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KAIST's Mobile Harbor Program Attracts Two Corporate Investments
KAIST-developed Mobile Harbor Program has attracted investments from Korea"s two big-name industrial corporations, university authorities said on Monday (Oct. 19).
KAIST has recently signed an agreement with Hyundai Wia Corp., a machine parts supplier, to collaborate in the researches of the mobile harbor programs and commercialization. Under the agreement, Hyundai WIA will invest a total of 7.5 billion won in the program for two years starting from January 2010.
KAIST has also received a letter of intent from the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. on investing 20 billion won in the commercialization of the project.
The Mobile Harbor Program is designed to create mobile units that can go out to the ship which are anchored off-shore and unload the cargo and take it to where it is needed. It is aimed at overcoming the shortcomings of the current maritime container transportation systems. Container ships are getting larger and larger, requiring deep waters, large and complex loading and unloading systems, and major investments in facilities.
Prof. Byung-Man Kwak, leader of the program"s R&D team, said: "With the investment from two global industrial companies, the program has gained a crucial momentum. The development of the program is expected to help Korea to become a global leader in marine transportation and maintain its supremacy in shipbuilding."
2009.10.20 View 14392 -
KAIST Ranked 21st among World's Engineering Universities
KAIST was placed 21st in the area of engineering and information technology in this year"s world university rankings released on Oct. 8 (Thursday), climbing 13 notches from last year"s 34th. Seoul National University (SNU) ranked 27th, which made KAIST and SNU the only two institutions making it to the top 50 list. POSTECH ascended to 81st from last year"s 143rd.
In the "Times Higher Education--QS World University Rankings," Korean universities showed remarkable advancement this year; all-told five Korean universities made it to the top 200 list, as Yonsei and Korea universities were included in the list for the first time.
In overall rankings, KAIST moved 26 notches upward to grab the 69th position in the list, while SNU was placed 47th (50th last year).
The list, compiled by The Times (of London) newspaper annually, is topped by Harvard University, followed by University of Cambridge and Yale University.
Again this year, the United States had most of the top 100 universities in the world, with 32 included in the list. It was followed by the United Kingdom (18), Australia (8) and Japan (6).
Now in their 6th edition, the Times Higher Education--QS World University Rankings received a record level of responses from both the academic community and employers in 2009. A total of 9,386 academics (or 47 percent over 6,354 in 2008) and 3,281 employers (compared to 2,339 in 2008) responded to the surveys.
Times Higher Education -- QS World University Rankings evaluates institutions worldwide in four main categories: quality of research, globalization, quality of education, and contributions of graduates to society. The evaluation also considers academic peer review, citations per faculty, recruiter review, international faculty, international students and faculty-student ratio.
2009.10.09 View 12986 -
KAIST Secures Top Ranking of Korean Universities
KAIST won the No. 1 position for the second year in a row in the daily JoongAng Ilbo"s university rankings for 2009. Seoul National University took back the No. 2 spot, followed in order by POSTECH, Korea and Yonsei universities.
The survey was conducted in the four categories, educational environment/finance, professors" research, general reputation/social advancement and globalization. KAIST scored 293 points out of possible 400 this year, while the second-ranking SNU and third-ranking POSTECH earned 234 and 226 points, respectively.
The daily noted that KAIST particularly excelled in the category of educational environment/finance. It observed that donations to KAIST surged almost 100 times for the past three years since 2006 when President Suh took office.
In specific rankings of universities by academic disciplines, SNU came in first overall. KAIST topped in the science and engineering field, while Korea University ranked first in liberal arts studies.
This year, 88 four-year universities participated in the survey. The daily JoongAng Ilbo started its annual evaluation of Koran universities in 1994 to stimulate productive competition among institutions of higher learning and to provide objective standards for students and their parents to select schools for application.
For more information, news.joins.com/article/391/3789391.html
2009.09.24 View 13668
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World Research University Heads Discuss Challenges in Global Financial Turmoil at 2009 International Presidential Forum in Seoul
Leaders of the world"s major research universities discussed the impact of the global economic crisis on institutions of higher learning and their research activities in particular and exchanged opinions and visions on ways to increase cooperation with governments and industry at a symposium organized by KAIST Monday (Sept. 21) at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul.
More than 50 participants of the 2nd International Presidential Forum on Global Research Universities represented institutions in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, China and Japan. They were joined by 20 presidents of Korean universities and two dozens of leaders from industry and the government.
Under the main subject of "Challenges to Global Research Universities," the international symposium proceeded in four panel sessions. The subjects of each session and their keynote speakers were:
-- "Institutional Management in Times of Financial Crisis" by Kurt Kutzler, President of Berlin Institute of Technology
-- "Innovations in Education & Research" by Brian Cantor, Vice Chancellor of University of York
-- "Globalization of Institutes of Higher Learning" by Gary Schuster, Provost and Executive Vice President of Georgia Institute of Technology
-- "The Roles of Government, University and Industry in Green Technology Development" by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh
KAIST President Suh expressed deep gratitude to all participants for their presentations focused on how universities weathered the difficulties from the economic turmoil and how they were continuing efforts for innovation in research and education. He observed that the 2009 International Presidential Forum was again most successful and productive after the first in 2008 and offered a precious opportunity for leaders of research universities to establish effective networking among their institutions.
"The world has witnessed a global financial turmoil of unseen magnitude and many nations are still struggling under the devastating impacts. While universities were no exception in facing economic turmoil, they have realized renewed pressures and expectations from their respective communities to provide answers to the great challenges,” he said in his welcoming remarks.
"The conference I am sure will have a far-reaching influence on the course our research universities will take to shoulder greater responsibilities for building a better future of the mankind."
Some of the participants in the 2009 International Presidential Forum came to KAIST’s Daejeon campus to take part in the EEWS (energy, environment, water and sustainability) workshop which was held on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
The Chronicle of Higher Learning, the Washington-based newspaper specializing in university education, reported from Seoul that the Forum revealed that, while American universities struggle amid the harshest economic climate in a generation, institutions in much of the rest of the world are sheltered from the fallout by strong government backing.
“Delegates to a conference of university presidents (in Seoul on Monday, Sept. 22) heard that colleges in Asia and Europe are pushing ahead with expansion plans – even as their U.S. counterparts cut back.
“The 2009 International Presidential Forum… was marked by a sharp divide in the tone set by European, Asian, and U.S. college leaders. The Americans often sounded a deeply gloomy note,” The Chronicle reported. “Never before has the impact been this bad,” the paper quoted Vishwanath Prasad, vice president for research and economic development at the University of North Texas, as saying.
On the other hand, Yves Poilane, vice president of the Paris Institute of Technology, said, according to The Chronicle, “The largely state financing of most European universities has so far acted as a shelter, and higher education remains a priority for both European and French Universities.”
The Korea Herald, published in Seoul, said in its Sept. 23 editorial:
“This week in Seoul, a symposium of leaders from international and Korean research universities heard top scholars and administrators reveal how their schools have suffered through the year under reduced government subsidies and private endowments which forced them to postpone various globalization schemes and cut down on research expenditures. Applications for master"s and Ph.D. programs declined while large percentages of graduates failed to find jobs.
“With their country showing a rapid pace of recovery, universities in Korea are in a better situation than many of their overseas counterparts, especially considering the substantial government outlays for research and development in "low carbon, green growth" projects that are largely dependent on research universities. The more the government seeks their direct contributions, the harder universities should try to increase transparency and accountability in the use of taxpayer money, so as not to betray the nation"s trust in them.
“In the wake of the global economic crisis, academia, government and industry find themselves in closer ties as they share new concepts of innovation and development in a common quest for growth. The tripartite cooperation has new significance in the recovery process. To achieve any development objectives, the other two partners must prioritize the funding of universities.”
2009.09.24 View 12752 -
Prof. Cho Elected Editor-in-Chief of Systems Biology
Prof. Kwang-Hyun Cho of Department of Bio and Brain Engineering at KAIST has been recently elected editor-in-chief of the Systems Biology, an international journal published by the London-based Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the university authorities said on Wednesday (Sept. 23)
By the year 2012, Cho will oversee the editorial process of the journal covering intra- and inter-cellular dynamics, using systems- and signal-oriented approaches. IET, one of the world"s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community, has a worldwide membership of more than 150,000.
Prof. Cho"s research interests cover the areas of systems science with bio-medical applications including systems biology and bio-inspired engineering based on molecular systems biology. He is currently an editorial board member of Systems and Synthetic Biology (Springer, Netherlands, from 2006), BMC Systems Biology (BMC, London, U.K., from 2007), Gene Regulation and Systems Biology (Libertas Academica, New Zealand, from 2007), and Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (Springer, New York, from 2008), and an editorial advisory board member of Molecular BioSystems (The Royal Society of Chemistry, U.K.).
2009.09.24 View 14679 -
World Research University Heads to Discuss Challenges in Global Financial Turmoil
About 70 leaders of the world"s major research universities will discuss how to better contribute to continued development of human society in global financial turmoil at a symposium organized by KAIST Monday (Sept. 21) at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul.
Participants of the 2nd International Presidential Forum on Global Research Universities are from 40 universities in 25 countries, including Stanford University and Georgia Institute of Technology of the United States, Berlin Institute of Technology of Germany, Paris Institute of Technology of France, Technical University of Denmark, National University of Singapore and Tokyo Institute of Technology. They include 20 presidents of Korean universities and two dozens of leaders from industry and the government.
Under the main subject of "Challenges to Global Research Universities," the international symposium will proceed in four panel sessions. The subjects of each session and their keynote speakers are:
-- "Institutional Management in Times of Financial Crisis" by Kurt Kutzler, President of Berlin Institute of Technology
-- "Innovations in Education & Research" by Brian Cantor, Vice Chancellor of University of York
-- "Globalization of Institutes of Higher Learning" by Gary Schuster, Provost and Executive Vice President of Georgia Institute of Technology
-- "The Roles of Government, University and Industry in Green Technology Development" by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh
KAIST President Suh said of the purpose of the conference: "The world has witnessed a global financial turmoil of unseen magnitude and many nations are still struggling under the devastating impacts. While universities were no exception in facing economic turmoil, they have realized renewed pressures and expectations from their respective communities to provide answers to the great challenges."
"The conference will serve as an opportunity for the representatives of research universities to compare their visions of networking among theier institutions and initiate steps for new relationships. The conference I am sure will have a far-reaching influence on the course our research universities will take to shoulder greater responsibilities for building a better future of the mankind."
For more information, visit forum.kaist.ac.kr
2009.09.16 View 14859
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Prof. Ryoo's Team Discovers Breakthrough Method to Create New Zeolite
A group of scientists led by Prof. Ryong Ryoo of the Department of Chemistry, KAIST, has found a method to direct the growth of zeolite, a crystalline substance that is frequently used as catalyst in the chemical and petrochemical industries, the university authorities said on Thursday (Sept. 10).
Ryoo"s research team successfully created ultrathin nano-sheets, only two nano-meters thick, that are efficiently used as long-life catalysts for hydrocarbon cracking and other petrochemical applications. The breakthrough finding, which is credited with taking acidic zeolite catalysts to the limit in terms of thickness, was published in the latest edition of the peer-review journal, "Nature."
A team from the Polytechnic Univeristy of Valencia, Spain, also contributed to the research.
Zeolites are already widely used in the petrochemical industry, but making the catalysts very thin means that reactant molecules can easily diffuse into the zeolite structure and product molecules can get out quickly. This improves the efficiency of the catalyst and reduces unwanted side reactions that can produce polymeric hydrocarbon "coke" that clogs the zeolite pores and eventually kills the catalytic activity, Prof. Yoo said.
To make the thin sheets, Ryoo and his team used a surfactant as a template to direct the growth of the zeolite structure. The surfactant molecule has a polar "head" group - with two quaternary ammonium groups around which the aluminosilicate zeolite crystal grows - and a long hydrocarbon "tail," which prevents the sheets from aggregating together into larger, three dimensional crystals. When the surfactant is removed, these flakes pile up randomly with gaps in between which further aids diffusion to the catalyst sites.
"Zeolite could be used as a catalyst to convert heavy oil into gasoline. Our new zeolite could provide even more possibilities, such as being used as catalysts for transforming methanol into gasline," Ryoo said.
Prof. Ryoo, a Distinguished Professor of KAIST, has won a variety of academic awards, which included the Top Scientist Award given by the Korean government in 2005 and the 2001 KOSEF Science and Technology Award for his work on the synthesis and crystal structure of mezzoporous silica.
Ryoo obtained his bachelor"s degree from Seoul National University in 1977, master"s from KAIST in 1979, and doctorate from Stanford University in 1985.
In 2006, Ryoo and his research team announced the discovery of a form of zeolite that can catalyze petrochemical reactions much more effectively than previous zeolites. Because of the potential of this to streamline the gasoline refining process, it was greeted as a "magical substance" by the South Korean press.
2009.09.11 View 11801 -
KAIST Opens "Bridge Program" for Prospective Freshmen from General High Schools
KAIST opened an academic study program to get the 150 prospective freshmen from general high schools ready for undergraduate course work at the tech university, university authorities said on Thursday (Sept. 3).
The "Bridge Program" is designed to offer online courses in mathematics, physics and chemistry to help students without sufficient knowledge in those subjects.
For the 2010 academic year, KAIST"s admission officers have chosen 150 prospective freshmen among a total of 651 students who had been recommended by their school principals. It is the first time that KAIST has alloted a certain number of freshman slots to applicants from general high schools.
The system was designed to prevent elite high school graduates from taking a disproportionately large share of admissions.
As a result, 91 high schools which never before had its student enter KAIST will have at least one enrolled in the university in the next academic year.
Among the selected 150 students, 132 applied for mathematics course, 125 for physics and 116 for chemistry.
2009.09.07 View 9580
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Scaling Laws between Population and Facility Densities Found
A research team led by Prof. Ha-Woong Jeong of the Department of Physics, KAIST, has found a positive correlation between facilities and population densities, university authorities said on Tuesday (Sept. 2). The research was conducted in the cooperation with a research team of Prof. Beom-Jun Kim at Sungkyunkwan University.
The researchers investigated the ideal relation between the population and the facilities within the framework of an economic mechanism governing microdynamics.
In previous studies based on the global optimization of facility positions in minimizing the overall travel distance between people and facilities, the relation between population and facilities should follow a simple law. The new empirical analysis, however, determined that the law is not a fixed value but spreads in a broad range depending on facility types.
To explain this discrepancy, the researchers proposed a model based on economic mechanism that mimics the competitive balance between the profit of the facilities and the social opportunity cost for population.
The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States on Aug. 25.
2009.09.04 View 11982
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Prof. Lee"s Team Pioneers Biotechnological Production of Chemical Using Renewable Materials
A research team led by Prof. Sang-Yup Lee of the Bio and Brain Engineering Department at KAIST has succeeded in engineering the bacterium E. coli to produce the industrial chemical putrescine, university authorities said on Monday (Aug. 31).
Putrescine, a four carbon chain diamine, is an important platform chemical with a wide range of applications for the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and chemical industries. It is currently used to synthesize nylon-4,6, a widely used engineering plastic.
The research result, published in the Biotechnology and Bioengineering journal, proviDrdes a renewable alternative to the traditional process using fossil fuels.
Currently the production of putrescine on an industrial scale relies on chemical synthesis, which requires non-renewable petrochemicals and expensive catalyst systems. This process is highly toxic and flammable with potentially severe repercussions for both the environment and human health.
"For the first time we have developed a metabolically engineered E. coli strain that efficiently produces putrescine," said Professor Lee. "The development of a bio-refinery for chemicals and materials is very important in a world where dependency on fossil fuels is an increasing concern."
The team developed a strain of E.coli capable of producing putrescine through metabolic engineering. This is where a cell"s metabolic and regulatory networks are enhanced in order to increase production of a needed material.
First the team weakened or deleted competing metabolic pathways within the E. coli strain before deleting pathways which cause putrescine degradation. They also amplified the crucial enzyme Spec C, which converts the chemical ornithine into putrescine. Finally the putrescine exporter, which allows excretion of intracellularly made putrescine, was engineered while a global regulator was engineered to further increase the concentration of putrescine. The final result of this process was an engineered E.coli strain which produced 24.2 g of putrescine per litre.
However, as it was believed that putrescine is toxic to microorganisms the team had to study putrescine tolerance in E.coli before it could be engineered to overproduce the chemical to the levels needed for industrial production.
The results revealed that E. coli can tolerate at least 0.5 M of putrescine, which is tenfold higher than the usual concentration in the cell. This level of tolerance was an important surprise as it means that E. coli can be engineered to overproduce putrescine to industrially competitive levels.
"The previously expected toxicity of putrescine may explain why its microbial production has been overlooked," said Lee. "Now a metabolically engineered E. coli strain has been developed which is capable of efficiently producing putrescine using renewable methods to an industrial level. This metabolic engineering framework should be useful for developing metabolically engineered microorganisms for the efficient production of other chemicals from renewable resources," he added.
2009.09.01 View 12937 -
KAIST Undergraduates Open Four-Day International Conference
The ICISTS-KAIST, an annual international conference organized by KAIST undergraduate students, opened on Thursday (Aug. 20) at the KAIST"s main campus in Daejeon.
The 2009 ICISTS (International Conference for the Integration of Science and Technology into Society) drew around 200 experts and students from 44 countries. Since its inception in 2005 to promote discourse on important science and technology issues affecting modern society, the conference has served as an opportunity for academic networking among students in various parts of the world.
The four-day conference consists of lectures, open discussions among lecturers and students, field trips to help students to understand actual applications, and team projects.
This year"s conference offers three workshops under the themes of "Climate Change: Merging Technology and Policy for Green Solutions"; "Human-Computer Interaction: Designing Computer System for Intuitive Human Access"; and "Nano Clinic: Breakthrough in Conquering Disease."
Lectures by invited experts in various scientific fields will help broaden students" perspectives particularly from interdisciplinary viewpoints, said an organizer of the conference.
2009.08.28 View 13580
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Transparent Antenna for Automobile Developed
A research team led by Prof. Jae-Woo Park of the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, KAIST, developed a transparent antenna for the next-generation automobiles, university authorities said on Monday (Aug. 17).
The development was made possible through joint researches with the Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group; Winncom, a car antenna manufacturer; and a group of researchers led by Han-Ki Kim of the Department of Display Materials Engineering at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
The transparent antennas were developed in two kinds -- one for the HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), a new protocol for mobile telephone data transmission, and the other for transmitting and receiving radio wave for emergency call.
Using the transparent electrically conductive film formation technology, the transparent antennas are to be mounted on the windshield of a vehicle.
"The development of transparent antenna represents a step forward for the advancement of the next-generation automotive electronic technology," said Seong-woo Kim, a senior researcher at the Hyundai-Kia Group.
2009.08.18 View 12386