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Honorary Doctorate given to 5 Domestic and Foreign Figures
KAIST will be presenting doctor degrees to 5 domestic and foreign figures that have helped development of science and technology, society, and KAIST on the 11th of February.
The degrees will be awarded to Shirley Ann Jackson President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mrs. Oh Lee Won, Chairman Cho Chun Shik, Jang Young Shin Chairman of Aekyung Group, and Kim Young Gil President of University of Han Dong.
President Jackson will be given the Honorary Science Technology Doctorate, Mrs. Oh Lee Won, Chairman Cho Chun Shik, Chairwoman Jang Young Shin, President Kim Young Gil will be given Honorary Management Doctorate degree.
President Shirley Ann Jackson is a brilliant physicists and has great managerial skills and leadership and has been the chairperson of Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Obama ministration’s Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology along with the president of the university, making great contribution to the development of science and technology and society.
President Jackson is the leading female science-engineer and has received honorary doctor degrees from 45 universities and is a proven world renowned and respected leader and scholar. She has made great impact in America and on the world in research findings as a physicist, public policies, and in terms of education.
Mrs. Oh Lee Won donated 10billion Won to KAIST with wishes that it be used as scholarship for the development of future leaders of Korea.
Mrs. Oh’s donation allowed KAIST to newly establish ‘Lee Won Assistant Professor System’ that encourages promising assistant professors to educate students and focus on research and allows KAIST to invite promising scientists.
With the new system in place, KAIST now has the foundations necessary to develop excellent scientific talents and future world leaders, giving it competitive advantage in becoming the best university in the world.
Chairman Cho Chun Shik donated his entire fortune believing that supporting the science community will improve the economy.
With the donations KAIST established the ‘Cho Chun Shik Green Transportation Graduate School’ thereby laying the foundations that will allow KAIST to tap into the rapidly growing high tech green transportation market by developing related technologies and experts in this field. This will allow KAIST to become the best university centered on fusion and compound studies.
Chairwoman Jang Young Shin is the first Korean woman CEO. She graduated from Gyoung Gi girl’s High School and majored in Chemistry in the University of Chesternut Hill. She started management in 1972 and overcame social prejudice and discrimination towards women and has made the small soap company into the Aekyung group with 20 subsidiaries.
Chairwoman Jang is currently director at KAIST. She is giving advice and encouragement so that KAIST can become the world’s best using her experiences as the vice president of the Korean Businessperson Federation and Korea Trade Federation.
Chairman Kim Young Gil has worked in NASA until he answered government’s call for help in 1979 and was made professor in the department of materials and science and engineering. He became the first president at Handong University in 1995 and has been making great effort to realize a ‘education based university’ for the development of students both academically and ethically competent.
He has implemented various educational experiments, like no major, no undergraduate studies, no affiliation, mandatory double major, no proctor tests, Asia’s first American system Law School, etc. These educational innovations are seen as the new beginning of a knowledge based society’s education of science and technology.
2011.02.21 View 9996 -
Waking Up Is Hard to Do: Scientists have discovered a new mechanism in the core gears of the circadian clock.
The US News & World Report released an article (Feb. 18, 2011) on KAIST’s research collaboration with Northwestern University in the US to identify a gene that regulates the rhythm of a fruit fly’s circadian clock, which may be applied to explain human’s sleep-wake cycle. The research result was published February 17 in the journal Nature.
For the link of the US News & World Report article, please go to the following link:
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/02/18/waking-up-is-hard-to-do_print.html
2011.02.21 View 10817
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Korean researchers reveal new sea defense model by EurekAlert
The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, a peer review journal devoted to advancing the practice, science and art of modeling and simulation that relate to military and defense purposes.
The SAGE Publication that issues the journal released a press release on January 18, 2011, announcing that KAIST researchers in collaboration with other intuitions in Korea devised “improved methods to model underwater warfare, which could aid future decisions about weapons and defense purchases.” Details of the article follow below: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/sp-krr011811.php
2011.01.19 View 9775
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Rise of the mimic-bots that act like we do: Human-machine teamwork.
An online magazine, Technology Marketing Corporation, based in the UK published an article, dated January 8, 2011, on a robot research project led by Professor Jong-Hwan Kim from the Electrical Engineering Department. The article follows below:
Technology Marketing Corporation
[January 08, 2011]
Rise of the mimic-bots that act like we do Human-machine teamwork
(New Scientist Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Rise of the mimic-bots that act like we doA robot inspired by human mirror neurons can interpret human gestures to learn how it should actNow follow meA robot inspired by human mirror neurons can interpret human gestures to learn how it should actA HUMAN and a robot face each other across the room. The human picks up a ball, tosses it towards the robot, and then pushes a toy car in the same direction.
Confused by two objects coming towards it at the same time, the robot flashes a question mark on a screen. Without speaking, the human makes a throwing gesture. The robot turns its attention to the ball and decides to throw it back.
In this case the robot"s actions were represented by software commands, but it will be only a small step to adapt the system to enable a real robot to infer a human"s wishes from their gestures.
Developed by Ji-Hyeong Han and Jong-Hwan Kim at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, the system is designed to respond to the actions of the person confronting it in the same way that our own brains do. The human brain contains specialised cells, called mirror neurons, that appear to fire in the same way when we watch an action being performed by others as they do when we perform the action ourselves. It is thought that this helps us to recognise or predict their intentions.
To perform the same feat, the robot observes what the person is doing, breaks the action down into a simple verbal description, and stores it in its memory. It compares the action it observes with a database of its own actions, and generates a simulation based on the closest match.
The robot also builds up a set of intentions or goals associated with an action. For example, a throwing gesture indicates that the human wants the robot to throw something back. The robot then connects the action "throw" with the object "ball" and adds this to its store of knowledge.
When the memory bank contains two possible intentions that fit the available information, the robot considers them both and determines which results in the most positive feedback from the human?- a smile or a nod, for example. If the robot is confused by conflicting information, it can request another gesture from the human. It also remembers details of each interaction, allowing it to respond more quickly when it finds itself in a situation it has encountered before.
The system should allow robots to interact more effectively with humans, using the same visual cues we use. "Of course, robots can recognise human intentions by understanding speech, but humans would have to make constant, explicit commands to the robot," says Han. "That would be pretty uncomfortable."Socially intelligent robots that can communicate with us through gesture and expression will need to develop a mental model of the person they are dealing with in order to understand their needs, says Chris Melhuish, director of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. Using mirror neurons and humans" unique mimicking ability as an inspiration for building such robots could be quite interesting, he says.
Han now plans to test the system on a robot equipped with visual and other sensors to detect people"s gestures. He presented his work at the Robio conference in Tianjin, China, in December. nAs the population of many countries ages, elderly people may share more of their workload with robotic helpers or colleagues. In an effort to make such interactions as easy as possible, Chris Melhuish and colleagues at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK are leading a Europe-wide collaboration called Cooperative Human Robotic Interaction Systems that is equipping robots with software that recognises an object they are picking up before they hand it to a person. They also have eye-tracking technology that they use to monitor what humans are paying attention to. The goal is to develop robots that can learn to safely perform shared tasks with people, such as stirring a cake mixture as a human adds milk.
(c) 2011 Reed Business Information - UK. All Rights Reserved.
2011.01.10 View 11071
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KAIST developed a plastic film board less sensitive to heat.
The research result was made the cover of magazine, Advanced Materials and is accredited to paving the way to commercialize flexible display screens and solar power cells.
Transparent plastic and glass cloths, which have a limited thermal expansion needed for the production of flexible display screens and solar power cells, were developed by Korean researchers.
The research, led by KAIST’s Professor Byoung-Soo Bae, was funded by the Engineering Research Center under the initiative of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation. The research result was printed as the cover paper of ‘Advanced Materials’ which is the leading magazine in the field of materials science.
Professor Bae’s team developed a hybrid material with the same properties as fiber glass. With the material, they created a transparent, plastic film sheet resistant to heat. Transparent plastic film sheets were used by researchers all over the world to develop devices such as flexible displays or solar power cells that can be fit into various living spaces. However, plastic films are heat sensitive and tend to expand as temperature increases, thereby making it difficult to produce displays or solar power cells.
The new transparent, plastic film screen shows that heat expansion index (13ppm/oC) similar to that of glass fiber (9ppm/oC) due to the presence of glass fibers; its heat resistance allows to be used for displays and solar power cells over 250oC.
Professor Bae’s team succeeded in producing a flexible thin plastic film available for use in LCD or AMOLED screens and thin solar power cells.
Professor Bae commented, “Not only the newly developed plastic film has superior qualities, compared to the old models, but also it is cheap to produce, potentially bringing forward the day when flexible displays and solar panels become commonplace. With the cooperation of various industries, research institutes and universities, we will strive to improve the existing design and develop it further.”
2011.01.05 View 15174 -
A KAIST student earns 500 million won with "Virtual Finger" idea.
A student’s small idea was transformed into a viable technology, yielding 500 million won through the technology transfer.
In a mobile environment, it is difficult to hold the device and use its multi touch function, at the same time. A doctorate candidate of the KAIST Cultural Technology Graduate School, Hwang Sung Jae (28 years old), identified the inconvenience that it is hard to see the full screen of a mobile phone while manipulating it, and he invented a helper called “Virtual Thumb.”
The thumb allows a user to use only one finger to perform tasks that require the movements of several fingers like punching, zooming in/out and rotating the screen. When the user touches a screen, a virtual finger is created on the other side of the screen and mimics the motion of the user’s touching.
The ‘virtual Finger’ technology is based on the idea that came in second in the 2009 Korea Invention Patent Competition hosted by the Korea Intellectual Property Office and can be applied to any device that has a touch-based system which spans from a TV remote controller to a Tablet PC’s.
The Office of University and Industry Cooperation, KAIST, facilitated to turn Hwang’s idea into commercialization, and on October 18, Victronix, a Korean mobile phone manufacturer, bought a patent right for the technology at 500 million won.
2010.12.13 View 10199 -
KAIST Student Earns Five Hundred Million Won on Virtual Thumb Idea.
Hwang Sung Jae, a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Cultural Technology, developed a Virtual Thumb technology that allows multi-touch functions with one hand. Hwang got his idea from limitations of current mobile phones, including the covering of the screen by the use of fingers and the fact that multi-touch functions are hard to perform with one hand holding the mobile phone.
With this technology, one finger gives the same effect of using both fingers to perform a function. Using the Virtual Thumb that appears on a point corresponding to the point of physical touch, movements corresponding to actual touch movements are mimed to allow zooming in/out and various rotation angle based functions.
In addition, in situations where object rotation is unnecessary, many functions are subjectively matched using the change in rotational angle. It allows for various commands are simultaneously executed without activating a separate commanding menu. In the case of the zoom in command at a corner region, the corner can be zoomed in without moving the object to the center of the screen.
The Virtual Thumb technology can be applied as a middleware on touch-based apparatus including TV remote controls, eBook, mobile phones, tablet PCs, navigation systems and educational apparatus.
“I am honored that a small idea that developed during research can be developed into an actual commercialized technology,” said Hwang. “I will become a researcher who will add to the academic and industrial fields through creative research in the future.”
2010.11.05 View 9726 -
Professor Bae of Industrial Design Wins Good Design Award.
Professor Bae Sang Min’s research team of the Industrial Design Department received a G-Mark on the Product Design Section from the Good Design Awards 2010 organized by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization through the exhibition of a Green Sharing Project, Heartea.
Heartea is a tumbler that allows the user to easily know the temperature of the liquid contained inside. Heartea is a name that combines Heart and Tea to refer to a tumbler that contains heart-warming tea.
Heartea was designed and produced by Professor Bae’s research team and was funded by GS Caltex. World Vision selected charity targets and oversaw distribution, and all of the sales income (about 200 million won) was donated as a scholarship to teenagers with financial difficulties.
The project has begun in 2006, and its accumulative sales are 1.7 billion won. Twenty million won is donated to 147 teenagers every year as scholarship, and through annual sharing camp, social leaders mentor teenagers to help them achieve their dreams.
The Good Design Award organized annually by Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization has a fifty year tradition and is one of the world’s top four design contests with 6,000 submissions from 50 different countries participated.
Professor Bae’s team has won three of the top four design contests including the German Red Dot Product Award and the American IDEA Product Award.
Along with Heartea, both of foldable MP3 in 2008 and natural humidifier Lovepot in 2009 won an award from these four contests.
“Through continuous research, I hope to create the world’s best philanthropy design research center to help Third World countries and the neglected. I want to participate in creating a better world through design,” said Professor Bae.
2010.11.05 View 12589 -
2010 International Presidential Forum was held successfully.
On October 11th, the 2010 International Presidential Forum on “The Role of the Research University in an S&T Dominated Era: Expectation & Delivery” was held successfully at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul. The third International Presidential Forum to be held, participants of the 2010 Presidential Forum engaged in an in-depth discussion about the direction that research universities should take in the 21st Century.
On its opening, President Nam Pyo Suh delivered a congratulatory message saying, “This forum is a meaningful gathering where research universities will suggest role models and find ways research universities can contribute to the progress of mankind in this century.”
Following, Lee Ki Jun, CEO of the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies said, “The common goal of the world’s research universities is to solve the problems mankind is facing together. I believe that the discussion we will hold today at the forum will point to the future direction of research universities.”
“To produce next generation engineers meeting global standards, exchange and dual degree programs between universities must be strengthened,” said Lars Pallesen, President of the Technical University of Denmark. “Research universities must support the exchange between students beyond cultural and national borders to adapt to the global market.”
Ichiro Okura, Vice President of Tokyo Institute of Technology, presented on the “Asian Science and Technology Pioneering Institutes of Research and Education, ASPIRE.” ASPIRE is a community created by the coalition between science and technology universities in the Far East. Its purpose is to contribute to sustainable global growth by educating high-quality human resources and lead Asia’s technology innovation based on science and technology development.
“For research universities to solve today’s global issues, universities must create new ideas by performing fundamental studies and developing innovative technology. The financial resources of universities must be focused with choices based on results,” remarked President Suh.
Zaini Ujang, Vice-President of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia stated that “the Malaysian government is planning on converting from a ‘labor-intensive economy’ to an ‘innovative leading economy’ with the goal of joining the advanced countries by 2020. In today’s science and technology era where innovative technology is necessary, research universities have an important role of developing the knowledge environmental system to lead the world economy.” Vice-President Ujang then explained what strategies Malaysian research universities devised in the innovative leading economy era to create research universities that bring creativity and innovation.
Tod A. Laursen, President of KUSTAR, said that “KUSTAR has a leading role in bringing science and technology and manpower necessary in converting the oil-centered economy of UAE to a knowledge-based economy. KUSTAR will continuously strengthen international cooperation to become not only the best engineering university in the Arab region but in the world.”
At this year’s forum, thirty international presidents and vice presidents from 24 universities in 15 countries including Georgia Tech, Technical University of Denmark, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, University of Queensland, Tokyo University, Nanyang Technological University, University Teknologi Malaysia and Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology along with forty national figures such as the presidents of Hanyang University and Handong Global University, governmental bureaucrats and representatives from national business and institutions participated.
2010.10.20 View 16982 -
KAIST Animation 'Captain Banana' To Be Shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010
‘Captain Banana,’ a short animation created by researchers of Associate Professor Junyong Noh’s Visual Media Laboratory and current students of the Graduate School of Culture Technology (CT), will be shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 this December 15th to 18th.
Following last year’s screening of ‘Taming the Cat’ at the SIGGRAPH CG Animation Festival in the United States, Professor Noh’s work has been chosen to be shown at global CG animation festivals for two years in a row.
Since the first exhibition by ACM in 1974, SIGGRAPH has become a global computer graphic festival that has a strong influence on the global CG and interactive technology industry. The Asian version of SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia has been held annually at Singapore in 2008 and Yokohama, Japan in 2009. This year’s SIGGRAPH Asia will be held at COEX in Seoul from December 15th to 18th.
‘Captain Banana’ is a five minute film about Captain Banana, who explains recent issues over sex including unwanted pregnancies, the eradication of abortions and prevention of AIDS through a series of funny situations with his ten little friends.
“Along with being chosen for screening at global CG animation festivals two years in a row, this year’s selection is significant in that the VM Lab has increased the efficiency of the creating process by using technology we have developed on our own,” said Professor Noh.
The production period took approximate five months with approximately 20 current students of CT and five researchers of the Visual Media Lab.
2010.10.20 View 11409 -
Yoon-Gyeong Shim donates two billion won's worth of stocks to KAIST.
“We hope KAIST will succeed my late husband’s will.”
A 47-year-old widow donated two billion won’s worth of stock to KAIST in respect to her late husband’s will for the scientific development and training of scientifically talented people of Korea.
On the 27 of September, KAIST announced that the late CEO of Seoul Alloy Metal’s widow, Yoon-Gyeong Shim, donated her and her children’s inheritance of two billion won’s worth of stocks to KAIST through an agent.
While wondering how to spend their inherited two billion won, the family found certificates and contracts of donation in the late CEO Geyong-Dae Kim’s possession. The late lamented Mr. Kim had been donating a certain amount of money monthly for those in need, including undernourished children.
Shim decided to donate to Korea’s IT-leading KAIST to succeed her late husband’s will, the husband who lived a life of sharing and dedicated his whole life in the IT department. Shim’s two children, Hyunjae (19 years old) and Youngjae (17 years old) happily participated in this decision.
The company represented by Kim, Seoul Alloy Metals, is a national company that produces basic conjugates used in electric and electronic machinery, with founding technology in the environmental-friendly smokeless lead-free solder division.
“I believe my late husband, who passed away before his time, would be glad with our family’s decision,” said Shim. “We may be living in a faraway country called New Zealand but my children and I are proud Koreans and we are very glad to give a small hand to Korea’s proud KAIST. We hope KAIST can succeed my late husband’s passion and will for the development of scientific technology. We wish it can be used not only for the development of KAIST, but for the development of Korea.”
“KAIST is grateful of Shim’s decision to donate to KAIST,” said President Suh. “To follow the lofty will of the decedent, KAIST will try our best to train the best scientifically talented people and become the best university in the world.”
Since appointment of President Suh at KAIST, KAIST has put an effort to spread a donating culture. As a result, KAIST donators have expanded omnidirectionally, including professors, staff, students, alumni, parents of students, and the general public.
The number of donations was 1,004 in 2006, 2,139 in 2007, 3,066 in 2008, and 3,304 in 2009.
2010.09.29 View 9295 -
OLEV Safety Confirmed by International Standards
On September 19, KAIST announced that the electromagnetic (EM) field levels of its online electric vehicle (OLEV) measured in June and September of this year demonstrated verification of its safety.
Last June, the EM field level of OLEV installed at the Seoul Grand Park was measured by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) to test its harmfulness to human. The results were 0.5 ~ 61mG which is within the national and international standards of 62.5mG.
KRISS measured EM field levels on 22 spots on the side of and at the center of OLEV at a fixed distance (30cm) but variable heights (5cm~150cm) according to the national standard of measurement methods for electromagnetic fields of household appliances and similar apparatuses with regard to human exposure (IEC 62233).
In addition, another testing took place on September 13 following a request by National Assemblywoman Young-Ah Park, a member of the National Assembly’s Education, Science and Technology Committee, who has raised an issue on the safety of OLEV. This testing session was held by EMF Safety, Inc., an institution designated by Park, and it tested the EM field level of the same OLEV train that was tested in June.
As a result, the September measurements were well within the national and international standards with 0~24.1mG. The test was conducted under the presence of third party to produce a fair and objective result.
As reference, the EM field level results are well within the American IEEE electromagnetic field standards of 1,100 mG.
The September measurements were produced by Park’s recommendation of following the criteria specified in the measurement procedures of IEC 62110, “Electric and magnetic field levels generated by AC power systems to public exposure,” which were 15 measurements at a fixed 20cm distance at the side of and from the center of OLEV with variable heights of 50cm~150cm.
2010.09.27 View 13128