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KAIST-KU Sign MOU on 4th Industrial Technology Development
(President Shin(second from left) poses with Khalifa University President Tod Laursen after signing an MOU in the UAE on March 25. Far left is Chairman of the NST Kwangyun Wohn and far right is the UAE Minister of Educatiion Hussain Al Hammadi.)
KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin and Khalifa University Interim President Tod Laursen signed an MOU on the Fourth Industrial Technology Development on March 25 in the UAE.
They signed the MOU during the UAE-ROK Nuclear Friendship and KAIST Alumni Night at Khalifa University co-hosted by KAIST and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The MOU will bring new opportunities to further expand bilateral cooperation in education and training in the relevant technologies called for the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
More than 100 dignitaries including Chairman of National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST) in Korea Dr. Kwangyun Wohn, President of KAERI Jaejoo Ha, the UAE Minister of Education His Excellency Hussain Al Hammadi, Minister of State for Advanced Sciences Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, and His Excellency Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) Director General Christopher Viktorsson attended the event. In particular, a significant number of Emirati graduates of the KUSTAR-KAIST education program and many others who completed various KAIST training programs joined the event.
The Nuclear Friendship Night was celebrating the completion of the first nuclear power plant in Barakah exported by Korea. This is the first nuclear reactor in the Middle East, which is to start operation later this year. The event also coincided with Korean President Moon Jae-In’s state visit to the UAE.
KAIST and KAERI gathered distinguished leaders from the higher education and nuclear industries at the event in response to the UAE government’s top national agenda of fostering future talents and promoting the nuclear industry in order to ensure energy security.
KAIST and Khalifa University signed an initial agreement in education and research in 2009 when the governments of Korea and the UAE signed a contract to build four nuclear power plants in Barakah. Since then, the two universities have worked together closely in the areas of nuclear engineering, bio-medical engineering, robotics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and materials science. With this signing on the new MOU, the partnership between the two institutions will mark the second phase of educating high-caliber human resources in science and technology of the two countries.
The KAIST Alumni Night also brought more opportunities to appreciate the achievements that the two countries have made through collaboration in education and research, mostly represented in the field of nuclear technology between KAIST and Khalifa University. During the event, KAIST graduates also shared their experiences from the education at KAIST, followed by the welcoming speeches from the UAE Minister of Education and the UAE Minister of State for Advanced Sciences.
KAIST President Shin, in his welcoming speech at the event, said, “I look forward to more students in the UAE having the opportunity to experience the world’s top-level education and global environment that KAIST offers. The collaboration with Khalifa University and the UAE is very important for building both countries’ future growth.”
KU President Laursen said, “This MOU on research cooperation focusing on technologies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, nuclear engineering, and other technical areas will further consolidate our partnership with KAIST and support us in developing human capital suitable to take on future challenges in the science and technology sectors. We firmly believe the talent pool of experts created by this initiative will contribute to the overall economic growth of the UAE.”
2018.03.26 View 10344 -
A New Theory Improves Button Designs
Pressing a button appears effortless. People easily dismisses how challenging it is. Researchers at KAIST and Aalto University in Finland, created detailed simulations of button-pressing with the goal of producing human-like presses.
The researchers argue that the key capability of the brain is a probabilistic model. The brain learns a model that allows it to predict a suitable motor command for a button. If a press fails, it can pick a very good alternative and try it out. "Without this ability, we would have to learn to use every button like it was new," tells Professor Byungjoo Lee from the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST.
After successfully activating the button, the brain can tune the motor command to be more precise, use less energy and to avoid stress or pain. "These factors together, with practice, produce the fast, minimum-effort, elegant touch people are able to perform."
The brain uses probabilistic models also to extract information optimally from the sensations that arise when the finger moves and its tip touches the button. It "enriches" the ephemeral sensations optimally based on prior experience to estimate the time the button was impacted. For example, tactile sensation from the tip of the finger a better predictor for button activation than proprioception (angle position) and visual feedback.
Best performance is achieved when all sensations are considered together. To adapt, the brain must fuse their information using prior experiences. Professor Lee explains, "We believe that the brain picks up these skills over repeated button pressings that start already as a child. What appears easy for us now has been acquired over years."
The research was triggered by admiration of our remarkable capability to adapt button-pressing. Professor Antti Oulasvirta at Aalto University said, "We push a button on a remote controller differently than a piano key. The press of a skilled user is surprisingly elegant when looked at terms of timing, reliability, and energy use. We successfully press buttons without ever knowing the inner workings of a button. It is essentially a black box to our motor system. On the other hand, we also fail to activate buttons, and some buttons are known to be worse than others."
Previous research has shown that touch buttons are worse than push-buttons, but there has not been adequate theoretical explanation.
"In the past, there has been very little attention to buttons, although we use them all the time" says Dr. Sunjun Kim from Aalto University. The new theory and simulations can be used to design better buttons.
"One exciting implication of the theory is that activating the button at the moment when the sensation is strongest will help users better rhythm their keypresses."
To test this hypothesis, the researchers created a new method for changing the way buttons are activated. The technique is called Impact Activation. Instead of activating the button at first contact, it activates it when the button cap or finger hits the floor with maximum impact.
The technique was 94% better in rapid tapping than the regular activation method for a push-button (Cherry MX switch) and 37% than a regular touchscreen button using a capacitive touch sensor. The technique can be easily deployed in touchscreens. However, regular physical keyboards do not offer the required sensing capability, although special products exist (e.g., the Wooting keyboard) on which it can be implemented.
The simulations shed new light on what happens during a button press. One problem the brain must overcome is that muscles do not activate as perfectly as we will, but every press is slightly different. Moreover, a button press is very fast, occurring within 100 milliseconds, and is too fast for correcting movement. The key to understanding button-pressing is therefore to understand how the brain adapts based on the limited sensations that are the residue of the brief press event.
The researchers also used the simulation to explain differences among physical and touchscreen-based button types. Both physical and touch buttons provide clear tactile signals from the impact of the tip with the button floor. However, with the physical button this signal is more pronounced and longer.
"Where the two button types also differ is the starting height of the finger, and this makes a difference," explains Professor Lee. "When we pull up the finger from the touchscreen, it will end up at different height every time. Its down-press cannot be as accurately controlled in time as with a push-button where the finger can rest on top of the key cap."
Three scientific articles, "Neuromechanics of a Button Press", "Impact activation improves rapid button pressing", and "Moving target selection: A cue integration model", will be presented at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Montréal, Canada, in April 2018.
2018.03.22 View 7769 -
Open Online Course in Science and Technology, STAR-MOOC
Four universities specializing in science and technology, along with POSTECH and UST, teamed up to establish programs for innovation in education programs, responding to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
KAIST held an opening ceremony for the Science & Technology Advanced Research - Massive Open Online Course (STAR-MOOC) and signed an MoU with GIST, DGIST, UNIST, POSTECH, and UST.
STAR-MOOC was launched on February 26 to provide educational service to the public. It is a joint platform where people can take courses featuring lectures from professors from universities specializing in science and technology as well as national research universities.
It offers 15 courses covering basics, majors, and electives related to science and technology developed by the STAR-MOOC committee. Students can take a variety of courses.
At the opening ceremony, KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin, DGIST President Sang Hyuk Son, UST President Kil Choo Moon, POSTECH Vice President Wankyun Chung, UNIST Vice President Jae Sung Lee, GIST Vice President of Public Affairs Pil-hwan Park came to sign the MoU for provising educational services for the public.
During the ceremony, there was also time to introduce a technical agreement with a non-profit organization founded by NAVER, the CONNECT Foundation, for its courses and platform.
Universities participating in STAR-MOOC will put effort into capacity building in response to changes driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
President Shin said, “STAR-MOOC is a platform that provides science and technology courses from basics to electives and major courses. It will become a leading educational platform.”
Students can register and choose courses from the website (http://starmooc.kr).
2018.03.19 View 8817 -
The 8th KINC Fusion Research Awardees
The KAIST Institute for NanoCentury held the 8th KINC Fusion Research Award in order to encourage professors’ convergence studies and instill students’ willingness to research. The award ceremony took place in the KI Building at KAIST on March 13.
The KINC Fusion Research Award selects the most outstanding convergence studies among research undertaken last year, and awards researchers who participated in that research.
The 8th KINC Fusion Research Award went to Professor Yoon Sung Nam from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Inkyu Park from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Their research reported the spontaneous self-biomineralization of palladium (Pd) ions on a filamentous virus to form ligand-free Pd nanowires without reducing reagents or using additional surface stabilizers (Title: Virus-Templated Self-Mineralization of Ligand-Free Colloidal Palladium Nanostructures for High Surface Activity and Stability, Advanced Functional Materials (2017)).
Professor Hee-Tae Jung, the Director of KAIST Institute for the NanoCentury and the host of the KINC Fusion Research Award said, “Convergence will be the crucial keyword that will lead to revolutionary change. Hence, the importance of convergence study should be improved. We will put every effort into creating a research environment for increasing convergence study.
The KAIST Institute for the NanoCentury was established in June 2006 under the KAIST Institute with a mission of creating convergence study by tearing down boarders among departments and carrying out interdisciplinary joint research. Currently, approximately 90 professors from 14 departments participate the institute. It aims to become a hub of university institutes for nano-fusion research.
2018.03.19 View 12688 -
Professor Emeritus Jung Ki Park Won the IBA Technology Award 2018
(Professor Emeritus Jung Ki Park)
Professor Emeritus Jung Ki Park from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering received the IBA Technology Award from the International Battery Association (IBA).
IBA 2018 was held from March 11 to 16 on Jeju Island, which was the first time it was hosted in Korea. The conference was an excellent opportunity to let the world know the level of the Korean rechargeable battery industry and its technology.
Professor Park delivered his keynote speech titled Advances in Lithium Batteries in Korea at the conference and received the IBA Technology Award as the first Korean recipient.
Professor Park is a world-renowned scholar who was a groundbreaker in the rechargeable battery industry. He was recognized by the IBA Award Committee for his contributions carrying out research and development, fostering competent people, and enhancing the lithium rechargeable battery industry in Korea over the last 30 years.
Professor Park said, “It is my great honor to receive this award, which is the best international award in the field of rechargeable batteries. I would like to share this with my colleagues and students. As competition in the rechargeable industry intensifies, systemic cooperation among industries, academia, and government is needed for the continued development of the battery industry in Korea.
2018.03.19 View 7552 -
Scientist of March, Professor Hee-Seung Lee
(Professor Hee-Seung Lee)
Professor Hee-Seung Lee from the Department of Chemistry at KAIST received the ‘Science and Technology Award of the Month’ awarded by the Ministry of ICT and Science, and the National Research Foundation of Korea for March 2018.
Professor Lee has been recognized for successfully producing peptide-based molecular machines, which used to be made of metals.
The methodology can be translated into magnetotactic behavior at the macroscopic scale, which is reminiscent of magnetosomes in magnetotactic bacteria.
The team employed foldectures, self-assembled molecular architectures of β-peptide foldamers, to develop the peptide-based molecular machines that uniformly align with respect to an applied static magnetic field.
Professor Lee said, “Molecular machines are widely used in the field of medical engineering or material science; however, there were limitations for developing the machines using magnetic fields. By developing peptide-based molecular machines, we were able to develop body-friendly molecular machines.”
Every month, the Ministry of ICT and Science and the National Research Foundation of Korea award a cash prize worth 10,000,000 KRW to a scientist who has contributed to science and technology with outstanding research and development performance.
2018.03.15 View 9653 -
Seong-Tae Kim Wins Robert-Wagner All-Conference Best Paper Award
(Ph.D. candidate Seong-Tae Kim)
Ph.D. candidate Seong-Tae Kim from the School of Electrical Engineering won the Robert Wagner All-Conference Best Student Paper Award during the 2018 International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Medical Imaging Conference, which was held in Houston last month.
Kim, supervised by Professor Yong Man Ro, received the award for his paper in the category of computer-aided diagnosis. His paper, titled “ICADx: Interpretable Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Breast Masses”, was selected as the best paper out of 900 submissions. The conference selects the best paper in nine different categories. His research provides new insights on diagnostic technology to detect breast cancer powered by deep learning.
2018.03.15 View 10879 -
The 22nd Humanistic Education Opens to Daejeon Citizens
The KAIST Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences will open up the 22nd Humanistic Education for Citizens every week from March 21 to April 25.
People can apply for this program through its website (http://hss.kaist.ac.kr), starting from March 12. Anyone living in Daejeon can participate in this program at no charge but the program is limited to 100 participants on a first-come, first-serve basis.
KAIST Humanistic Education for Citizens was established in 2012 and is held four times during a year to reinforce bonding with local citizens and enhance cultural refinement and an appreciation of literature.
With the topic ‘Are News Facts?” the seminar has invited six lecturers, including Researcher Soo Young Kim from the Institute of Communication Research, to navigate various issues that smart news users need to know in this era of massive news consumption.
The lecture is dedicated to discussing a current hot issue, the phenomenon of fake news, from various perspectives and to promote smart news consumption.
It will also help to provide an understanding of legal and policy changes regarding media production and distribution.
Professor Donghwan Ko, who is also the dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences said, “The lectures will provide information on various issues that people need to know more about for smart news consumption in the “infoglut” era from media, psychological, social, and legal perspectives.”
The lectures will be held every Wednesday at 3pm in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
2018.03.06 View 6080 -
KAIST Professors Selected as Y-KAST Members
Professor YongKeun Park, Professor Bumjoon Kim, Professor Keon Jae Lee, and Professor Young Seok Ju were selected as the newest members of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST).
The Korean Academy of Science and Technology, an academic institution of professional experts, selected 26 promising scientists under the age of 43 to join Y-KAST. and four KAIST professors were included in the list.
The newest members were conferred on February 26.
Research Field
Name
Natural Sciences
YongKeun Park (Dept. of Physics)
Engineering
Bumjoon Kim (Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Agricultural & Fishery Sciences
Keon Jae Lee (Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering)
Medical Sciences
Young Seok Ju (Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering)
2018.03.05 View 9592 -
KAIST Finds the Principle of Electric Wind in Plasma
(From left: Professor Wonho Choe and PhD Sanghoo Park)
A KAIST team identified the basic principle of electric wind in plasma. This finding will contribute to developing technology in various applications of plasma, including fluid control technology.
Professor Wonho Choe from the Department of Physics and his team identified the main principle of neutral gas flow in plasma, known as ‘electric wind’, in collaboration with Professor Se Youn Moon’s team at Chonbuk National University.
Electric wind in plasma is a well-known consequence of interactions arising from collisions between charged particles (electrons or ions) and neutral particles. It refers to the flow of neutral gas that occurs when charged particles accelerate and collide with a neutral gas.
This is a way to create air movement without mechanical movement, such as fan wings, and it is gaining interest as a next-generation technology to replace existing fans. However, there was no experimental evidence of the cause.
To identify the cause, the team used atmospheric pressure plasma. As a result, the team succeeded in identifying streamer propagation and space charge drift from electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force in a qualitative manner.
According to the team, streamer propagation has very little effect on electric wind, but space charge drift that follows streamer propagation and collapse was the main cause of electric wind.
The team also identified that electrons, instead of negatively charged ions, were key components of electric wind generation in certain plasmas.
Furthermore, electric wind with the highest speed of 4 m/s was created in a helium jet plasma, which is one fourth the speed of a typhoon. These results indicate that the study could provide basic principles to effectively control the speed of electric wind.
Professor Choe said, “These findings set a significant foundation to understand the interactions between electrons or ions and neutral particles that occur in weakly ionized plasmas, such as atmospheric pressure plasmas. This can play an important role in expanding the field of fluid-control applications using plasmas which becomes economically and commercially interest.”
This research, led by PhD Sanghoo Park, was published online in Nature Communications on January 25.
Figure 1. Plasma jet image
Figure 2. The differences in electric wind speeds and voltage pulse
2018.03.02 View 7863 -
Successful Synthesis of Gamma-Lanctam Rings from Hydrocarbons
(The team of Professor Chang, far right, at the Department of Chemistry)
KAIST chemists have designed a novel strategy to synthesize ring-shaped cyclic molecules, highly sought-after by pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and known as gamma-lactams. This study describes how these five-membered rings can be prepared from inexpensive and readily available feedstock hydrocarbons, as well as from complex organic molecules, such as amino acids and steroids.
Gamma-lactams find several applications in medicinal, synthetic, and material chemistry. For example, they are included in a large number of pharmaceutically active compounds with antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumoral functions. This research was published in Science on March 2.
Conversion of hydrocarbons into nitrogen-containing compounds is an important area of research, where the challenge lies in breaking strong carbon-hydrogen (C−H) bonds, and converting them into carbon-nitrogen (C–N) bonds in a controlled fashion. For this reason, hydrocarbons are difficult to use as starting materials, albeit the fact that they exist in large quantities in nature.
Over the last 35 years, chemists have found ways of converting simple hydrocarbons into nitrogen-containing rings, such as indoles or pyrrolidines, but gamma-lactams proved impossible to prepare using the same approaches. Researchers hypothesized that such failure was due to alternative chemical pathways that steer the reaction away from the wanted rings: The reaction intermediate (carbonylnitrene) quickly breaks down into unsought products. Using computer models of the desired and undesired reaction pathways, the team found a strategy to completely shut down the latter in order to obtain the longed-for gamma-lactams. For the first time, these four carbons and one nitrogen cyclic molecules were obtained directly from simple feedstock chemicals.
Led by Professor Chang Sukbok at the Department of Chemistry, the team designed the winning reaction with the help of computer simulations that analyze the reaction mechanisms and calculate the energy required for the reaction to take place. According to such computer predictions, the reaction could follow three pathways, leading to the formation of either the desired gamma-lactam, an unwanted product (isocyanate), or the degradation of the catalyst caused by the substrate reacting with the catalyst backbone. Combining experimental observations and detailed computer simulations, the team designed an iridium-based catalyst, highly selective for the gamma-lactam formation. In this way, the two undesired pathways were systematically shut down, leaving the formation of the nitrogen-containing ring as the only possible outcome. Professor Chang is also in charge of the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS).
“With this work we offer a brand new solution to a long-standing challenge and demonstrate the power of what we call mechanism-based reaction development,” explains Professor Baik Mu-Hyun, a corresponding author of the study.
Beyond using cheap feedstock hydrocarbons as substrates, the team was also successful in converting amino acids, steroids, and other bio-relevant molecules into gamma-lactams, which might find a variety of applications as plant insecticide, drugs against parasitic worms, or anti-aging agents. This new synthetic technology gives much easier access to these complicated molecules and will enable the development of potential drugs in a much shorter amount of time at a lower cost.
Figure 1: Selective amidation reaction using newly designed iridium (Ir) catalysts. Abundant in nature Hydrocarbons are used as substrates to synthesize nitrogen-containing ring, called gamma-lactams.
Figure 2: Three possible reaction pathways and energy barriers predicted by computational chemistry. The scientists developed new iridium-based catalysts that are highly selective for the C–H insertion pathway which leads to the desired gamma-lactam molecules.
Figure 3: Interesting gamma-lactams derived from natural and unnatural amino acids, steroids, etc., which may be used to protect plants against insects, fight parasitic worms, or as anti-aging agents.
2018.03.02 View 8786 -
The 2018 Commencement of KAIST at a Glance
KAIST awarded a total of 2, 736 degrees at the 2018 commencement ceremony on February 23. Among the honorees, Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) Oh-Hyun Kwon was recognized as the first alumnus honorary doctorate recipient of KAIST.
More than 5,000 family, friends, and graduates including distinguished guests of Minister of Science and ICT Young-Min Yu, the Member of National Assembly Kyung-Jin Kim, Chairman of the KAIST Board of Trustees Jang-Moo Lee, and the Chairperson of the KAIST Development Foundation Soo-Young Lee attended to celebrate the graduates. During the commencement, a total of 2,736 students earned degrees: 644 PhD degrees, 1,352 master’s degrees, and 740 bachelor’s degrees.
(Minister of Science and ICT Young-Min Yu)
(The Member of National Assembly Kyung-Jin Kim)
This year, Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics and SAIT Kwon shared the spotlight with many other graduates. Kwon received his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from KAIST in 1977 and completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1985. During his more than 33-year career at Samsung, he has made significant contribution to the development of 4M DRAM and the world’s first 64M DRAM. The success of 4M DRAM and 64 DRAM led Samsung to clinch the top position in the DRAM and NAND flash business around the world. This helped Samsung emerge as a global leader in the semiconductor industry.
(From left: Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics and SAIT Oh-Hyun Kwon and KAIST President Sung-Chul Shin)
During the commencement speech, Kwon and President Shin both highlighted the importance of collaboration instead of competition.
Kwon encouraged the graduates to understand others to make wonderful synergy. “When you first notice the true value of another person and interact with them, the value of the individual will be doubled and will bring about a greater impact,” he said.
Also, he stressed having a collaborative mindset by saying, “All of you here, including myself, are people who have benefited from society. We must cooperate with each other and give back to society for the vest results.”
While highlighting the core values of KAIST, creativity, challenge and caring, President Shin also emphasized collaboration with others. He said, “In the future, expertise in a single discipline will not lead to new inventions or discoveries. This highlights the importance of multidisciplinary, convergence research. The key to success lies in the acknowledgement of your peers as partners for mutual growth. Your partners will make up your weak areas and become your most important asset. May you expand your personal network by finding valuable partners not only within your laboratory and workplace, but beyond Korea.”
“Go out into the world and change it as a global shaper, global innovator, and global mover. I hope that each and every one of you will add benefits the world and your legacy will be remembered for generations to come. This is your obligation as a graduate of KAIST,” he said.
Click here to view the full text of President Sung-Chul Shin’s address to the graduates
+ List of academically outstanding undergraduate degree recipients who received honors during the Commencement 2018 of KAIST
Award
Department
Winner
Minister of Science and ICT Award
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
Seong-Hyeok Park
KAIST Board Chairperson Award
School of Computing
Hyeong-Seok Kim
KAIST President Award
Dept. of Chemistry
Hoi-Min Cheong
KAIST Development Foundation Chairperson Award
Dept. of Biological Sciences
Gi-Song Kim
Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Seung-Hun Lee
2018.02.23 View 11787