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KAIST's graduate, the first Ph.D. holder in games, is appointed professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing
Dr. Tae-Woo Park
The academic community recognizes the study in games as a field for research
Dr. Tae-Woo Park, a graduate of KAIST, has been appointed a professor at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing. He will start working in August at the Department of Telecommunications, Information Studies, and Media, the College of Communications Arts, MSU.
Dr. Park received a doctoral degree in games, the first of its kind in KAIST. His research focus is game design, research, and development.
Dr. Park has strived to enhance user experience by incorporating various aspects of everyday life into games and made efforts to introduce measures limiting or preventing game addiction, a major concern among young people in South Korea. Professor Joon-Hwa Song of Computer Science at KAIST, Dr. Park's advisor, commented that "KAIST graduates have been the main actors in the development of Korea's gaming industry. Our efforts to systemize the field of games into an academic discipline have been recognized through Dr. Park's appointment."
Dr. Park said that he plans "to apply mobile device and ubiquitous technology and develop games that will not only entertain users but also help them have a better life.”
2014.05.29 View 10311 -
Establishment Agreement for KAIST-Poongsan Future Technology Research Center
KAIST and Poongsan Corporation agreed to found the KAIST-Poongsan Future Technology Research Center and held a ceremony to sign a memorandum of understanding in front of 30 attendees including KAIST President Steve Kang and Poongsan Chairman Jin Ryu on May 27 at KAIST.
The Research Center will develop basic technology in the fields of defense and high tech materials as well as build a new foundation for future Poongsan projects. Research areas include technologies for new materials, propulsion control, and defense.
To further this endeavor, Poongsan Corporation will support the KAIST-Poongsan Future Technology Research Center for 3 years through an investment of USD 2.95 million, personnel, and technology.
An agreement was made between KAIST and Poongsan to establish the Future Technology Research Center.
2014.05.29 View 7361 -
Professor Kyu-Young Whang receives the PAKDD Distinguished Contributions Award
Professor Kyu-Young Whag
Dr. Kyu-Young Whang, Distinguished Professor from the Department of Computer Science, KAIST, has received the 2014 Distinguished Contributions Award from the Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD). PAKDD is the leading academic international conference on data mining held in Asia/Pacific. This year’s international conference was held from 13th to 15th May at Tainan, Taiwan.
As a life member of the PAKDD Steering Committee, Professor Whang worked for the development of the data mining field in the Asia-Pacific region, and his contribution to the international database and data-mining field has been widely recognized.
The PAKDD Distinguished Contributions Award has been awarded to a total of six people until now, including Professor Whang, and he is the first Korean to receive this award.
Professor Whang has also a history of receiving the Outstanding Contributions Award in 2011 from the Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA), the prestigious database academic conference in the Asia-Pacific region. The database and data mining field in the region was barren 20 years ago, but through the efforts and contributions of many researchers, including Professor Whang, it has now leapt to the level of being the equal of North American and European researchers.
In fact, three academic organizations in the current international database field are led by professors in the Asia-Pacific region. The IEEE ICDE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Technical Committee on Data Engineering) is led by Professor Whang; the VLDB (Very Large Data Base) Endowment by Professor Beng Chin Ooi from National University of Singapore (NUS); and the ACM SIGMOD (Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Management of Data) by Professor Don Kossmann from ETH Zurich.
2014.05.26 View 8046 -
KAIST Conducts Safety Awareness Campaign for Research and Experiment
KAIST had an opening ceremony to hold its first “Safety Awareness Campaign for Research and Experiment” on 13th May. Over 100 people attended the ceremony, including President Steve Kang, Provost Gyu-Ho Park, and the Dean of the Administration Office Jae-Nam Lee, as well as the Chief of the Department of Research Environment Safety from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea.
On the day of the event, Year 2014 was proclaimed as the first year of accident-free KAIST research and laboratory facilities.
A certificate of merit was awarded to promote safe and comfortable research environments. The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, KAIST, was selected as the department with the best lab safety management and the Department of Mechanical Engineering as the second.
Along with the merit award ceremony, the results of the “7th Research and Laboratory Safety Campaign Contest” were announced: “Lady First When Dating, Safety First When Experimenting!” written by Jong-Su Bae from the Department of Mechanical Engineering was selected as the best slogan, and Hyeon-Chae Noh from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering received the award for best poster.
President Steve Kang said, “KAIST is constantly striving to establish a comprehensive safety management system and to promote a safe research and laboratory environment,” and “To ensure the safety of KAIST and its members, we will be as supportive as possible.”
Below is the winner of the poster from the 7th Research and Laboratory Safety Campaign Contest.
What Would You Rather Wear? Gloves or Bandages?
Gloves worn in laboratories are protection from hazardous materials that students and researchers may come in contact with. The poster emphasizes the importance of wearing protective gloves when conducting research or experiment.
2014.05.19 View 7567 -
Immune Evasion Mechanism of Hepatitis C Virus Revealed
Professor Ui-Cheol Shin
Inhibiting major histocompatibility complex [MHC] class I protein expression, T cell immune response is evaded.
The research will be a great help to the development of C hepatitis vaccine.
Roughly 1-2% of the population in Korea is known to be infected with Hepatitis C. Most Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infections progress to a chronic disease and can cause liver cirrhosis or liver cancer, which may lead to death.
Unlike Hepatitis type A or B, there is no vaccine for Hepatitis C Virus and therefore avoiding exposure to the virus is the best known method of prevention. However, a team of researchers at KAIST has produced research results, which may contribute significantly to the vaccine development.
KAIST Graduate School of Medical Sciences & Engineering’ Professor Ui-Cheol Shin and his team have successfully identified why Hepatitis C Virus does not cause an immune response within the human body. The research results were published in the May edition of The Journal of Gastroenterology, a world-renowned journal in the field of gastroenterology.
The immune response occurs to eliminate the virus that has invaded our body. During this process, a major histocompatibility complex [MHC] class I plays a key role in inducing T cell response, which is needed for the elimination of virus-infected cells.
When a cell is infected by a virus, a substance called interferon causes the increased expression of major histocompatibility complex class I. T cell recognizes the increased MHC class I and therefore finds the virus-infected cells.
However, the effect that Hepatitis C Virus has on major histocompatibility complex class I has not been clearly identified until now.
The research team has revealed, using a cell culture for infection systems, that the Hepatitis C Virus suppresses the expression of major histocompatibility complex class I. Also, the mechanism to prove that HCV activates a protein called PKR within the cell to inhibit MHC class I protein expression was identified at a molecular level.
In this study, researchers established the hypothesis that regulating PKR protein in the cell can enhance the T cell immune response, which was then proved through experiments.
Professor Ui-Cheol Shin said, “There are a lot of new drugs to treat Hepatitis C Virus, while its vaccine has not been developed yet. Revealing the HCV immune evasion mechanism will help stimulate momentum for the HCV vaccine development.”
The first author of the journal, Dr. Won-Seok Kang is a graduate from Yonsei College of Medicine. After earning his medical degree, he has continued his training as a ‘doctor-scientist’ at KAIST Graduate School of Medical Sciences & Engineering to study Hepatitis C Virus immune evasion mechanism in this research.
Hepatitis C Virus activates PKR-eIF2a pathway, which inhibits the major histocompatibility complex class I, and therefore weakens the T cell activation to the viral activity.
2014.05.19 View 10443 -
Professor Jae-Kyu Lee Elected to Head the Association for Information Systems
Jae Kyu Lee, HHI (Hyundai Heavy Industries, Co., Ltd.) Chair Professor, College of Business at KAIST, was elected to lead the world major academic society, Association for Information Systems (AIS), from July 2015 to June 2016. Professor Lee will be the first Korean to serve the organization as president. From July 2014 to June 2015, he will serve as president-elect.
Currently, Professor Lee is the Director of EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability) Research Center at KAIST, focusing on research and development in finding solutions to critical issues facing humanity. He also played a pivotal role in the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding between HHI and KAIST in June 2013 to establish HHI-KAIST EEWS Research Center within the KAIST campus.
The AIS is the premier professional association for individuals and organizations who lead the research, teaching, practice, and study of information systems worldwide.
A news article on his appointment:
Asian Scientist, May 16, 2014
Korean Engineer To Lead The Association For Information Systems
http://www.asianscientist.com/academia/korean-engineer-lead-association-information-systems-2014/
2014.05.19 View 10008 -
Cyber Security MOU between KAIST and Yeungnam University College (YNC)
The KAIST Cyber Security Research Center and the Department of Cyber Security at Yeungnam University College (YNC) signed a memorandum of understating (MOU) on May 12, 2014 at the YNC campus to cooperate in cyber security education and technological development.
In the MOU, KAIST and YNC agreed to collaborate for the training of professional personnel and the development of new technology for the strengthening of national cyber security, as well as the common use of mutual research environments and group participation of core tasks.
As a result of the MOU interaction, the KAIST Cyber Security Research Center and the Department of Cyber Security at YNC will pursue mutual development through the joint management of the latest educational training programs for cyber security and information protection and the development of up-to-date security technology suited for nuclear energy infrastructures and regional electronic industry complexes. They will also hold joint research seminars and forums.
The Director of the Cyber Security Research Center, Professor Dae-Joon Joo (KAIST Graduate School of Information Security) commented, “With a great deal of experience in the field of cyber security, KAIST, and its excellence in education and research areas, will contribute in many ways, such as increasing the supply of expert cyber-security personnel in the Daegu-Kyungbuk region and actively participate toward greater national cyber security through this collaboration agreement.”
[Picture]
Dae-Jun Joo, KAIST Cyber Security Research Center Director (Left) and Hyun-Jig Song (Right), Chief of Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation at Yeungnam University College, pose after signing the cooperation agreement on cyber security.
2014.05.17 View 8756 -
Professor Jae-Kyu Lee Elected to Head the Association for Information Systems
Jae Kyu Lee, HHI (Hyundai Heavy Industries, Co., Ltd.) Chair Professor, College of Business at KAIST, has been elected to lead the world major academic society, Association for Information Systems (AIS), from July 2015 to June 2016. Professor Lee will be the first Korean to serve the organization as president. From July 2014 to June 2015, he will serve as president-elect.
Currently, Professor Lee is the Director of EEWS (Energy, Environment, Water, and Sustainability) Research Center at KAIST, focusing on research and development in finding solutions to critical issues facing humanity. He also played a pivotal role in the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding between HHI and KAIST in June 2013 to establish HHI-KAIST EEWS Research Center within the KAIST campus.
The AIS is the premier professional association for individuals and organizations who lead the research, teaching, practice, and study of information systems worldwide.
2014.05.14 View 9130 -
Clear Display Technology Under Sunlight Developed
The late Professor Seung-Man Yang
The last paper of the late Professor Seung-Man Yang, who was a past master of colloids and fluid mechanics
Practical patterning technology of the next generation optical materials, photonic crystals
The mineral opal does not possess any pigments, but it appears colorful to our eyes. This is because only a particular wavelength is reflected due to the regular nano-structure of its surface. The material that causes selective reflection of the light is called photonic crystals.
The deceased Professor Seung-Man Yang and his research team from KAIST’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department ha ve developed micro-pattern technology using photolithographic process. This can accelerate the commercialization of photonic crystals, which is hailed as the next generation optics material.
The research results were published in the April 16th edition of Advanced Materials, known as the most prestigious world-renowned journal in the field of materials science.
The newly developed photonic crystal micro-pattern could be used as a core material for the next generation reflective display that is clearly visible even under sunlight. Since it does not require a separate light source, a single charge is enough to last for several days.
Until now, many scientists have endeavored to make photonic crystals artificially, however, most were produced in a lump and therefore lacked efficiency. Also, the low mechanical stability of the formed structure prevented from commercialization.
In order to solve these problems, the research team has copied the nano-structure of opals.
Glass beads were arranged in the same nano-structure as the opal on top of the photoresist material undergoing photocuring by ultraviolet light. The glass beads were installed in the photoresist materials, and UV light was selectively exposed on micro regions. The remaining region was developed by photolithographic process to successfully produce photonic crystals in micro-patterns.
The co-author of the research, KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department’s Professor Sin-Hyeon Kim, said, “Combining the semiconductor process technology with photonic crystal pattern technology can secure the practical applications for photonic crystals.”He also predicted “This technology can be used as the key optical material that configures the next generation reflective color display device with very low power consumption.”
The late Professor Seung-Man Yang was a world-renowned expert in the field of colloids and fluid mechanics. Professor Yang published over 193 papers in international journals and continued his research until his passing in last September.
He received Du Pont Science and Technology Award in 2007, KAIST Person of the Year 2008, Gyeong-Am Academy Award in 2009, as well as the President’s Award of the Republic of Korea in March 2014. The researchers devoted the achievement of this year’s research to Professor Yang in his honor.
Research was conducted by KAIST Photonic-fluidic Integrated Devices Research Team, as a part of the Creative Research Program funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea.
Figure 1. Opal [left] and the nano glass bead arrangement structure within the opal [right]
Figure 2. Process chart of the photonic crystal micro-pattern formation based on photolithography
Figure 3. Opal structure [left] and inverted structure of the opal [right]
Figure 4. Photonic crystal micro-pattern in solid colors
Figure 5. Photonic crystal micro-pattern that reflects two different crystals (Red, Green) [left] and pixelated pattern of photonic crystal in three primary colors (Red, Green, Blue) [right] that is applicable to reflective displays
2014.05.14 View 11341 -
SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics): Scattering Super-lens
The International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), dedicated to advancing an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light, published online a short paper authored by a KAIST research team, Dr. Jung-Hoon Park and Professor YongKeun Park of Physics, introducing a new optical technology to observe sub-wavelength light by exploiting multiple light scattering in complex media.
For the article, please go to the link below:
SPIE: Nanotechnology
May 7th, 2014
"Scattering superlens" by Jung-Hoon Park and YongKeun Park
http://spie.org/x108298.xml
2014.05.14 View 6719 -
Yong-Joon Park, doctoral student, receives the Korea Dow Chemical Award 2014
Yong-Joon Park, a Ph.D. candidate of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST, received the Korea Dow Chemical Award 2014, a prestigious recognition of the year’s best paper produced by students in the field of chemistry and materials science.
The award ceremony took place on April 18, 2014 at Ilsan Kintex, Republic of Korea.
The Korea Dow Chemical Award is annually given by Korea Dow Chemical and the Korean Chemical Society to outstanding papers produced by graduate and postdoc students. This year, a total of nine papers were selected out of 148 papers submitted.
The title of Park’s paper is “The Development of 3D Nano-structure-based New Concept Super-elastic Materials.” This material could be used in flexible electronic devices such as displays and wearable computers.
2014.05.03 View 8090 -
Thermoelectric generator on glass fabric for wearable electronic devices
Wearable computers or devices have been hailed as the next generation of mobile electronic gadgets, from smart watches to smart glasses to smart pacemakers. For electronics to be worn by a user, they must be light, flexible, and equipped with a power source, which could be a portable, long-lasting battery or no battery at all but a generator. How to supply power in a stable and reliable manner is one of the most critical issues to commercialize wearable devices.
A team of KAIST researchers headed by Byung Jin Cho, a professor of electrical engineering, proposed a solution to this problem by developing a glass fabric-based thermoelectric (TE) generator that is extremely light and flexible and produces electricity from the heat of the human body. In fact, it is so flexible that the allowable bending radius of the generator is as low as 20 mm. There are no changes in performance even if the generator bends upward and downward for up to 120 cycles.
To date, two types of TE generators have been developed based either on organic or inorganic materials. The organic-based TE generators use polymers that are highly flexible and compatible with human skin, ideal for wearable electronics. The polymers, however, have a low power output. Inorganic-based TE generators produce a high electrical energy, but they are heavy, rigid, and bulky.
Professor Cho came up with a new concept and design technique to build a flexible TE generator that minimizes thermal energy loss but maximizes power output. His team synthesized liquid-like pastes of n-type (Bi2Te3) and p-type (Sb2Te3) TE materials and printed them onto a glass fabric by applying a screen printing technique. The pastes permeated through the meshes of the fabric and formed films of TE materials in a range of thickness of several hundreds of microns. As a result, hundreds of TE material dots (in combination of n and p types) were printed and well arranged on a specific area of the glass fabric.
Professor Cho explained that his TE generator has a self-sustaining structure, eliminating thick external substrates (usually made of ceramic or alumina) that hold inorganic TE materials. These substrates have taken away a great portion of thermal energy, a serious setback which causes low output power.
He also commented,
"For our case, the glass fabric itself serves as the upper and lower substrates of a TE generator, keeping the inorganic TE materials in between. This is quite a revolutionary approach to design a generator. In so doing, we were able to significantly reduce the weight of our generator (~0.13g/cm2), which is an essential element for wearable electronics."
When using KAIST's TE generator (with a size of 10 cm x 10 cm) for a wearable wristband device, it will produce around 40 mW electric power based on the temperature difference of 31 °F between human skin and the surrounding air.
Professor Cho further described about the merits of the new generator:
"Our technology presents an easy and simple way of fabricating an extremely flexible, light, and high-performance TE generator. We expect that this technology will find further applications in scale-up systems such as automobiles, factories, aircrafts, and vessels where we see abundant thermal energy being wasted."
This research result was published online in the March 14th issue of Energy & Environmental Science and was entitled "Wearable Thermoelectric Generator Fabricated on Glass Fabric."
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlN9lvEzCuw&feature=youtu.be
[Picture Captions]
Caption 1: The picture shows a high-performance wearable thermoelectric generator that is extremely flexible and light.
Caption 2: A thermoelectric generator developed as a wristband. The generator can be easily curved along with the shape of human body.
Caption 3: KAIST’s thermoelectric generator can be bent as many as 120 times, but it still shows the same high performance.
2014.04.21 View 19813