That gives individual journalists—who are, the study says, more likely to link to a multiplicity of sources—a much wider, more influential network of connections.
The inference is that the personal touch of a journalist is more important than the lofty, impersonal tone of publications that largely act as promotion channels for their content. It"s a discovery that reminded me of Twitter"s recent blog post on the science of the hashtag, which found that hashtags explode in usage when they are picked up by individuals with the most dedicated—not necessarily the largest—followings.
Active users access a wider range of views. The researchers say that indirect exposure expands political diversity by a "significant amount," despite other studies showing a tendency for social networks to do the opposite. "Other studies have found a stronger tendency of homophily; blogs of different political views rarely linked to each other," they point out. "One possible reason is that a Twitter network encompasses several different relationships—from shared interest, to familial ties, friends, and acquaintances—so political similarity doesn"t necessarily exist in all such ties."
This is not to say that Twitter"s creators should be preparing a Nobel Prize-winning speech. Far from it: The influence of its diversity is unknown. It could be that many people who see messages they disagree with simply change their behavior to screen out such material in future. But it shows that there is a potential to do something positive at Twitter. It"s clear there"s much work to be done. The researchers say they want to investigate a number of areas they"ve uncovered, having provided important insights at a time when politics seem more fractious and divided than ever.
2011.04.12 View 12165
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KAIST and Coverity sign MOU for the Analysis of Static in Software
KAIST signed an ‘Interdisciplinary Cooperation in Software Static Analysis Agreement’ with America’s Coverity (representative: Anthony Bettencourt) on the 24th of February.
Dignitaries like Dean of the department of Computer Science of KAISt Choi Gee Son and Andy Chow CTO of Coverity attended the ceremony.
The agreement will allow the application of Coverity’s family of integral product software to research and education at KAIST. This will strengthen KAIST’s ability to develop software and be used in the education of software quality related subjects.
CTO of Coverity Andy Chow had a special seminar for KAIST researches and students after the signing on the topic of ‘Understanding the Present Condition of Static Analysis Technology and its Future’.
Rich Cerruto, in charge of Coverity in Asia, commented that the software developed by Coverity is being used by Samsung, LG electronics, and other domestic companies carrying out R&D for product quality improvement and that he hopes that through this agreement the development of quality-driven software will be educated in a structural manner in the domestic education market together with KAIST.
Coverity has signed MOU with other major universities like Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and UC Berkeley but KAIST is the first in Asia to sign.
2011.03.02 View 11917
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Native-like Spider Silk Produced in Metabolically Engineered Bacterium
Microscopic picture of 285 kilodalton recombinant spider silk fiber
Researchers have long envied spiders’ ability to manufacture silk that is light-weighted while as strong and tough as steel or Kevlar. Indeed, finer than human hair, five times stronger by weight than steel, and three times tougher than the top quality man-made fiber Kevlar, spider dragline silk is an ideal material for numerous applications. Suggested industrial applications have ranged from parachute cords and protective clothing to composite materials in aircrafts. Also, many biomedical applications are envisioned due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability.
Unfortunately, natural dragline silk cannot be conveniently obtained by farming spiders because they are highly territorial and aggressive. To develop a more sustainable process, can scientists mass-produce artificial silk while maintaining the amazing properties of native silk? That is something Sang Yup Lee at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, the Republic of Korea, and his collaborators, Professor Young Hwan Park at Seoul National University and Professor David Kaplan at Tufts University, wanted to figure out. Their method is very similar to what spiders essentially do: first, expression of recombinant silk proteins; second, making the soluble silk proteins into water-insoluble fibers through spinning.
For the successful expression of high molecular weight spider silk protein, Professor Lee and his colleagues pieced together the silk gene from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, and then inserted it into the expression host (in this case, an industrially safe bacterium Escherichia coli which is normally found in our gut). Initially, the bacterium refused to the challenging task of producing high molecular weight spider silk protein due to the unique characteristics of the protein, such as extremely large size, repetitive nature of the protein structure, and biased abundance of a particular amino acid glycine. “To make E. coli synthesize this ultra high molecular weight (as big as 285 kilodalton) spider silk protein having highly repetitive amino acid sequence, we helped E. coli overcome the difficulties by systems metabolic engineering,” says Sang Yup Lee, Distinguished Professor of KAIST, who led this project. His team boosted the pool of glycyl-tRNA, the major building block of spider silk protein synthesis. “We could obtain appreciable expression of the 285 kilodalton spider silk protein, which is the largest recombinant silk protein ever produced in E. coli. That was really incredible.” says Dr. Xia.
But this was only step one. The KAIST team performed high-cell-density cultures for mass production of the recombinant spider silk protein. Then, the team developed a simple, easy to scale-up purification process for the recombinant spider silk protein. The purified spider silk protein could be spun into beautiful silk fiber. To study the mechanical properties of the artificial spider silk, the researchers determined tenacity, elongation, and Young’s modulus, the three critical mechanical parameters that represent a fiber’s strength, extensibility, and stiffness. Importantly, the artificial fiber displayed the tenacity, elongation, and Young’s modulus of 508 MPa, 15%, and 21 GPa, respectively, which are comparable to those of the native spider silk.
“We have offered an overall platform for mass production of native-like spider dragline silk. This platform would enable us to have broader industrial and biomedical applications for spider silk. Moreover, many other silk-like biomaterials such as elastin, collagen, byssus, resilin, and other repetitive proteins have similar features to spider silk protein. Thus, our platform should also be useful for their efficient bio-based production and applications,” concludes Professor Lee.
This work is published on July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) online.
2010.07.28 View 18740 -
KAIST Wins Official Membership of ERCIS
The Center for Software Policy Study of KAIST has recently become the 20th official member of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) by signing an agreement with the organization, university authorities said on Thursday (Oct. 22).
The ERCIS is a network of scientists who conduct cooperative research in the field of integrated information systems development and organizational design. The Center undertakes interdisciplinary research with the participation of computer scientists, business management experts and law scholars.
KAIST will seek to activate exchange of professors, research fellows and graduate students with ERCIS members, as well as implementing credit exchange and dual degree programs.
ERCIS, was first organized by the German state of North Rhine-Westfahlia, is currently managed by the University of Muenster, a global leader in the field of information systems and business administration. Joining the ERCIS are one university each from New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Liechtenstein, the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, Britain, Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Finland and Australia.
KAIST"s Center for Software Policy Study is currently preparing for the establishment of a support system for developers of the mobile application software as part of the EUREKA project. Korea is playing a leading role in this project on the strength of its competitiveness in the mobile phone industry.
EUREKA is a pan-European intergovernmental network for market-oriented, industrial R&D aimed at enhancing European competitiveness through its support to businesses, research centers and universities who carry out pan-European projects to develop innovative products, processes and services.
2009.10.22 View 13656