NI
-
KAIST and NYU set out to Install Korea's First Joint Degree Program in AI
< (From left) New York University President Linda Mills and President Kwang-Hyung Lee >
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) and New York University (NYU, President Linda G. Mills) signed an MOU in the afternoon of the 9th to introduce a graduate program for a joint degree in the field of artificial intelligence.
This agreement was promoted based on the consensus between the two universities that strengthening capabilities in the field of AI and fostering global talent are essential elements that can lead to great development in the entire future society beyond simple technical education.
The two universities have been operating joint research groups in various industrial fields related to AI and convergence with it, and based on this agreement, they plan to establish an operating committee within this year to design a joint degree program for graduate school courses related to artificial intelligence.
A KAIST official said, “If the joint degree program in AI is implemented, it is expected to be an unprecedented innovative experiment in which KAIST and NYU join forces to create ‘a single AI degree.’
The committee will consist of an equal number of faculty members from both schools, and will discuss the overall strategic planning of the joint degree program, including ▴curriculum structure and course composition ▴course completion roadmap ▴calculation of faculty and student population ▴calculation of budget size ▴calculation of operating facility size and details ▴legal matters regarding certification. In addition, the development of a new logo symbolizing the joint degree of KAIST and NYU in AI will also be carried out.
The two schools expect that the joint degree program being promoted this time will contribute to advancing education and research capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence, jointly discovering and fostering talent in related fields that are currently lacking worldwide, and will become an exemplary case of global education and research cooperation.
The faculty members of both schools, who possess excellent capabilities, will provide innovative and creative education in the field of artificial intelligence. Students will receive support to gain top-level research experience by participating in various international joint research projects promoted by the faculty members of both schools. Through this, the core of this joint degree program promoted by both schools is to continuously cultivate excellent human resources who will lead the future global society.
Since signing a cooperation agreement for the establishment of a joint campus in June 2022, KAIST and NYU have been promoting campus sharing, joint research, and joint bachelor's degree programs. Including this, they are developing an innovative joint campus model and establishing an active international cooperation model.
In particular, the exchange student system for undergraduate students will be implemented starting from the second semester of the 2023 academic year. 30 students from KAIST and 11 students from NYU were selected through a competitive selection process and are participating. In the case of KAIST students, if they complete one of the six minor programs at NYU, they will receive a degree that states the completion of the minor upon graduation.
Based on the performance of the undergraduate exchange student operation, the two schools have also agreed to introduce a dual degree system for master's and doctoral students, and specific procedures are currently in progress.
In addition, from 2023 to the present, we are carrying out future joint research projects in 15 fields that are integrated with AI, and we plan to begin international joint research in 10 fields centered on AI and bio from the fourth quarter of this year.
NYU President Linda Mills said, “AI technology can play a significant role in addressing various social challenges such as climate change, health care, and education inequality,” and added that, “The global talent cultivated through our two schools will also go on to make innovative contributions to solving these social problems.”
Kwang-Hyung Lee, the president of KAIST, said, “In the era of competition for global hegemony in technology, the development of AI technology is an essential element for countries and companies to secure competitiveness,” and “Through long-term cooperation with NYU, we will take the lead in fostering world-class, advanced talents who can innovatively apply and develop AI in various fields.”
The signing ceremony held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul was attended by KAIST officials including President Kwang-Hyung Lee, Hyun Deok Yeo, the Director of G-School, NYU officials including President Linda Mills, Kyunghyun Cho, a Professor of Computer Science and Data Science, and Dr. Karin Pavese, the Executive Director of NYU-KAIST Innovation Research Institute, amid attendance by other key figures from the industries situated in Korea. (End)
2024.09.10 View 2203 -
The 3rd Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS 2024) Successfully Completed in Silicon Valley
The 2024 Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (2024 KAIST GESS), hosted by the Office of Global Initiatives under the KAIST International Office (Director Man-Sung Yim), was held for the third time. This program allows students to visit Silicon Valley, a global startup hub, to directly experience its famous startup ecosystem and develop their capabilities for global expansion. A total of 20 students were selected through applications, interviews, final presentations, mentoring, and peer evaluations. Additionally, 17 students from the KAIST Impact MBA course at the KAIST Business School also participated.
Before starting the Silicon Valley program, participants received mentoring on business model development and pitching advice from a senior entrepreneur at KAIST for about two months, beginning last May. Afterward, they developed business items for each team at KAIST’s main campus in Daejeon. For seven days, starting from June 23rd, workshops were held under the themes of global entrepreneurship, learning through failure, capital and network, and startup culture at KOTRA Silicon Valley Trade Center, JP Morgan, and Plug and Play Tech Center. This program's lecture series provided prospective entrepreneurs with the opportunity to systematically learn the mindset and gain the experience needed to start a global business.
The participants also visited local companies and gained experience in the field of global technology startups. Visits included Bear Robotics (CEO John Ha), Soundable Health (CEO Cathering Song), ImpriMed (CEO Sungwon Lim), Phantom AI (CEO Hyunggi Cho), B Garage (CEO Aiden Kim), and Simple Steps (CEO Doyeon Kim). Lectures contained vivid experiences from Silicon Valley CEOs and company tours boosted the students' passion for entrepreneurship. In particular, Doyeon Kim, CEO of Simple Steps, which helps prevent career breaks for Korean female immigrants in Silicon Valley and allows talented female immigrants to demonstrate their abilities in society, said, “As a KAIST alumna entrepreneur, it was meaningful to share my experience with this generation of students who dream of starting a global business and creating social enterprises in the United States.”
This program also included a tour of Silicon Valley's big tech companies that have made a significant impact on the digital ecosystem through technological advancement and innovation. This included Broadcom, which maintains a strong global presence in the semiconductor and infrastructure software technology fields. At the invitation of Chairman Hock Tan, GESS participants had the opportunity to attend his lecture and ask questions. Chairman Tan, who received an honorary doctorate in engineering from KAIST last February, emphasized that experiencing failure and giving consistent effort over a long period of time are more important than anything else in order to grow as a global entrepreneur, and that technologies influencing the global market evolve over generations.
< Photo. Group photo of GESS 2024 participants at Broadcom with Chairman Hock Tan (center) ⓒBroadcom>
As part of this program, participants conducted a volunteer program called 'Let's play with AI+ Tech' with the Sunnyvale community in Silicon Valley and Foothill College to help grow together with the community. Through this program, GESS participants cultivated the virtues of a global leader. In this volunteer activity, low-income elementary school students and parents from the Sunnyvale community participated in chatbot training led by KAIST students, providing an opportunity to work with underprivileged groups in the local community.
In the final pitching event, the highlight of the program, local venture investors from Silicon Valley were invited as judges and evaluated the pitches for each team's business items. The participating students, who developed their own business models while receiving advice through face-to-face mentoring from a professional accelerator in Silicon Valley, showcased their creative and innovative ideas, presenting themselves as future global entrepreneurs. Merey Makhmutova (BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering) from the K-Bridge team, who won the final pitch, expressed her ambition: “Even before GESS pitch day, our team kept refining the pitch deck as we attended the lectures and benefitted from the mentoring. Our intense teamwork was a significant reason why we ultimately won first prize.” She added that K-Bridge aims to win an award at the upcoming UKC Pitching Competition and expressed her gratitude for being able to participate in this program. Arseniy Kan (BS in Electrical Engineering) from the KAIST Enablers team, who took second place, said, “The 2024 KAIST GESS Program became the most unforgettable and precious opportunity of my lifetime, and I dream of using this opportunity as a stepping stone to becoming a global entrepreneur.“ Additionally, Kangster (CEO Kang Kim), who won the Impact MBA final pitching session, had the opportunity to secure a meeting with a local investment company after their GESS final pitch.
The 2024 KAIST GESS was held in cooperation with the KAIST International Office, the KAIST College of Business, and Startup KAIST. Director Man-Sung Yim from the Office of Global Initiatives, who hosted the event, said, “KAIST students will grow into leaders with global influence and contribute to the international community by creating global value. At the same time, we hope to raise the international status of our university.” Professor Sangchan Park, who led the 17 Impact MBA students in this educational program, added, “Meeting with companies leading the global market and visiting Silicon Valley has been a valuable learning experience for students aiming to start a global startup.”
KAIST plans to continue promoting its global entrepreneurship education program by enriching its curriculum each year and helping students grow into entrepreneurs with the virtues of global leaders.
2024.07.03 View 3527 -
KAIST Employs Image-recognition AI to Determine Battery Composition and Conditions
An international collaborative research team has developed an image recognition technology that can accurately determine the elemental composition and the number of charge and discharge cycles of a battery by examining only its surface morphology using AI learning.
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced on July 2nd that Professor Seungbum Hong from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and Drexel University in the United States, has developed a method to predict the major elemental composition and charge-discharge state of NCM cathode materials with 99.6% accuracy using convolutional neural networks (CNN)*.
*Convolutional Neural Network (CNN): A type of multi-layer, feed-forward, artificial neural network used for analyzing visual images.
The research team noted that while scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used in semiconductor manufacturing to inspect wafer defects, it is rarely used in battery inspections. SEM is used for batteries to analyze the size of particles only at research sites, and reliability is predicted from the broken particles and the shape of the breakage in the case of deteriorated battery materials.
The research team decided that it would be groundbreaking if an automated SEM can be used in the process of battery production, just like in the semiconductor manufacturing, to inspect the surface of the cathode material to determine whether it was synthesized according to the desired composition and that the lifespan would be reliable, thereby reducing the defect rate.
< Figure 1. Example images of true cases and their grad-CAM overlays from the best trained network. >
The researchers trained a CNN-based AI applicable to autonomous vehicles to learn the surface images of battery materials, enabling it to predict the major elemental composition and charge-discharge cycle states of the cathode materials. They found that while the method could accurately predict the composition of materials with additives, it had lower accuracy for predicting charge-discharge states. The team plans to further train the AI with various battery material morphologies produced through different processes and ultimately use it for inspecting the compositional uniformity and predicting the lifespan of next-generation batteries.
Professor Joshua C. Agar, one of the collaborating researchers of the project from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics of Drexel University, said, "In the future, artificial intelligence is expected to be applied not only to battery materials but also to various dynamic processes in functional materials synthesis, clean energy generation in fusion, and understanding foundations of particles and the universe."
Professor Seungbum Hong from KAIST, who led the research, stated, "This research is significant as it is the first in the world to develop an AI-based methodology that can quickly and accurately predict the major elemental composition and the state of the battery from the structural data of micron-scale SEM images. The methodology developed in this study for identifying the composition and state of battery materials based on microscopic images is expected to play a crucial role in improving the performance and quality of battery materials in the future."
< Figure 2. Accuracies of CNN Model predictions on SEM images of NCM cathode materials with additives under various conditions. >
This research was conducted by KAIST’s Materials Science and Engineering Department graduates Dr. Jimin Oh and Dr. Jiwon Yeom, the co-first authors, in collaboration with Professor Josh Agar and Dr. Kwang Man Kim from ETRI. It was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea, the KAIST Global Singularity project, and international collaboration with the US research team. The results were published in the international journal npj Computational Materials on May 4. (Paper Title: “Composition and state prediction of lithium-ion cathode via convolutional neural network trained on scanning electron microscopy images”)
2024.07.02 View 2814 -
KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee receives honorary doctorate from Université de Montréal
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced on June 16th that President Kwang-Hyung Lee received an honorary doctorate on the 15th, local time, from the Université de Montréal in Canada, one of the largest French-speaking universities in North America.
< Image. (from left) Mr. Pierre Lassonde, Chairman of the Board of Polytechnique Montréal, President Maud Cohen of Polytechnique Montréal, President Kwang-Hyung Lee of KAIST, Chancellor Frantz Saintellemy of Université de Montréal and Mr. Alexandre Chabot, Secretary General of Université de Montéal. >
President Lee was selected as the recipient of the honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal upon the recommendation of Polytechnique Montréal in recognition of his contributions in pioneering the multidisciplinary approach to integrate a number of fields studies including computer science, biology, and nanotechnology.
Polytechnique Montréal is a university in affiliation with the University of Montréal and is one of the largest engineering education and research institutions of Canada. President Lee's honorary doctorate was awarded at the Convocation Ceremony of Polytechnique Montréal held for the Class of 2024. On this day, Mr. Serge Gendron, a businessman, a philanthropist and an alum of Polytechnique Montréal, also had the honor of receiving an honorary doctorate along with President Lee.
President Kwang-Hyung Lee is internationally recognized for his contributions in various fields, including engineering education, multidisciplinary research, strategy establishment, and future prospects. President Lee is also well known to have had significant influence on the first-generation venture entrepreneurs, a large portion of which are from KAIST, who have now grown into full-fledged entrepreneurs. For these activities, President Lee received numerous decorations and commendations within Korea, including the National Order of Civil Merit - Camellia Medal, and in 2003, he received the ‘Légion d’Honneur Chevalier’ from the French government as well.
Through his speech at the ceremony, KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee expressed his gratitude to the Université de Montréal and Polytechnique Montréal, while congratulating and encouraging the graduates who are poised to start anew as they part from the school. “Hold on to your dreams, try looking at the world from a different perspective, and enjoy the challenges without being afraid of failures.” With these three pieces of advice, President Lee cheered on the graduates saying, “The future belongs to those of you who challenge them.”
Maud Cohen, the President of Polytechnique Montréal, commented on President Kwang-Hyung Lee's honorary doctorate, that Polytechnique Montréal is proud to award an honorary doctorate to Mr. Lee for his exceptional career path, his holistic, multidisciplinary and undeniably forward-looking vision, which strongly echoes the values of Polytechnique Montréal, and for his involvement in and commitment to education, research and the future of the next generation.
* Established in 1873, Polytechnique Montréal is one of Canada’s largest engineering education and research universities, and is located on the Université de Montréal campus – North America’s largest Francophone university campus. Joshua Bengio, who won the Turing Award for establishing the foundations of deep learning, is gaining international recognition in artificial intelligence and other related fields at Polytechnique Montréal. Polytechnique Montréal chose KAIST as the first Korean university establish partnership with and has continued to build up close cooperative relationship since 1998.
* The Université de Montréal (UdeM) is a public university founded in 1878. It is located in Montréal, in the French-speaking province of Québec, Canada. It is one of Canada's five major universities, and the second largest in terms of student enrollment. The Université de Montréal is the largest in the French-speaking world in terms of both student enrollment and research. The Université de Montréal enjoys an excellent reputation as one of the best French-language post-secondary institutions. Its rector is Mr. Daniel Jutras.
2024.06.16 View 3222 -
KAIST begins full-scale cooperation with Taiwan’s Formosa Group
< (From left) Senior Vice President for Planning and Budget Kyung-Soo Kim, and Professor Minee Choi of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences of KAIST along with Chairman of Formosa Group Sandy Wang and KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee, and Dean Daesoo Kim of KAIST College of Life Science and Bioengineering >
KAIST is pursuing cooperation in the fields of advanced biotechnology and eco-friendly energy with Formosa Plastics Group, one of Taiwan's three largest companies.
To this end, Chairman Sandy Wang, a member of Formosa Group's standing committee and leader of the group's bio and eco-friendly energy sector, will visit KAIST on the 13th of this month. This is the first time that the owner of Formosa Group has made an official visit to KAIST.
Cooperation between the two institutions began last March when our university signed a memorandum of understanding on comprehensive exchange and cooperation with Ming Chi University of Science and Technology (明志科技大學), Chang Gung University(長庚大學), and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital(長庚記念醫院), three of many institutions established and supported by Formosa Group.
Based on this, Chairman Sandy Wang, who visits our university to promote more exchanges and cooperation, talked about ‘the education of children and corporate social return and practice of his father, Chairman Yung-Ching Wang,’ through a special lecture for the school leadership as a part of the Monthly Lecture on KAIST’s Leadership Innovation Day.
She then visited KAIST's research and engineering facilities related to Taiwan's future industries, such as advanced biotechnology and eco-friendly energy, and discussed global industry-academic cooperation plans. In the future, the two organizations plan to appoint adjunct professors and promote practical global cooperation, including joint student guidance and research cooperation. We plan to pursue effective mid- to long-term cooperation, such as conducting battery application research with the KAIST Next-Generation ESS Research Center and opening a graduate program specialized in stem cell and gene editing technology in connection with Chang Gung University and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. The newly established cooperative relationship will also promote Formosa Group's investment and cooperation with KAIST's outstanding venture companies related to bio and eco-friendly energy to lay the foundation for innovative industrial cooperation between Taiwan and Korea.
President Kwang-Hyung Lee said, “The Formosa Group has a global network, so we regard it to be a key partner that will position KAIST’s bio and engineering technology in the global stages.” He also said, “With Chairman Sandy Wang’s visit, Taiwan is emerging as a global economic powerhouse,” and added, “We expect to continue our close cooperative relationship with the company.”
Formosa Group is a company founded by the late Chairman Yung-Ching Wang, the father of Chairman Sandy Wang. As the world's No. 1 plastic PVC producer, it is leading the core industries of Taiwan's economy, including semiconductors, steel, heavy industry, bio, and batteries. Chairman Yung-Ching Wang was respected by the Taiwanese people by setting an example of returning his wealth to society under the belief that the companies and assets he built ‘belonged to the people.’ Chang Gung University, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and Ming Chi University of Technology, which are pursuing cooperation with our university, were also established as part of the social contribution promoted by Chairman Yung-Ching Wang and are receiving financial support from Formosa Group.
2024.05.09 View 1795 -
Dr. Bong-Joon Jung Elected as Interim President of KAIST U.S. Alumni Association
On April 29th, 2024, the Office of Global Initiative at KAIST, led by Vice President Man-Sung Yim, successfully conducted the election for the interim president of the KAIST U.S. Alumni Association. The authority to organize and operate the election was delegated by the KAIST U.S. Alumni Interim President Selection Committee Foundation, consisting of Je Woo Kim, Director of KAIST U.S. Foundation; Terri Kim, Director of KAIST U.S. Foundation; and Myungjin Yim, President of the KAIST Silicon Valley Alumni Association.
The election was announced during the KAIST Online U.S. Alumni Event held on December 8th, 2023, with the aim of establishing interim executive principles for six months and ultimately forming the official executive body of the KAIST U.S. Alumni Association.
The election was conducted according to the requirements set by the KAIST U.S. Alumni Interim President Selection Committee Foundation, which stated that "if there is a single candidate, they will be elected if they receive more than half of the votes from participating voters." The voting period lasted from April 13th (Monday) to April 24th (Friday) and was specifically directed towards KAIST alumni living in the Americas.
All 50 eligible voters participated in the election, unanimously supporting Dr. Bong-Joon Jung (Ph.D., admitted in 1993, Department of Electrical Engineering) with a 100% approval rate as the interim president of the KAIST U.S. Alumni Association. Dr. Bong-Joon Jung currently serves as the Senior Technology Analyst and Partner at Ambex Venture Group and previously served as the President of the KAIST Silicon Valley Alumni Association. Dr. Jung expressed his intention to strengthen connections with KAIST alumni in the United States and contribute to the establishment of the U.S. alumni association as the interim president.
< Photo. Newly elected president of interim KAIST U.S. Alumni Association, Dr. Bong-Joon Jung. >
Man-Sung Yim, Vice President of the International Office, congratulated Dr. Bong-Joon Jung on his election and pledged continuous support for the activities of the interim KAIST U.S. Alumni Association, led by alumni. He stated, "The election of the interim president of the KAIST U.S. Alumni Association marks the beginning of active engagement not only from alumni associations in various regions but also from alumni across the Americas, reflecting sustained interest in their alma mater."
2024.04.29 View 1920 -
KAIST Develops Healthcare Device Tracking Chronic Diabetic Wounds
A KAIST research team has developed an effective wireless system that monitors the wound healing process by tracking the spatiotemporal temperature changes and heat transfer characteristics of damaged areas such as diabetic wounds.
On the 5th of March, KAIST (represented by President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced that the research team led by Professor Kyeongha Kwon from KAIST’s School of Electrical Engineering, in association with Chung-Ang University professor Hanjun Ryu, developed digital healthcare technology that tracks the wound healing process in real time, which allows appropriate treatments to be administered.
< Figure 1. Schematic illustrations and diagrams of real-time wound monitoring systems. >
The skin serves as a barrier protecting the body from harmful substances, therefore damage to the skin may cause severe health risks to patients in need of intensive care. Especially in the case of diabetic patients, chronic wounds are easily formed due to complications in normal blood circulation and the wound healing process. In the United States alone, hundreds of billions of dollars of medical costs stem from regenerating the skin from such wounds. While various methods exist to promote wound healing, personalized management is essential depending on the condition of each patient's wounds.
Accordingly, the research team tracked the heating response within the wound by utilizing the differences in temperature between the damaged area and the surrounding healthy skin. They then measured heat transfer characteristics to observe moisture changes near the skin surface, ultimately establishing a basis for understanding the formation process of scar tissue. The team conducted experiments using diabetic mice models regarding the delay in wound healing under pathological conditions, and it was demonstrated that the collected data accurately tracks the wound healing process and the formation of scar tissue.
To minimize the tissue damage that may occur in the process of removing the tracking device after healing, the system integrates biodegradable sensor modules capable of natural decomposition within the body. These biodegradable modules disintegrate within the body after use, thus reducing the risk of additional discomfort or tissue damage upon device removal. Furthermore, the device could one day be used for monitoring inside the wound area as there is no need for removal.
Professor Kyeongha Kwon, who led the research, anticipates that continuous monitoring of wound temperature and heat transfer characteristics will enable medical professionals to more accurately assess the status of diabetic patients' wounds and provide appropriate treatment. He further predicted that the implementation of biodegradable sensors allows for the safe decomposition of the device after wound healing without the need for removal, making live monitoring possible not only in hospitals but also at home.
The research team plans to integrate antimicrobial materials into this device, aiming to expand its technological capabilities to enable the observation and prevention of inflammatory responses, bacterial infections, and other complications. The goal is to provide a multi-purpose wound monitoring platform capable of real-time antimicrobial monitoring in hospitals or homes by detecting changes in temperature and heat transfer characteristics indicative of infection levels.
< Image 1. Image of the bioresorbable temperature sensor >
The results of this study were published on February 19th in the international journal Advanced Healthcare Materials and selected as the inside back cover article, titled "Materials and Device Designs for Wireless Monitoring of Temperature and Thermal Transport Properties of Wound Beds during Healing."
This research was conducted with support from the Basic Research Program, the Regional Innovation Center Program, and the BK21 Program.
2024.03.11 View 3597 -
KAIST to begin Joint Research to Develop Next-Generation LiDAR System with Hyundai Motor Group
< (From left) Jong-Soo Lee, Executive Vice President at Hyundai Motor, Sang-Yup Lee, Senior Vice President for Research at KAIST >
The ‘Hyundai Motor Group-KAIST On-Chip LiDAR Joint Research Lab’ was opened at KAIST’s main campus in Daejeon to develop LiDAR sensors for advanced autonomous vehicles.
The joint research lab aims to develop high-performance and compact on-chip sensors and new signal detection technology, which are essential in the increasingly competitive autonomous driving market. On-chip sensors, which utilize semiconductor manufacturing technology to add various functions, can reduce the size of LiDAR systems compared to conventional methods and secure price competitiveness through mass production using semiconductor fabrication processes.
The joint research lab will consist of about 30 researchers, including the Hyundai-Kia Institute of Advanced Technology Development research team and KAIST professors Sanghyeon Kim, Sangsik Kim, Wanyeong Jung, and Hamza Kurt from KAIST’s School of Electrical Engineering, and will operate for four years until 2028.
KAIST will be leading the specialized work of each research team, such as for the development of silicon optoelectronic on-chip LiDAR components, the fabrication of high-speed, high-power integrated circuits to run the LiDAR systems, and the optimization and verification of LiDAR systems.
Hyundai Motor and Kia, together with Hyundai NGV, a specialized industry-academia cooperation institution, will oversee the operation of the joint research lab and provide support such as monitoring technological trends, suggesting research directions, deriving core ideas, and recommending technologies and experts to enhance research capabilities.
A Hyundai Motor Group official said, "We believe that this cooperation between Hyundai Motor Company and Kia, the leader in autonomous driving technology, and KAIST, the home of world-class technology, will hasten the achievement of fully autonomous driving." He added, "We will do our best to enable the lab to produce tangible results.”
Professor Sanghyeon Kim said, "The LiDAR sensor, which serves as the eyes of a car, is a core technology for future autonomous vehicle development that is essential for automobile companies to internalize."
2024.02.27 View 4809 -
Genome Sequencing Unveils Mutational Impacts of Radiation on Mammalian Cells
Recent release of the waste water from Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster stirred apprehension regarding the health implications of radiation exposure. Classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, ionizing radiation has long been associated with various cancers and genetic disorders, as evidenced by survivors and descendants of atomic bombings and the Chernobyl disaster. Despite much smaller amount, we remain consistently exposed to low levels of radiation in everyday life and medical procedures.
Radiation, whether in the form of high-energy particles or electromagnetic waves, is conventionally known to break our cellular DNA, leading to cancer and genetic disorders. Yet, our understanding of the quantitative and qualitative mutational impacts of ionizing radiation has been incomplete.
On the 14th, Professor Young Seok Ju and his research team from KAIST, in collaboration with Dr. Tae Gen Son from the Dongnam Institute of Radiological and Medical Science, and Professors Kyung Su Kim and Ji Hyun Chang from Seoul National University, unveiled a breakthrough. Their study, led by joint first authors Drs. Jeonghwan Youk, Hyun Woo Kwon, Joonoh Lim, Eunji Kim and Tae-Woo Kim, titled "Quantitative and qualitative mutational impact of ionizing radiation on normal cells," was published in Cell Genomics.
Employing meticulous techniques, the research team comprehensively analyzed the whole-genome sequences of cells pre- and post-radiation exposure, pinpointing radiation-induced DNA mutations. Experiments involving cells from different organs of humans and mice exposed to varying radiation doses revealed mutation patterns correlating with exposure levels. (Figure 1)
Notably, exposure to 1 Gray (Gy) of radiation resulted in on average 14 mutations in every post-exposure cell. (Figure 2) Unlike other carcinogens, radiation-induced mutations primarily comprised short base deletions and a set of structural variations including inversions, translocations, and various complex genomic rearrangements. (Figure 3) Interestingly, experiments subjecting cells to low radiation dose rate over 100 days demonstrated that mutation quantities, under equivalent total radiation doses, mirrored those of high-dose exposure.
"Through this study, we have clearly elucidated the effects of radiation on cells at the molecular level," said Prof. Ju at KAIST. "Now we understand better how radiation changes the DNA of our cells," he added.
Dr. Son from the Dongnam Institute of Radiological and Medical Science stated, "Based on this study, we will continue to research the effects of very low and very high doses of radiation on the human body," and further remarked, "We will advance the development of safe and effective radiation therapy techniques."
Professors Kim and Chang from Seoul National University College of Medicine expressed their views, saying, "Through this study, we believe we now have a tool to accurately understand the impact of radiation on human DNA," and added, "We hope that many subsequent studies will emerge using the research methodologies employed in this study."
This research represents a significant leap forward in radiation studies, made possible through collaborative efforts and interdisciplinary approaches. This pioneering research engaged scholars from diverse backgrounds, spanning from the Genetic Engineering Research Institute at Seoul National University, the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute in the UK, the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology in Austria (IMBA), and the Genome Insight Inc. (a KAIST spin-off start-up). This study was supported by various institutions including the National Research Foundation of Korea, Dongnam Institute of Radiological and Medical Science (supported by Ministry of Science and ICT, the government of South Korea), the Suh Kyungbae Foundation, the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), and the Korea University Anam Hospital Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the National R&D Program.
2024.02.15 View 4178 -
Team KAIST placed among top two at MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge
Representing Korean Robotics at Sea: KAIST’s 26-month strife rewarded
Team KAIST placed among top two at MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge
- Team KAIST, composed of students from the labs of Professor Jinwhan Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Hyunchul Shim of the School of Electrical and Engineering, came through the challenge as the first runner-up winning the prize money totaling up to $650,000 (KRW 860 million).
- Successfully led the autonomous collaboration of unmanned aerial and maritime vehicles using cutting-edge robotics and AI technology through to the final round of the competition held in Abu Dhabi from January 10 to February 6, 2024.
KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee), reported on the 8th that Team KAIST, led by students from the labs of Professor Jinwhan Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Hyunchul Shim of the School of Electrical Engineering, with Pablo Aviation as a partner, won a total prize money of $650,000 (KRW 860 million) at the Maritime Grand Challenge by the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), finishing first runner-up.
This competition, which is the largest ever robotics competition held over water, is sponsored by the government of the United Arab Emirates and organized by ASPIRE, an organization under the Abu Dhabi Ministry of Science, with a total prize money of $3 million.
In the competition, which started at the end of 2021, 52 teams from around the world participated and five teams were selected to go on to the finals in February 2023 after going through the first and second stages of screening. The final round was held from January 10 to February 6, 2024, using actual unmanned ships and drones in a secluded sea area of 10 km2 off the coast of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. A total of 18 KAIST students and Professor Jinwhan Kim and Professor Hyunchul Shim took part in this competition at the location at Abu Dhabi.
Team KAIST will receive $500,000 in prize money for taking second place in the final, and the team’s prize money totals up to $650,000 including $150,000 that was as special midterm award for finalists.
The final mission scenario is to find the target vessel on the run carrying illegal cargoes among many ships moving within the GPS-disabled marine surface, and inspect the deck for two different types of stolen cargo to recover them using the aerial vehicle to bring the small cargo and the robot manipulator topped on an unmanned ship to retrieve the larger one. The true aim of the mission is to complete it through autonomous collaboration of the unmanned ship and the aerial vehicle without human intervention throughout the entire mission process. In particular, since GPS cannot be used in this competition due to regulations, Professor Jinwhan Kim's research team developed autonomous operation techniques for unmanned ships, including searching and navigating methods using maritime radar, and Professor Hyunchul Shim's research team developed video-based navigation and a technology to combine a small autonomous robot with a drone.
The final mission is to retrieve cargo on board a ship fleeing at sea through autonomous collaboration between unmanned ships and unmanned aerial vehicles without human intervention. The overall mission consists the first stage of conducting the inspection to find the target ship among several ships moving at sea and the second stage of conducting the intervention mission to retrieve the cargoes on the deck of the ship. Each team was given a total of three opportunities, and the team that completed the highest-level mission in the shortest time during the three attempts received the highest score.
In the first attempt, KAIST was the only team to succeed in the first stage search mission, but the competition began in earnest as the Croatian team also completed the first stage mission in the second attempt. As the competition schedule was delayed due to strong winds and high waves that continued for several days, the organizers decided to hold the finals with the three teams, including the Team KAIST and the team from Croatia’s the University of Zagreb, which completed the first stage of the mission, and Team Fly-Eagle, a team of researcher from China and UAE that partially completed the first stage. The three teams were given the chance to proceed to the finals and try for the third attempt, and in the final competition, the Croatian team won, KAIST took the second place, and the combined team of UAE-China combined team took the third place. The final prize to be given for the winning team is set at $2 million with $500,000 for the runner-up team, and $250,000 for the third-place.
Professor Jinwhan Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who served as the advisor for Team KAIST, said, “I would like to express my gratitude and congratulations to the students who put in a huge academic and physical efforts in preparing for the competition over the past two years. I feel rewarded because, regardless of the results, every bit of efforts put into this up to this point will become the base of their confidence and a valuable asset in their growth into a great researcher.” Sol Han, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering who served as the team leader, said, “I am disappointed of how narrowly we missed out on winning at the end, but I am satisfied with the significance of the output we’ve got and I am grateful to the team members who worked hard together for that.”
HD Hyundai, Rainbow Robotics, Avikus, and FIMS also participated as sponsors for Team KAIST's campaign.
2024.02.09 View 6727 -
KAIST Research Team Breaks Down Musical Instincts with AI
Music, often referred to as the universal language, is known to be a common component in all cultures. Then, could ‘musical instinct’ be something that is shared to some degree despite the extensive environmental differences amongst cultures?
On January 16, a KAIST research team led by Professor Hawoong Jung from the Department of Physics announced to have identified the principle by which musical instincts emerge from the human brain without special learning using an artificial neural network model.
Previously, many researchers have attempted to identify the similarities and differences between the music that exist in various different cultures, and tried to understand the origin of the universality. A paper published in Science in 2019 had revealed that music is produced in all ethnographically distinct cultures, and that similar forms of beats and tunes are used. Neuroscientist have also previously found out that a specific part of the human brain, namely the auditory cortex, is responsible for processing musical information.
Professor Jung’s team used an artificial neural network model to show that cognitive functions for music forms spontaneously as a result of processing auditory information received from nature, without being taught music. The research team utilized AudioSet, a large-scale collection of sound data provided by Google, and taught the artificial neural network to learn the various sounds. Interestingly, the research team discovered that certain neurons within the network model would respond selectively to music. In other words, they observed the spontaneous generation of neurons that reacted minimally to various other sounds like those of animals, nature, or machines, but showed high levels of response to various forms of music including both instrumental and vocal.
The neurons in the artificial neural network model showed similar reactive behaviours to those in the auditory cortex of a real brain. For example, artificial neurons responded less to the sound of music that was cropped into short intervals and were rearranged. This indicates that the spontaneously-generated music-selective neurons encode the temporal structure of music. This property was not limited to a specific genre of music, but emerged across 25 different genres including classic, pop, rock, jazz, and electronic.
< Figure 1. Illustration of the musicality of the brain and artificial neural network (created with DALL·E3 AI based on the paper content) >
Furthermore, suppressing the activity of the music-selective neurons was found to greatly impede the cognitive accuracy for other natural sounds. That is to say, the neural function that processes musical information helps process other sounds, and that ‘musical ability’ may be an instinct formed as a result of an evolutionary adaptation acquired to better process sounds from nature.
Professor Hawoong Jung, who advised the research, said, “The results of our study imply that evolutionary pressure has contributed to forming the universal basis for processing musical information in various cultures.” As for the significance of the research, he explained, “We look forward for this artificially built model with human-like musicality to become an original model for various applications including AI music generation, musical therapy, and for research in musical cognition.” He also commented on its limitations, adding, “This research however does not take into consideration the developmental process that follows the learning of music, and it must be noted that this is a study on the foundation of processing musical information in early development.”
< Figure 2. The artificial neural network that learned to recognize non-musical natural sounds in the cyber space distinguishes between music and non-music. >
This research, conducted by first author Dr. Gwangsu Kim of the KAIST Department of Physics (current affiliation: MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences) and Dr. Dong-Kyum Kim (current affiliation: IBS) was published in Nature Communications under the title, “Spontaneous emergence of rudimentary music detectors in deep neural networks”.
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea.
2024.01.23 View 3784 -
KAIST Research team develops anti-icing film that only requires sunlight
A KAIST research team has developed an anti-icing and de-icing film coating technology that can apply the photothermal effect of gold nanoparticles to industrial sites without the need for heating wires, periodic spray or oil coating of anti-freeze substances, and substrate design alterations.
The group led by Professor Hyoungsoo Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Fluid & Interface Laboratory) and Professor Dong Ki Yoon from the Department of Chemistry (Soft Material Assembly Group) revealed on January 3 to have together developed an original technique that can uniformly pattern gold nanorod (GNR) particles in quadrants through simple evaporation, and have used this to develop an anti-icing and de-icing surface.
Many scientists in recent years have tried to control substrate surfaces through various coating techniques, and those involving the patterning of functional nanomaterials have gained special attention. In particular, GNR is considered a promising candidate nanomaterial for its biocompatibility, chemical stability, relatively simple synthesis, and its stable and unique property of surface plasmon resonance. To maximize the performance of GNR, it is important to achieve a high uniformity during film deposition, and a high level of rod alignment. However, achieving both criteria has thus far been a difficult challenge.
< Figure 1. Conceptual image to display Hydrodynamic mechanisms for the formation of a homogeneous quadrant cellulose nanocrystal(CNC) matrix. >
To solve this, the joint research team utilized cellulose nanocrystal (CNC), a next-generation functional nanomaterial that can easily be extracted from nature. By co-assembling GNR on CNC quadrant templates, the team could uniformly dry the film and successfully obtain a GNR film with a uniform alignment in a ring-shape. Compared to existing coffee-ring films, the highly uniform and aligned GNR film developed through this research showed enhanced plasmonic photothermal properties, and the team showed that it could carry out anti-icing and de-icing functions by simply irradiating light in the visible wavelength range.
< Figure 2. Optical and thermal performance evaluation results of gold nanorod film and demonstration of plasmonic heater for anti-icing and de-icing. >
Professor Hyoungsoo Kim said, “This technique can be applied to plastic, as well as flexible surfaces. By using it on exterior materials and films, it can generate its own heat energy, which would greatly save energy through voluntary thermal energy harvesting across various applications including cars, aircrafts, and windows in residential or commercial spaces, where frosting becomes a serious issue in the winter.” Professor Dong Ki Yoon added, “This research is significant in that we can now freely pattern the CNC-GNR composite, which was previously difficult to create into films, over a large area. We can utilize this as an anti-icing material, and if we were to take advantage of the plasmonic properties of gold, we can also use it like stained-glass to decorate glass surfaces.”
This research was conducted by Ph.D. candidate Jeongsu Pyeon from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and his co-first author Dr. Soon Mo Park (a KAIST graduate, currently a post-doctoral associate at Cornell University), and was pushed in the online volume of Nature Communication on December 8, 2023 under the title “Plasmonic Metasurfaces of Cellulose Nanocrystal Matrices with Quadrants of Aligned Gold Nanorods for Photothermal Anti-Icing." Recognized for its achievement, the research was also selected as an editor’s highlight for the journals Materials Science and Chemistry, and Inorganic and Physical Chemistry.
This research was supported by the Individual Basic Mid-Sized Research Fund from the National Research Foundation of Korea and the Center for Multiscale Chiral Architectures.
2024.01.16 View 6525