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KAIST's Thermoelectric Generator on Glass Fabric Receives the Grand Prize at the Netexplo Forum 2015
The forum announced top ten IT innovations expected to change the world and selected the grand prize on February 4, 2014.
Established in 2007 by Martine Bidegain and Thierry Happe in partnership with the French Senate and the French Ministry for the Digital Economy, the Netexplo Observatory is an independent global organization that studies the impact of digital technology and innovation on society and business.
Every year, the Netexplo Observatory hosts an international conference, the Netexplo Forum, in Paris, France, which surveys digital innovation worldwide. The 8th forum was held in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on February 4-5, 2015, at the UNESCO House in Paris.
Prior to the conference, the Netexplo Forum 2015 named the top ten most promising digital technologies that will greatly impact the world.
Among them was Professor Byung Jin Cho’s research on a wearable thermoelectric generator (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/tkai-tgo041014.php). The generator was selected as the most innovative technology this year.
Professor Cho of KAIST’s Electrical Engineering Department developed a glass fabric-based thermoelectric generator that is extremely light and flexible and that produces electricity from the heat of the human body. This technology can be applied widely to wearable computers and mobile devices.
The full list of innovations follows below:
Wearable Thermo-Element, South Korea: The human body becomes a source of energy for mobile devices.
W.Afate 3D-printer, Togo: An environmentally friendly fablab that makes a low-cost 3D-printer from recycling electronic components.
Slack, USA: By combining email, Skype, and file-sharing and social networks, internal communication becomes much easier and simpler.
PhotoMath, Croatia: A free app that enables smartphone users to solve mathematical problems simply by scanning the mathematical texts.
Kappo, Chile: Connected cyclists produce and transmit useful data for urban planning to make the city more bike-friendly.
Branching Minds, USA: An improved learning process for students in difficulty through a personalized approach.
Baidu Kuai Sou, China: Smart chopsticks that can check food hazards.
SCio, Israel: A pocket molecular sensor with various applications and data
Rainforest Connection, USA: Fighting deforestation with recycled smartphones
Sense Ebola Followup, Nigeria: A mobile tool to help contain Ebola
For more details on the wearable thermos-element which received the 2015 Netexplo Award, please go to https://www.netexplo.org/en/intelligence/innovation/wearable-thermo-element.
Pictures 1 and 2: A high-performance wearable thermoelectric generator that is extremely flexible and light.
Picture 3: Senator Catherine Morin-Desailly (left) of the French Parliament presents the 2015 Netexplo Award to Professor Byung Jin Cho (right) on February 4, 2015 at the UNESCO House in Paris.
Credit of Loran Dhérines
Picture 4: Professor Byung Jin Cho (left) poses with Dr. Joël de Rosnay (right).
Credit of Loran Dhérines
2015.02.06 View 14515 -
Press Release on Piezoelectric Nanogenerators of ZnO with Aluminium Nitride Stacked Layers by the American Institute of Physics
The
American Institute of Physics (AIP) released a news article entitled “Zinc
Oxide Materials Tapped for Tiny Energy Harvesting Devices” on January 13, 2015.
The
article described the research led by Professor Giwan Yoon of the
Electrical Engineering Department at KAIST. It was published in the January
12, 2015 issue of Applied Physics Letters.
AIP publishes the journal. For the news release, please visit the
link below:
The American
Institute of Physics, January 13, 2015
“Zinc
Oxide Materials Tapped for Tiny Energy Harvesting Devices”
New research helps
pave the way toward highly energy-efficient zinc oxide-based micro energy
harvesting devices with applications in portable communications, healthcare and
environmental monitoring, and more
http://www.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/zinc-oxide-materials-tapped-tiny-energy-harvesting-devices
2015.02.04 View 33061 -
News Article: Flexible, High-performance Nonvolatile Memory Developed with SONOS Technology
Professor Yang-Kyu Choi of KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering and his team presented a research paper entitled “Flexible High-performance Nonvolatile Memory by Transferring GAA Silicon Nanowire SONOS onto a Plastic Substrate” at the conference of the International Electron Devices Meeting that took place on December 15-17, 2014 in San Francisco.
The Electronic Engineering Journal (http://www.eejournal.com/) recently posted an article on the paper:
Electronic Engineering Journal, February 2, 2015
“A Flat-Earth Memory”
Another Way to Make the Brittle Flexible
http://www.techfocusmedia.net/archives/articles/20150202-flexiblegaa/?printView=true
2015.02.03 View 7798 -
"Software Welcomes Girls" Camp at KAIST
KAIST’s Department of Computer Science organized a software (SW) training camp from January 25-29, 2015 in the Creative Learning Building on campus to promote talented women for the field of information technology (IT).
Hosted by the National Information Society Agency in Korea and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, the training camp was comprised of a junior program to educate primary and secondary school students along with teachers and parents, while university students, software developers, and female professionals who had interrupted their careers participated in a senior camp.
In the junior camp, participants learned how to employ Scratch and App Inventor as well as microprocessors by using Arduino and Raspberry Pi. During the camp, students including those from multicultural families attended lectures from professors and software designers and received a career consulting session from them. The conference organizers will provide long-term mentoring for the primary and secondary school students by graduate student participants and other volunteer experts.
The senior camp consisted of a program entitled “More Women, Better SW!” and a special lecture on “Women in SOS (Software Optimization Services)” took place at Google Korea. University students, teachers, and SW developers had an opportunity to design applications intended to improve daily living. At the “Women in SOS” program, Professor Alice Oh of KAIST and other industry experts gave talks about successful women IT personnel and digital literacy.
One of the organizers, Professor Yoon-Joon Lee from the Computer Science Department said, “Software-centered societies in the future will demand delicate intuition and cooperative leadership, which are characteristics of women.” He added that “I hope more women become interested in this field through this event.”
2015.02.02 View 7914 -
Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science Visits KAIST
Sofie Carsten Nielsen, the Minister for Higher Education and Science of Denmark, accompanied by her delegation, visited KAIST on January 21, 2015 to study outstanding cases of creative economy and to discuss methods of cooperation.
Her delegation included other distinguished members including Thomas Lehmann, the Danish ambassador to Korea, Peter Olesen, Chairman of Innovation Foundation Denmark Governing Board, and Martin Bendsøe, Senior Vice President and Dean of Technical University of Denmark.
After attending the "Electronic Communication Double Degree Agreement" signing ceremony between KAIST’s Department of Electrical Engineering and the Technical University of Denmark, Minister Nielsen visited KAIST’s Institute of Entrepreneurship to observe bilateral industry-university collaborations between KAIST and Denmark and discussed future development plans.
Also, the Grundfos Student Innovation Camp, sponsored by Grundfos, the world's largest pump manufacturer based in Denmark, took place at KAIST from October 26-31, 2014 where Grundfos professionals as well as students from Seoul National University, KAIST, and Technical University of Denmark (DTU) exchanged ideas and opinions on energy efficiency.
KAIST is currently conducting 19 collaborative projects including seven joint researches and seven joint degrees with DTU.
Minister Sofie Carsten Nielsen stands fifth from the left in the front row in the first picture below.
2015.01.27 View 9607 -
KAIST Announces the Recipients of Distinguished Alumni Awards
The KAIST Alumni Association (KAA) announced four “Proud KAIST Alumni” awards recipients for the year 2014: Sung-Wook Park, the Chief Executive Officer and President of SK Hynix; Seung Ho Shin, the President of Kangwon National University; Kew-Ho Lee, the President of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology; and Mun-Kee Choi, the former Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning of the Republic of Korea. The award ceremony took place during the 2015 KAA’s New Year's ceremony on January 17, 2015 at the Palace Hotel in Seoul.
Sung-Wook Park (M.S. ’82 and Ph.D. ’88, Department of Materials Science and Engineering), the Chief Executive Officer and President of SK Hynix, has worked as an expert in the field of memory semi-conductors for the past 30 years. He developed innovative technology and improved production efficiency, enabling the Korean semi-conductor industry to become a global leader.
Seung Ho Shin (M.S. ’79 and Ph.D. ’87, Department of Physics), the President of Kangwon National University (KNU), worked in the field of optical information processing, producing excellent research achievements and teaching the next generation of scientists. As the president of KNU, he has set an exemplary leadership in higher education.
Kew-Ho Lee (M.S. ’75, Department of Chemistry), the President of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, pioneered the field of separation film production which contributed greatly to Korean technological developments. He led several domestic and international societies to facilitate dynamic exchanges between industry and academia and with the international community.
Mun-Kee Choi (M.S. ’76, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering), the former Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the Republic of Korea, is a great contributor to the information and communications technology in Korea, working as a leader in the field of broadband integrated service digital network. He is also an educator for gifted students in science and technology, and a manager of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute.
The Alumni Association established the “Proud KAIST Alumni Awards” in 1992 to recognize its alumni’s outstanding contributions to Korea and KAIST.
Pictured from left to right, Sung-Wook Park (the Chief Executive Officer and President of SK Hynix), Seung Ho Shin (the President of Kangwon National University), Kew-Ho Lee (the President of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology), and Mun-Kee Choi (the former Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning)
2015.01.19 View 14832 -
Hierarchically-Porous Polymers with Fast Absorption
KAIST's Professor Myungeun Seo and his research team from the Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology has developed a method to form micropores of less than 2 nanometers within porous polymers where 10 nanometers long mesopores connect like a net. The advantage of the porous polymers is fast absorption of molecules.
Porous polymers with micropores of less than 2 nanometers, like a zeolite, have a large surface area. They are used as a means to store hydrogen-based molecules or as a catalytic support that can be used as a surface to convert a material into a desired form. However, because the size of the pores in its path was too small for the molecules, it took a long time to spread into the pores and reach the surface.
To reach the surface efficiently, a lung cell or the vein of a leaf has a structure wherein the pores are subdivided into different sizes so that the molecule can spread throughout the organ. A technology that can create not only micropores but also bigger pores was necessary in order to create such structure.
The research team solved the issue by implementing a "self-assembly" of block polymers to easily form a net-like nanostructure from mesopores of 10 nanometers.
The team created hierarchically-porous polymers consisting of two different types of pores by using a hypercrosslinking reaction along with the "self-assembly" method. The reaction creates micropores within the chain after the polymer chain is confined by a chemical bond.
This porous polymer has micropores that are smaller than 2 nanometers on the walls of mesopores while 10 nanometers long mesopores forming 3-dimensional net structures. Because of the "self-assembly" method, the size of mesopores can be adjusted within the range of 6 to 15 nanometers.
This is the first case where a porous polymer has both well-defined mesopores and micropores. The research team verified the effect of hierarchically-porous structures on absorption of molecules by confirming that the porous polymer had faster absorption speeds than a polymer consisting only of micropores.
Professor Seo said, “The study has found a simple way to create different sizes of pores within a polymer.” He expected that the hierarchically-porous polymers can be used as a catalytic support in which fast diffusion of molecules is essential, or for molecule collection.
The research was sponsored by National Research Foundation of Korea and published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Figure 1 – Net-like Structure of Hierarchically-Porous Polymers with Mesopores and Micropores on the walls of Mesopores.
Figure 2 - Hierarchically-Porous Polymers
Figure 3 – Comparison of Porous-Polymers consisting of Mesopores only (left), and Mesopores and Micropores (right)
2015.01.13 View 8904 -
A Key Signal Transduction Pathway Switch in Cardiomyocyte Identified
A KAIST research team has identified the fundamental principle in deciding the fate of cardiomyocyte or heart muscle cells. They have determined that it depends on the degree of stimulus in β-adrenergic receptor signal transduction pathway in the cardiomyocyte to control cells' survival or death. The findings, the team hopes, can be used to treat various heart diseases including heart failure.
The research was led by KAIST Department of Bio and Brain Engineering Chair Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho and conducted by Dr. Sung-Young Shin (lead author) and Ph.D. candidates Ho-Sung Lee and Joon-Hyuk Kang. The research was conducted jointly with GIST (Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology) Department of Biological Sciences Professor Do-Han Kim’s team. The research was supported by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea, and the National Research Foundation of Korea. The paper was published in Nature Communications on December 17, 2014 with the title, “The switching role of β-adrenergic receptor signalling in cell survival or death decision of cardiomyocytes.”
The β-adrenergic receptor signal transduction pathway can promote cell survival (mediated by β2 receptors), but also can result in cell death by inducing toxin (mediated by β1 receptors) that leads to various heart diseases including heart failure. Past attempts to identify the fundamental principle in the fate determining process of cardiomyocyte based on β-adrenergic receptor signalling concluded without much success.
The β-adrenergic receptor is a type of protein on the cell membrane of cardiomyocyte (heart muscle cell) that when stimulated by neurohormones such as epinephrine or norepinephrine would transduce signals making the cardiomyocyte contract faster and stronger.
The research team used large-scale computer simulation analysis and systems biology to identify ERK* and ICER** signal transduction pathways mediated by a feed-forward circuit as a key molecular switch that decides between cell survival and death.
Weak β-adrenergic receptor stimulations activate ERK signal transduction pathway, increasing Bcl-2*** protein expression to promote cardiomyocyte survival. On the other hand, strong β-adrenergic receptor stimulations activate ICER signal transduction pathway, reducing Bcl-2 protein expression to promote cardiomyocyte death.
Researchers used a systems biology approach to identify the mechanism of B-blocker****, a common drug prescribed for heart failure. When cardiomyocyte is treated with β1 inhibitor, strong stimulation on β-adrenergic receptor increases Bcl-2 expression, improving the chance of cardiomyocyte survival, a cell protection effect.
Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho said, “This research used systems biology, an integrated, convergence research of IT (information technology) and BT (biotechnology), to successfully identify the mechanism in deciding the fate of cardiomyocytes based on the β-adrenergic receptor signal transduction pathway for the first time. I am hopeful that this research will enable the control of cardiomyocyte survival and death to treat various heart diseases including heart failure.”
Professor Cho’s team was the first to pioneer a new field of systems biology, especially concerning the complex signal transduction network involved in diseases. Their research is focused on modelling, analyzing simulations, and experimentally proving signal pathways. Professor Cho has published 140 articles in international journals including Cell, Science, and Nature.
* ERK (Extracellular signal-regulated kinases): Signal transduction molecule involved in cell survival
** ICER (Inducible cAMP early repressor): Signal transduction molecule involved in cell death
*** Bcl-2 (B-cell lymphoma 2): Key signal transduction molecule involved in promotion of cell survival
**** β-blocker: Drug that acts as β-adrenergic receptor inhibitor known to slow the progression of heart failure, hence used most commonly in medicine.
Picture: A schematic diagram for the β-AR signalling network
2015.01.05 View 13810 -
Professor Mikyoung Lim Receives the MediaV Young Researcher Award
Professor Mikyoung Lim of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at KAIST received the MediaV Young Researchers Award at the International Conference on Inverse Problems and Related Topics that took place at the National Taiwan University, Taiwan, on December 15-19, 2014.
The Conference established the MediaV Young Researcher Award in 2010 to recognize distinguished scholars who are age 40 or younger and have made important contributions to the field of inverse problems. This year, two recipients were chosen for the award.
Professor Lim has focused her research on the incremental reading of incomprehensible materials’ imaging and the effect of invisibility cloaking.
The other awardee was Kui Ren, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
2014.12.27 View 11186 -
How Science Understands the Beauty of Fine Arts from the Medieval Era to the 19th Century
A research team, consisting of Professor Hawoong Jeong of the Department of Physics at KAIST and Assistant Professor Seung-Woo Son of the Department of Applied Physics at Hanyang University, conducted a research project to understand visual representations through the eyes of science, i.e., quantitative analyses. Researchers took a sample of reproductions of European paintings from the 11th to the early 19th centuries and analyzed them based on three elements: the usage of color, the variety of painted colors, and the brightness of the images.
For the large-scale quantitative analysis, the research team utilized digital images of the paintings obtained from the Web Gallery of Art, a virtual museum and searchable database of European fine arts that includes over 29,000 pieces, ranging from the years 1000 to 1850. The Web Gallery classifies paintings into ten art historical periods such as Medieval, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, Romantic, and Realist.
For each period, researchers investigated the frequency of certain colors which appear in paintings and examined the variety of painted colors, paying particular attention to paintings created by two iconoclastic artists from different eras: Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Jackson Pollock. In their works, the researchers discovered that specific pigments were preferred in each period, the result of reflecting historical facts into fine arts. For example, certain rare colors were used in the medieval age for political and religious reasons, and artists in that era employed a technique to layer one color over another dry color in order to express mixed colors, resulting in thickly textured brushstrokes because they considered mixing colors impure. Moreover, oil colors and color mixing techniques were not fully developed until the Renaissance age.
According to the research team, fewer numbers of colors were used before the 20th century, and the introduction of new expressionist tools, like the use of pastels and fingers directly on canvas, and painting techniques, such as “chiaroscuro” and “sfumato,” made much more colorful and natural expressions possible after the Renaissance period. The team said that the color arrangement of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings differed substantially from other paintings, showing randomness, especially in the spatial arrangement of colors.
Researchers also examined one of the artistic effects applied to paintings, contrast, an important element to express shape and space in two dimensional fine arts. Among various types of contrasts, they said, brightness contrast is the most important in art history due to the cultural background of Europe which usually adopts the contrast of light and darkness as a metaphorical expression. Taking the color information of pixels and their spatial arrangement, the researchers studied the prevalence of brightness contrast in European paintings over ten artistic periods by developing a correlation function to measure the contrast. These mathematical measurements quantitatively describe the birth of new painting techniques including chiaroscuro and sfumato and their increasing use. For instance, in the medieval age, the contour of objects or images in paintings was vague, but it became much clearer later in the Romantic period.
Professor Jeong said, “The complexity of the material world has been a long-lasting topic of interest in natural science, but research in the structural complexity of art and humanities has only begun since the development of the Internet, with the availability of big data in these fields. Our research is a meaningful attempt to understand the underling intricacy of art and humanities based on a scientific approach, expressed quantitatively.”
The research results were published online on December 11, 2014 in Scientific Reports, entitled “Large-Scale Quantitative Analysis of Painting Arts.” The paper was also selected as one of the weekly research highlights by Nature and is noted on its online journal’s website.
YouTube link on “the brightness contrast”: http://youtu.be/SFo0h1EU2aw
Figure 1: Constructing brightness surfaces and measuring roughness exponents
Figure 2: Visual representations of Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci, which was reproduced in accordance with the art historical periods
Figure 3: The screenshot of Nature online webpage
2014.12.23 View 8792 -
KAIST wins second place in unmanned boat competition
KAIST took second place in an international competition to promote technologies of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).
Professor Jin-hwan Kim’s research team from KAIST’s Ocean Systems Engineering Department won the second place in Maritime RobotX Challenge which took place for the first time from October 20 - 26 in Marina Bay, Singapore.
Along with automobiles and drones, the necessity for unmanned boats has grown. To encourage and examine the development of these technologies, the U.S. Office of Naval Research decided to organize an unmanned boat competition which took place for the first time this year.
After three teams were selected from a domestic competition in each countries, a total of fifteen teams from five countries from the Pacific Rim including Korea, the United States, Australia, Japan, and Singapore competed. Teams from such universities as MIT, Tokyo University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and Queensland University of Technology participated. In addition to KAIST, Seoul National University and Ulsan University participated.
Using a 4.5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide unmanned boat provided by the organizer, each team had to implement an integrated system that combined a propulsion system, hardware, and autonomous software. Each team’s vessel had to perform tasks without manual control, employing autonomous driving through recognition of the course, searching underwater for acoustic sources, automatically approaching piers, remote observation of buoy, and avoidance and detection of obstacles.
Although KAIST outpaced MIT in the semifinal which selected six out of fifteen teams, it won the second place in the final. As well as winning second prize, KAIST also won best website prize and a special prize from the competition sponsor, Northrop Grumman Corporation, an American defense technology company, totaling 16,500 U.S. dollars of prize money.
The Vice President for Planning and Budget, Professor Seungbin Park said, “It was a great opportunity to showcase the advanced unmanned robot technology of Korea.” He added that “this raised KAIST’s reputation as a global research oriented university.”
Professor Kim commented, “Along with automobiles and drones, the necessity for the development of unmanned ocean vehicles such as unmanned boats and submarines are recognized these days.” He added that “the use of unmanned boats will make the process of channel investigation, ocean exploration, surveillance over water territories safer and more effective.”
Professor Kim’s team was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Samsung Heavy Industries, Sonar Tech, Daeyang Electric, and Red-one Technology.
KAIST Team's Unmanned Boat
The Competition's Missions
2014.12.12 View 11824 -
Nanoparticle Cluster Manufacturing Technique Using DNA Binding Protein Developed
Professor Hak-Sung Kim of the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST and Yiseul Ryu, a doctoral candidate, used the Zinc Finger protein that specifically binds to target DNA sequence to develop a new manufacturing technique for size-controllable magnetic Nanoparticle Clusters (NPCs). Their research results were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition online on 25 November 2014.
NPCs are structures consisting of magnetic nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, and quantum dots, each of which are smaller than 100 nm (10-9m). NPCs have a distinctive property of collectivity not seen in single nanoparticles.
Specifically NPCS differ in physical and optical properties such as Plasmon coupling absorbance, energy transfers between particles, electron transfers, and conductivity. Therefore, NPCs can be employed in biological and medical research as well as the development of nanoelectric and nanoplasmon devices.
To make use of these novel properties, the size and the composition of the cluster must be exquisitely controlled. However, previous techniques relied on chemical binding which required complex steps, making it difficult to control the size and composition of NPCs.
Professor Kim’s team used Zinc Finger, a DNA binding protein, to develop a NPCs manufacturing technique to create clusters of the desired size easily. The Zinc Finger protein contains a zinc ion and specifically recognizes DNA sequence upon binding, which allows the exquisite control of the size and the cluster composition. The technique is also bio-friendly.
Professor Kim’s team created linear structure of different sizes of NPCs using Zinc Finger proteins and three DNA sequences of different lengths. The NPCs they produced confirmed their ability to control the size and structure of the cluster by using different DNA lengths.
The NPCs showed tripled T2 relaxation rates compared to the existing MRI contrast media (Feridex) and effectively transported to targeted cells. The research findings show the potential use of NPCs in biological and medical fields such as MRI contrast media, fluorescence imaging, and drug transport.
The research used the specific binding property of protein and DNA to develop a new method to create an inorganic nanoparticle’s supramolecular assembly. The technique can be used and applied extensively in other nanoparticles for future research in diagnosis, imaging, and drug and gene delivery.
Figure 1. A Mimetic Diagram of NPCs Manufacturing Technique Using DNA Binding Protein Zinc Finger
Figure 2. Transmission Electron Microscopy Images showing different sizes of NPCs depending on the length of the DNA
2014.12.04 View 13252