ION
-
Open KAIST 2015
KAIST’s research environment and its most recent achievements were open to the public.
KAIST hosted “Open KAIST 2015” over two days from November 5-6, 2015 in which its 17 departments and three research centers were open to the public. The event is one of the largest events that KAIST holds, which permits such public viewings of its facilities. It is the eighth time it has taken place.
During this event, the departments and centers offered 64 programs including laboratory tours, research achievement exhibitions, department introductions, and special lectures.
The “Motion Capture System”of Professor Jun-Yong Noh’s lab (Graduate School of Culture Technology) drew particular attention.
The “Motion Capture System” expresses human and animal motion in three-dimensional (3D) space using infrared cameras and optic markers, which can then be applied to various industries such as movies, games, and animation. During the program, researchers themselves demonstrated the recording of the movement and its conversion into 3D characters.
Professor Yong-Hoon Cho’s laboratory introduced the scientific mechanism behind the Light Emitting Diode (LED) as well as its manufacturing process under the topic:“A to Z of LED Production.” The reserachers explained that how green LED is much more efficient compared to previous light sources and presented applications that how it is widely used in everyday life in smart phones, electronic displays, and other mobile gadgets.
Professor Jun-tani of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering introduced “Humanoid Robot Nao’s Imitation of Human Motions.” Nao is an autonomous, programmable humanoid robot developed by a French robotics company based in Paris. Nao has an artificial neural circuit, which is the functional equivalent of a human brain, and can thus mimic the subject’s motions through learning.
In addition, Professor Hyo-Choong Bang (Department of Aerospace Engineering) in his lecture on “Unmanned Vehicle Research and Nano Satellites” and Professor Hyun Myung (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) on his lecture on “Future Civilization Robot System: the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm and the Wall-Climbing Drone” provided information on the progress of their respective research.
KAIST also displayed its most recent research achievements. A lecture on “Information Technology Convergence” offered a showroom for “Dr. M,” which is a mobile healthcare platform. Dr. M is a mobile healthcare system that collects and analyzes biosignals via a smart sensor attached to the human body that shows around 20 advanced technologies.
The Satellite Technology Research Center introduced the public to its “Get to Know Satellites” program on Korea’s first satellite “Our Star 1” in addition to showing the satellite assembly room and the satellite communication center.
Special lectures were also held for visitors. Professor Min-Hyuk Kim and Hye-Yeon Oh of the School of Computing talked about “Computer Graphics and Advanced Video Technology” and “Man and the Computer,” respectively, from the perspective of non-experts.
Another interesting feature was the “Wearable Computer Competition” in which college students held fashion shows with computers attached to their clothes.
Professor Jung Kwon Lee, the Dean of the College of Engineering, who led this event, said that “the Open KAIST, which is being held for the eighth time this year, is an excellent opportunity for the general public to experience KAIST’s research environment.” He hoped this could motivate young adults to widen their spectrum of scientific knowledge and raise affection for science.
2015.11.13 View 9365 -
Public Lectures by KAIST's Humanities and Social Sciences Research Center
The Humanities and Social Sciences Research Center at KAIST offers public lectures at the International Seminar Hall of the Humanities and Social Sciences building on campus from November 12, 2015 to December 10, 2015. There will be four lectures, all of which will be available in Korean only.
The theme of the lectures is “social issues and strategic solutions.” Experts in various fields including women’s studies, criminal psychology, Go (a Chinese board game) and its philosophy, and Korean studies will participate, offering multifaceted analysis and solutions for social issues in Korea.
Joo-Hee Kim, a researcher at the Korean Women’s Institute of Ewha Women’s University, will lecture on “Problems of Loan Products Exclusively for Women” and discuss the background of "micro-loans" which are often targeted at women, while evaluating the logic of financial corporations behind marketing such products.
Lectures by Professor Ji-Sun Park from the Department of Social Psychology at Ewha Women’s University on “Understanding of Criminal Psychology from Letters,” Professor Soo-Hyun Jeong from the Department of Go at Myeongji University on “Life Lessons and Strategies from Playing Go,” and Professor Seung-Taek Ahn from Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies of Seoul National University on “Community Problems in Folk Culture” will follow.
The organizer of the lectures, Professor Jung-Hoon Kim of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at KAIST said,
“These lectures will provide local citizens and the KAIST family a wonderful opportunity to understand important social issues from the perspective of social science. It will also serve as a valuable time to think about how our social conflicts could differ from those of other countries, helping us to find solutions.”
To register for these free lectures, go to http://hss.kaist.ac.kr by November 9, 2015.
2015.11.06 View 6224 -
KAIST and Hanwha Chemical Agree on Research Collaboration
KAIST signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Hanwha Chemical Co., Ltd., a Korean chemical and auto manufacturer, on November 2, 2015 to establish a research center on campus.
The research center, which will be named “KAIST-Hanwha Chemical Future Technology Research Center,” will implement joint research projects for five years beginning from 2016 to develop innovative, green technologies that will help the Korean chemical industry boost its global competitiveness and to nurture top researchers and engineers in chemical engineering.
The research center will lead the development of next-generation petrochemical materials and manufacturing technology and the establishment of pure high-refining processes which are more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. KAIST and Hanwha will strive to secure new technologies that have the greatest commercialization potential in the global market. They will also establish a scholarship fund for 15 KAIST doctoral students in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Many professors from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department including Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee, who was listed in the Top 20 Translational Researchers of 2014 by Nature Biotechnology this year, and Professor Hyunjoo Lee who received the Woman Scholar award at the 2015 World Chemistry Conference, will work at the research center.
Professor Lee, the head of the research center, said, “Collaborating with Hanwha will give us a strong basis for our efforts to carry out original research and train the best researchers in the field.”
Chang-Bum Kim, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hanwha Chemical, said,
“We hope our collaborations with KAIST will go beyond the typical industry and university cooperation. The two organizations will indeed jointly operate the research center, and this will become a new model for industry and university cooperation. We expect that the research center will play a crucial role in the development of new products and technologies to grow the Korean chemical industry.”
In the photo, President Steve Kang of KAIST (fourth from left) and CEO Chang-Bum Kim of Hanwha Chemical (fifth from left) hold the MOU together.
2015.11.01 View 9822 -
The 2015 Intelligent SoC Robot War Finals
The final round of the 2015 Intelligent SoC (System on Chip) Robot War took place from October 29, 2015 to November 1, 2015 at Kintex in Ilsan, Korea.
A “SoC robot” refers to an intelligent robot capable of autonomous object recognition and decision making by employing advanced semiconductor and information technology.
First hosted in 2002, the Intelligent SoC Robot War cultivates top talents in the field of semiconductors and seeks to revitalize Korea’s information technology (IT) and semiconductor industries.
The event consists of two competitions: HURO and the Tae Kwon Do Robot.
In the HURO competition, participating robots sequentially complete eight assignments without outside controls. Whichever robot finishes the highest number of tasks and spends the shortest amount of time for the completion of assignments wins the competition.
At the HURO competition, a SoC robot overcomes obstacles.
The Tae Kwon Do Robot competition includes Korea’s traditional martial arts into robotics. Here, the winner is selected by sparring between a pair of competitors. The camera attached to the robot’s head recognizes the position of the opponent and the distance between them. From that, the robot takes actions such as punching or kicking.
Two robots are vying for the title of the Tae Kwon Do Robot.
This year, 570 people from 104 teams from all over the nation applied, and after preliminaries, 26 teams entered the finals.
The winners of the HURO and Tae Kwon Do Robot competitions receive awards from the president and prime minister of Korea, respectively.
The Chairman of the Intelligent SoC Robot War, Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST, said,
“Korea’s strength in semiconductors and information technology can serve as a great potential to advance the development of intelligent robots. We hope that our experiences in this competition will allow Korea to excel in this field.”
2015.11.01 View 9003 -
Two Undergraduate KAIST Students Publish a Book on Health Management
Joonho Suh of the Aerospace Engineering Department and Jiho Suh of the Mechanical Engineering Department are both brothers and undergraduates at KAIST.
The Suh brothers, who are three years apart, have recently published a self-help book in English on staying healthy entitled “A Scientific Approach to Building Muscle: Mass Effect.”
The book introduces techniques to build muscles, adapting them from an engineering concept called "Active Torque Control (ACT)," the management of turning forces imposed on a vehicle. Just as ACT influences the performance of a vehicle, good exercise involves the right degree of body angles and the right direction of body movements to keep the best posture necessary for burning calories and strengthening muscles.
In the book, they also suggest healthy diet plans based on scientific knowledge and data that the writers borrowed from such fields as anatomy, physiology, and motor mechanics to maintain a healthy weight.
Joonho Suh said,
“If we understand the mechanism of how our body works, the chances are high we will have good muscle tone and a balanced diet. We used a great deal of scientific knowledge and turned it into a health management program that can be customized per individual needs.”
The younger brother, Jiho, added,
“In fact, we applied our methods in the book to beginners who took weight training and fitness for one hour a day for one month, we learned that their muscle mass increased by 1-1.5 kg while losing body fat by 2-3 kg.”
The brothers said they planned to publish a Korean language version of the book next year.
The authors of "Mass Effect": Joonho Suh (left) and Jiho Suh (right)
2015.10.26 View 6653 -
KAIST's Graduate School of Culture Technology Celebrates Its Tenth Anniversary
The Graduate School of Culture Technology (GSCT) at KAIST hosted a ceremony and a variety of events to celebrate its tenth anniversary on October 22, 2015, on campus.
Established in 2005 with the support of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea, GSCT offers an intensive, in-depth education in culture technology, an interdisciplinary field first introduced in Korea by KAIST, which brings arts, humanities, science, and technology together in an academic and research arena.
Over the years, the graduate school has fostered top-notch researchers and professionals who have played a leading role in the development of a Korean culture contents industry that includes movies, broadcasting programs, music, games, and culture events.
After the anniversary ceremony, GSCT held a "Demo Day" to showcase its major research projects. A total of 41 projects were presented under the themes of “Art and Science,” “Human and Humane,” and “Virtual Reality vs Reality.”
In addition, there was a seminar held on GSTC’s ten-year accomplishment and future planning with the school’s Professors Sunghee Lee, Juyong Park, and Juhan Nam; a cultural event for the public called the “Talk Concert,” which included many professionals in culture industry and academia to share ideas and views; and the Homecoming Day for GSTC graduates. So far, the graduate school has produced 295 masters and 34 doctors. About 34% of its graduates are employed in the movie, game, and broadcasting sectors, 33% in the social networking service and Internet industry, and 33% in performing art and exhibition and event.
Dong-Man Lee, the Dean of KAIST's Graduate School of Culture Technology, said,
“We will continue to develop our school to lead the advancement of the Korean culture industry, contributing to the growth of Korean Wave, the popularity of Korean culture, in the global community.”
In the picture below, Dean Lee delivers a speech to celebrate the school’s tenth anniversary.
Soo-Man Lee, the founding chairman of S.M. Entertainment, speaks at the Talk Concert.
Scenes from the Demo Day
2015.10.26 View 7380 -
Professors Sukbok Chang and Jang-Wook Choi Receive the 2015 Knowledge Award from the Korean Government
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MISP) of the Republic of Korea announced the 2015 Knowledge Awards on October 20, 2015. Two KAIST professors received the award.
Established in 2009, the awards are presented to Korean scientists whose publications have contributed to the international science community. Specifically, the MISP used the two biggest science databases, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Scopus, to identify ten highly cited papers ranked in the top 1% by total citations in the past ten years.
Professor Sukbok Chang of Chemistry (left in the picture below) is a global authority in the field of catalytic hydrocarbon functionalization. His paper entitled “Palladium-catalyzed C-H Functionalization of Pyridine N-Oxides: Highly Selective Alkenylation and Direct Arylation with Unactivated Arenes,” which was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2008, was once selected by Thomson Reuters as one of the “Most Influential Research Papers of the Month.” In 2011, the American Chemical Society included his paper in the list of the top 20 research papers that were most frequently cited in the last three years.
Professor Jang-Wook Choi of the Graduate School of EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability) has been known for his leading research in rechargeable battery, supercapacitor, and materials chemistry. In particular, his work on secondary fuel cells attracted significant attention from academia and industry in Korea. Professor Choi developed a super-thin flexible lithium-ion battery this year, thinner than a credit card, which lasts longer than the existing batteries and with greater performance. He also developed new electrode materials for next-generation sodium-ion and magnesium secondary fuel cells.
Professor Sukbok Chang (left) and Professor Jang-Wook Choi (right)
2015.10.23 View 9952 -
Establishment of System Metabolic Engineering Strategies
Although conventional petrochemical processes have generated chemicals and materials which have been useful to mankind, they have also triggered a variety of environmental problems including climate change and relied too much on nonrenewable natural resources. To ameliorate this, researchers have actively pursued the development of industrial microbial strains around the globe in order to overproduce industrially useful chemicals and materials from microbes using renewable biomass. This discipline is called metabolic engineering.
Thanks to advances in genetic engineering and our knowledge of cellular metabolism, conventional metabolic engineering efforts have succeeded to a certain extent in developing microbial strains that overproduce bioproducts at an industrial level. However, many metabolic engineering projects launched in academic labs do not reach commercial markets due to a failure to fully integrate industrial bioprocesses.
In response to this, Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee and Dr. Hyun Uk Kim, both from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST, have recently suggested ten general strategies of systems metabolic engineering to successfully develop industrial microbial strains. Systems metabolic engineering differs from conventional metabolic engineering by incorporating traditional metabolic engineering approaches along with tools of other fields, such as systems biology, synthetic biology, and molecular evolution.
The ten strategies of systems metabolic engineering have been featured in Nature Biotechnology released online in October 2015, which is entitled "Systems strategies for developing industrial microbial strains."
The strategies cover economic, state-of-the-art biological techniques and traditional bioprocess aspects. Specifically, they consist of: 1) project design including economic evaluation of a target bioproduct; 2) selection of host strains to be used for overproduction of a bioproduct; 3) metabolic pathway reconstruction for bioproducts that are not naturally produced in the selected host strains; 4) increasing tolerance of a host strain against the bioproduct; 5) removing negative regulatory circuits in the microbial host limiting overproduction of a bioproduct; 6) rerouting intracellular fluxes to optimize cofactor and precursor availability necessary for the bioproduct formation; 7) diagnosing and optimizing metabolic fluxes towards product formation; 8) diagnosis and optimization of microbial culture conditions including carbon sources; 9) system-wide gene manipulation to further increase the host strain's production performance using high-throughput genome-scale engineering and computational tools; and 10) scale-up fermentation of the developed strain and diagnosis for the reproducibility of the strain's production performance.
These ten strategies were articulated with successful examples of the production of L-arginine using Corynebacterium glutamicum, 1,4-butanediol using Escherichia coli, and L-lysine and bio-nylon using C. glutamicum.
Professor Sang Yup Lee said, "At the moment, the chance of commercializing microbial strains developed in academic labs is very low. The strategies of systems metabolic engineering outlined in this analysis can serve as guidelines when developing industrial microbial strains. We hope that these strategies contribute to improving opportunities to commercialize microbial strains developed in academic labs with drastically reduced costs and efforts, and that a large fraction of petroleum-based processes will be replaced with sustainable bioprocesses."
Lee S. Y. & Kim, H. U. Systems Strategies for Developing Industrial Microbial Strains. Nature Biotechnology (2015).
This work was supported by the Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Change on Systems Metabolic Engineering for Biorefineries (NRF-2012M1A2A2026556) and by the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center through the Global Frontier Project (2011-0031963) from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), Korea, and through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea. This work was also supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Picture: Concept of the Systems Metabolic Engineering Framework
(a) Three major bioprocess stages (b) Considerations in systems metabolic engineering to optimize the whole bioprocess. List of considerations for the strain development and fermentation contribute to improving microbial strain's production performance (red), whereas those for the separation and purification help in reducing overall operation costs by facilitating the downstream process (blue). Some of the considerations can be repeated in the course of systems metabolic engineering.
2015.10.19 View 9812 -
Professor Ki-Jun Jeong Wins the 2015 Dam Yeun Academic Award
The 11th Dam Yeun Academic Award presented by the Korean Society for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (KSBB) to a biologist under 45 years old went to Professor Ki-Jun Jeong of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at KAIST.
The award ceremony took place on October 13, 2015, at the annual conference of KSBB held at Songdo Convensia in Incheon City.
Each year KSBB announces the recipient of the award based on the publications by researchers in the last five years at peer-reviewed international journals or KSBB Journal as well as the record of patent registration and technology transfers.
Professor Jeong is recognized for his pioneering research in protein, antibody, cellular engineering, and protein displays and chips.
2015.10.19 View 7752 -
KAIST's Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy Names Recipients of Science Journalism Awards
The Science Journalism Masters Program of the Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy at KAIST named the winners of the 2015 Science Journalism Awards on October 17, 2015. The award ceremony took place at KAIST’s Seoul campus.
The awards were created in 2011 to recognize exemplary journalism that has contributed to the advancement of science and technology in Korea.
This year, the Korean Broadcasting System’s science show called the “Jang Yeong-Sil Show” received the Grand Prize. Yeong-Sil Jang was a Korean scientist and astronomer during the Joseon Dynasty in the 14th century.
A television documentary on challenges facing farm-raised chickens, which was produced by the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation in Jeonju City, won the TV Award, while news coverage by Dong-A Daily on the outbreak of the Middle East respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Korea received the Print Award.
After the award ceremony, students and professors of the Science Journalism Program hosted a conference to review and discuss major issues covered by the news media in the past year.
2015.10.15 View 6093 -
KAIST's College of Business Places Fourth in the 2015 Better World MBA Ranking
The Corporate Knights, a business and society magazine based in Canada, released the results of the 2015 Better World MBA Ranking on October 8, 2015.
KAIST’s business school ranked fourth globally and, number one in Asia, according to the list.
The 2015 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Ranking included a total of 121 schools; York University’s Schulich School of Business of Canada took first place.
The rankings were based on three criteria: the number of curricula (core and required courses) dedicated to sustainability, the number of research institutions and centers at the business school, and the volume of faculty research focused on better world topics such as sustainable finance, clean energy, or gender diversity.
The Better World MBA Ranking aims to identify business schools that best equip graduates who seek to change the world for the better by offering students opportunities to learn how to integrate social and environmental factors in their understanding of management functions via core MBA courses, faculty expertise, and research centers.
Dean Dong-Seok Kim of the College of Business at KAIST said,
“For years, our school has introduced a wide range of programs and research initiatives that address important social needs and issues. As part of this effort, we created the Graduate School of Green Growth and MBA for Social Entrepreneurship back in 2013. I believe that these endeavors played a favorable role in our receiving high scores in the ranking.”
KAIST’s Graduate School of Green Growth previously ranked sixth in the world’s top Green MBA School list published by Corporate Knights.
For the 2015 Better World MBA Ranking, go to
http://www.corporateknights.com/reports/2015-global-sustainable-mba/11153-14442629/.
2015.10.12 View 4785 -
Professor Key-Sun Choi Receives the Order of Service Merit Green Stripes from the Korean Government
The award recognizes Professor Choi’s life-long research effort to make Korean language digitally available, both nationally and internationally.
Professor Key-Sun Choi of the School of Computing at KAIST received the Order of Service Merit Green Stripes from the Korean government at the 569th Korean Language Day, held annually to commemorate the invention of the Korean language, Hangeul. The ceremony took place on October 9, 2015, at the Sejong Center in Seoul.
Professor Choi has distinguished himself in the field of natural language processing (NLP), including Korean language. He developed a Korean NLP parser that enabled information processing and data analysis of Korean language, as well as a digital Korean dictionary, contributing to the advancement of Korean language-based information technology.
Professor Choi also led the way to widespread use of Korean natural language in computing by developing and commercializing open source software to process the Korean language.
He has served leading roles in many of the international academic societies and standardization organizations, among others, as the vice president of Infoterm (the International Information Center for Terminology), president of the Asia Federation of Natural Language Processing, vice chair of ISO/TC 37, a technical committee in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and a council member for the International Association of Machine Translation.
2015.10.08 View 7569