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COVID-19 Update: All Classes to Go Online after Semester Opens
All classes of undergraduate and graduate courses will go online from March 16 in a protective measure for the KAIST community to slow the spread of COVID-19. No decision has yet been made for how long the online classes will last. The spring semester will start two weeks later than scheduled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19.
For online classes, professors are uploading their taped class video clips onto the KAIST Learning Management System (KLMS). These classes will be conducted in both real time and on demand. The video conferencing solution Zoom will be employed for real-time online classes, and professors and students will interact using the bulletin board function for on-demand classes.
The university is scaling up its institutional response to protect the KAIST community against the outbreak of the disease following the cancellation and postponing of major academic events including the commencement and matriculation ceremonies scheduled in February and March.
The new protective measures include all sports complexes and facilities temporarily closing from February 24. All building entrance gates are only accessible with those carrying a KAIST ID card. A total of nine fever monitors have been installed in the university headquarter building, main library, dining halls, the day care center at Daejeon campus, and at the Seoul campus.
The Emergency Response Team is posting a daily bulletin and response manual on the KAIST portal system with updates on the number of confirmed cases in Daejeon and other regions including Seoul as well as reminder notices to help contain the spread.
Provost Kwang-Hyung Lee advised KAIST community members to refrain from traveling to the gravely affected region and foreign countries in an email sent on March 11. Anyone who has a travel history in those regions should report it to the Emergency Response Team and self-quarantine for two weeks at home or in a designated dorm complex.
KAIST surveyed all community members’ travel histories last month and instructed those who had traveled to Daegu and foreign countries or had contact with a confirmed patient to go into self-isolation or work from home while conducting intensive self-monitoring. They have been asked to report their temperature to the Emergency Response Team twice a day. The response manual recommends canceling or postponing meetings and events at the campus. “If necessary, we ask that you make a conference call instead,” said the Emergency Response Team.
Meanwhile, the Academic Affairs Office decided to employ a flexible academic schedule in consideration of students’ circumstances during this extraordinary outbreak situation. “We still need to run 16 weeks of classes for the semester but we are being flexible in how the classes can be run. It will wholly depend on the professor and students’ discussions based on their situation. We won’t apply a unilateral mid-term and final exam week during this special time,” said the bulletin from the Academic Affairs Office.
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2020.03.11 View 8127 -
A Single Biological Factor Predicts Distinct Cortical Organizations across Mammalian Species
-A KAIST team’s mathematical sampling model shows that retino-cortical mapping is a prime determinant in the topography of cortical organization.-
Researchers have explained how visual cortexes develop uniquely across the brains of different mammalian species. A KAIST research team led by Professor Se-Bum Paik from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has identified a single biological factor, the retino-cortical mapping ratio, that predicts distinct cortical organizations across mammalian species.
This new finding has resolved a long-standing puzzle in understanding visual neuroscience regarding the origin of functional architectures in the visual cortex. The study published in Cell Reports on March 10 demonstrates that the evolutionary variation of biological parameters may induce the development of distinct functional circuits in the visual cortex, even without species-specific developmental mechanisms.
In the primary visual cortex (V1) of mammals, neural tuning to visual stimulus orientation is organized into one of two distinct topographic patterns across species. While primates have columnar orientation maps, a salt-and-pepper type organization is observed in rodents.
For decades, this sharp contrast between cortical organizations has spawned fundamental questions about the origin of functional architectures in the V1. However, it remained unknown whether these patterns reflect disparate developmental mechanisms across mammalian taxa, or simply originate from variations in biological parameters under a universal development process.
To identify a determinant predicting distinct cortical organizations, Professor Paik and his researchers Jaeson Jang and Min Song examined the exact condition that generates columnar and salt-and-pepper organizations, respectively. Next, they applied a mathematical model to investigate how the topographic information of the underlying retinal mosaics pattern could be differently mapped onto a cortical space, depending on the mapping condition.
The research team proved that the retino-cortical feedforwarding mapping ratio appeared to be correlated to the cortical organization of each species. In the model simulations, the team found that distinct cortical circuitries can arise from different V1 areas and retinal ganglion cell (RGC) mosaic sizes. The team’s mathematical sampling model shows that retino-cortical mapping is a prime determinant in the topography of cortical organization, and this prediction was confirmed by neural parameter analysis of the data from eight phylogenetically distinct mammalian species.
Furthermore, the researchers proved that the Nyquist sampling theorem explains this parametric division of cortical organization with high accuracy. They showed that a mathematical model predicts that the organization of cortical orientation tuning makes a sharp transition around the Nyquist sampling frequency, explaining why cortical organizations can be observed in either columnar or salt-and-pepper organizations, but not in intermediates between these two stages.
Professor Paik said, “Our findings make a significant impact for understanding the origin of functional architectures in the visual cortex of the brain, and will provide a broad conceptual advancement as well as advanced insights into the mechanism underlying neural development in evolutionarily divergent species.”
He continued, “We believe that our findings will be of great interest to scientists working in a wide range of fields such as neuroscience, vision science, and developmental biology.”
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).
Image credit: Professor Se-Bum Paik, KAIST
Image usage restrictions: News organizations may use or redistribute this image, with proper attribution, as part of news coverage of this paper only.
Publication:
Jaeson Jang, Min Song, and Se-Bum Paik. (2020). Retino-cortical mapping ratio predicts columnar and salt-and-pepper organization in mammalian visual cortex. Cell Reports. Volume 30. Issue 10. pp. 3270-3279. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.02.038
Profile:
Se-Bum Paik
Assistant Professor
sbpaik@kaist.ac.kr
http://vs.kaist.ac.kr/
VSNN Laboratory
Department of Bio and Brain Engineering
Program of Brain and Cognitive Engineering
http://kaist.ac.kr
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Profile:
Jaeson Jang
Ph.D. Candidate
jaesonjang@kaist.ac.kr
Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST
Profile:
Min Song
Ph.D. Candidate
night@kaist.ac.kr
Program of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, KAIST
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2020.03.11 View 14106 -
“A drop of water shall be returned with a rushing river.”
- Chinese KAISTians Donate Supplies to Fight COVID-19 in Daegu -
The Chinese community at KAIST donated 2.49 million won worth of personal protective equipment on March 4 to support on-site medical personnel in the city of Daegu. South Korea has been witnessing a significant surge in novel COVID-19 transmissions, and Daegu and nearby North Gyeongsang Province are the most affected regions.
As the COVID-19 situation grows more serious globally day by day, a Chinese master’s student from the KAIST Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yuewen Jia, suggested a fundraising campaign on the KAIST Chinese Community’s WeChat messenger chat room, and her idea was enthusiastically supported by many peer-members. The KAIST Chinese Community is comprised of 105 undergraduates, graduates, post-doctoral fellows, researchers, and professors.
With Jia’s post-doc colleague Pei Li volunteering to manage the fundraising process, a total of 2.49 million won was collected in 12 days between January 27 and February 7.
The donors, including Qin Xu, a PhD candidate in the School of Electrical Engineering, reportedly asked for their donations to be used to support on-site medical personnel affected by the outbreak. They believed that medical supplies are the most essential in times like these. The group purchased personal protective equipment online and waited for more than 20 days until the items were finally delivered to them. The goods include 1,280 protective caps, 57 protective suits, 15 protective glasses, and two protective face shields.
Given the surging spread of the COVID-19 disease in Korea, where the confirmed cases have increased multi-fold since mid-February, the KAIST Chinese Community decided that their items should be used immediately in Korea, instead of being sent back to their home country as they had planned.
Guoyuan An, a student representative of the community studying for his master’s degree in the School of Computing, said, “Earlier, some members of the KAIST Chinese Community who had visited China were self-quarantined for two weeks in a special facility designated by KAIST as a precautionary measure. Thanks to the outstanding care we received from offices at KAIST including the COVID-19 Task Force Team, the International Office, the Student Offices, and the Clinic, those who were quarantined could return to campus safe and healthy.”
He continued, “KAIST and the Koreans as a whole spared no effort in helping China and Chinese people living in Korea fight the COVID-19 outbreak in its early days, and all of the members of the KAIST Chinese Community felt deeply grateful for all the attention and aid. This has been a definitive reason for us to change the donate recipient from China to Korea.”
“As an old Chinese saying goes, ‘A drop of water shall be returned with a rushing river.’ This proverb means that even if you receive a little help from others, you should return the favor with all you can when others are in need. We decided to make a donation ourselves in hopes that our small contribution could help on-site medical personnel work for the health and wellbeing of Koreans who are affected in that area.” he explained.
The donated items were delivered to the Division of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management at the Daegu Metropolitan Government Office, with help from the on-campus medical center KAIST Clinic Pappalardo Center and the KAIST International Scholar and Student Services (ISSS) Team.
Dr. Yun-Jung Lee, the executive director of the KAIST Clinic Pappalardo Center, expressed “a huge thank you to the KAIST Chinese Community for pitching in to help battle this national and global crisis.”
She added, “Their donations have been passed to those in desperate need, and their warm-hearted act of kindness will go a long way.”
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2020.03.05 View 9660 -
Coordination Chemistry and Alzheimer’s Disease
It has become evident recently that the interactions between copper and amyloid-b neurotoxically impact the brain of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. KAIST researchers have reported a new strategy to alter the neurotoxicity in Alzheimer’s disease by using a rationally designed chemical reagent.
This strategy, developed by Professor Mi Hee Lim from the Department of Chemistry, can modify the coordination sphere of copper bound to amyloid-b, effectively inhibiting copper’s binding to amyloid-b and altering its aggregation and toxicity. Their study was featured in PNAS last month.
The researchers developed a small molecule that is able to directly interact with the coordination sphere of copper–amyloid-b complexes followed by modifications via either covalent conjugation, oxidation, or both under aerobic conditions. The research team simply utilized copper–dioxygen chemistry to design a chemical reagent.
Answering how peptide modifications by a small molecule occur remains very challenging. The system includes transition metals and amyloidogenic proteins and is quite heterogeneous, since they are continuously being changed. It is critical to carefully check the multiple variables such as the presence of dioxygen and the type of transition metal ions and amyloidogenic proteins in order to identify the underlying mechanisms and target specificity of the chemical reagent.
The research team employed various biophysical and biochemical methods to determine the mechanisms for modifications on the coordination sphere of copper–Aꞵ complexes. Among them, peptide modifications were mainly analyzed using electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry.
Mass spectrometry (MS) has been applied to verify such peptide modifications by calculating the shift in exact mass. The research team also performed collision-induced dissociation (CID) of the target ion detected by MS to pinpoint which amino acid residue is specifically modified. The CID fragmentizes the amide bond located between the amino acid residues. This fragmental analysis allows us to identify the specific sites of peptide modifications.
The copper and amyloid-b complexes represent a pathological connection between metal ions and amyloid-b in Alzheimer’s disease. Recent findings indicate that copper and amyloid-b can directly contribute toward neurodegeneration by producing toxic amyloid-b oligomers and reactive oxygen species.
Professor Lim said, “This study illustrates the first experimental evidence that the 14th histidine residue in copper–amyloid-b complexes can be specifically modified through either covalent conjugation, oxidation, or both. Considering the neurotoxic implications of the interactions between copper and amyloid-b, such modifications at the coordination sphere of copper in amyloid-b could effectively alter its properties and toxicity.”
“This multidisciplinary study with an emphasis on approaches, reactivities, and mechanisms looks forward to opening a new way to develop candidates of anti-neurodegenerative diseases,” she added. The National Research Foundation of Korea funded this research.
2020.03.03 View 7770 -
Professor Hojong Chang’s Research Team Wins ISIITA 2020 Best Paper Award
The paper written by Professor Hojong Chang’s research team from KAIST Institute for IT Convergence won the best paper award from the International Symposium on Innovation in Information Technology Application (ISIITA) 2020, held this month at Ton Duc Thang University in Vietnam.
ISIITA is a networking symposium where leading researchers from various fields including information and communications, biotechnology, and computer systems come together and share on the convergence of technology.
Professor Chang’s team won the best paper award at this year’s symposium with its paper, “A Study of Single Photon Counting System for Quantitative Analysis of Luminescence”. The awarded paper discusses the realization of a signal processing system for silicon photomultipliers.
The silicon photomultiplier is the core of a urinalysis technique that tests for sodium and potassium in the body using simple chemical reactions. If our bodily sodium and potassium levels exceed a certain amount, it can lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems, and kidney damage.
Through this research, the team has developed a core technique that quantifies the sodium and potassium discharged in the urine. When the reagent is injected into the urine, a very small amount of light is emitted as a result of the chemical reaction. However, if there is a large amount of sodium and potassium, they interrupt the reaction and reduce the emission. The key to this measurement technique is digitizing the strength of this very fine emission of light. Professor Chang’s team developed a system that uses a photomultiplier to measure the chemiluminescence.
Professor Chang said, “I look forward for this signal processing system greatly helping to prevent diseases caused by the excessive consumption of sodium and potassium through quick and easy detection.”
Researcher Byunghun Han who carried out the central research for the system design added, “We are planning to focus on miniaturizing the developed technique, so that anyone can carry our device around like a cellphone.”
The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
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2020.02.27 View 10417 -
KAIST Launches AI Alliance with KT, Hyundai, ETRI, Hanyang University
KAIST launched the AI collaboration alliance “AI One Team” partnering with the nation’s top telecommunications company KT, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, and Hanyang University on February 21.
President Sung-Chul Shin signed the MOU with KT CEO Hyun-Mo Koo, Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings Vice President Ki-Sun Chung, President Myung Joon Kim of ETRI, and Hanyang University President Woo-Seung Kim to help the nation’s AI technology stay ahead of the global level. Vice Minister of Science and ICT Seokyoung Jang also attended the signing ceremony held at KAIST.
Four parties representing the government, industry, research institutes, and universities all agreed to collaborate to establish an educational platform fostering AI talents; develop AI technologies applicable to industrial sites; nurture an AI technology eco-system that will embrace SEMs and venture companies; and incubate startups to help improve their technological competitiveness.
KAIST will take the lead in fostering AI talents in collaboration with ETRI and Hanyang University, offering an online/offline educational program featuring AI curricula that will be practically applicable to the industry. The alliance will also create a platform that will match job seekers and companies, especially for SMEs and venture firms that are having trouble finding competitive experts.
Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings is focusing on developing technologies in the fields of robotics and smart factories. Hyundai’s collaboration with KT is pushing the digital transformation in the new domains of 5G-based robots and smart factories. The two companies plan to expand their technological know-how to SMEs, venture firms, and startups. The secretariat of the AI One Team will facilitate collaborative projects among the partners to help produce tangible results.
President Shin expressed his high hopes on this alliance for AI technology. He declared, “The winner takes all in the field of AI. Our close collaboration will pave the way for Korea, and each of our partners will lead AI technology in the global market. We will spare no effort for this alliance.”
2020.02.21 View 5217 -
Professor Minsoo Rhu Recognized as Facebook Research Scholar
Professor Minsoo Rhu from the School of Electrical Engineering was selected as the recipient of the Systems for Machine Learning Research Awards presented by Facebook.
Facebook launched the award last year with the goal of funding impactful solutions in the areas of developer tookits, compilers and code generation, system architecture, memory technologies, and machine learning accelerator support.
A total of 167 scholars from 100 universities representing 26 countries submitted research proposals, and Facebook selected final 10 scholars. Professor Rhu made the list with his research topic ‘A Near-Memory Processing Architecture for Training Recommendation Systems.’ He will receive 5,000 USD in research funds at the award ceremony which will take place during this year’s AI Systems Faculty Summit at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Professor Rhu’s submission was based on research on ‘Memory-Centric Deep Learning System Architecture’ that he carried out for three years under the auspices of Samsung Science and Technology Foundation from 2017. It was an academic-industrial cooperation research project in which leading domestic companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix collaborated to make a foray into the global memory-centric smart system semiconductor market.
Professor Rhu who joined KAIST in 2018 has led various systems research projects to accelerate the AI computing technology while working at NVIDIA headquarters from 2014.
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2020.02.21 View 10022 -
Black Phosphorous Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor as an Alternative Ultra-low Power Switch
Researchers have reported a black phosphorus transistor that can be used as an alternative ultra-low power switch. A research team led by Professor Sungjae Cho in the KAIST Department of Physics developed a thickness-controlled black phosphorous tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) that shows 10-times lower switching power consumption as well as 10,000-times lower standby power consumption than conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors.
The research team said they developed fast and low-power transistors that can replace conventional CMOS transistors. In particular, they solved problems that have degraded TFET operation speed and performance, paving the way to extend Moore’s Law.
In the study featured in Nature Nanotechnology last month, Professor Cho’s team reported a natural heterojunction TFET with spatially varying layer thickness in black phosphorous without interface problems. They achieved record-low average subthreshold swing values over 4-5 dec of current and record-high, on-state current, which allows the TFETs to operate as fast as conventional CMOS transistors with as much lower power consumption.
"We successfully developed the first transistor that achieved the essential criteria for fast, low-power switching. Our newly developed TFETs can replace CMOS transistors by solving a major issue regarding the performance degradation of TFETs,"Professor Cho said.
The continuous down-scaling of transistors has been the key to the successful development of current information technology. However, with Moore’s Law reaching its limits due to the increased power consumption, the development of new alternative transistor designs has emerged as an urgent need.
Reducing both switching and standby power consumption while further scaling transistors requires overcoming the thermionic limit of subthreshold swing, which is defined as the required voltage per ten-fold current increase in the subthreshold region. In order to reduce both the switching and standby power of CMOS circuits, it is critical to reduce the subthreshold swing of the transistors.
However, there is fundamental subthreshold swing limit of 60 mV/dec in CMOS transistors, which originates from thermal carrier injection. The International Roadmap for Devices and Systems has already predicted that new device geometries with new materials beyond CMOS will be required to address transistor scaling challenges in the near future. In particular, TFETs have been suggested as a major alternative to CMOS transistors, since the subthreshold swing in TFETs can be substantially reduced below the thermionic limit of 60 mV/dec. TFETs operate via quantum tunneling, which does not limit subthreshold swing as in thermal injection of CMOS transistors.
In particular, heterojunction TFETs hold significant promise for delivering both low subthreshold swing and high on-state current. High on-current is essential for the fast operation of transistors since charging a device to on state takes a longer time with lower currents. Unlike theoretical expectations, previously developed heterojunction TFETs show 100-100,000x lower on-state current (100-100,000x slower operation speeds) than CMOS transistors due to interface problems in the heterojunction. This low operation speed impedes the replacement of CMOS transistors with low-power TFETs.
Professor Cho said, “We have demonstrated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, TFET optimization for both fast and ultra-low-power operations, which is essential to replace CMOS transistors for low-power applications.” He said he is very delighted to extend Moore’s Law, which may eventually affect almost every aspect of life and society. This study (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0623-7) was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Publication:
Kim et al. (2020) Thickness-controlled black phosphorus tunnel field-effect transistor for low-power switches. Nature Nanotechnology. Available online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0623-7
Profile:
Professor Sungjae Cho
sungjae.cho@kaist.ac.kr
Department of Physics
http://qtak.kaist.ac.kr/
KAIST
Profile:
Seungho Kim, PhD Candidate
krksh21@kaist.ac.kr
Department of Physics
http://qtak.kaist.ac.kr/
KAIST
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2020.02.21 View 12317 -
New Catalyst Recycles Greenhouse Gases into Fuel and Hydrogen Gas
< Professor Cafer T. Yavuz (left), PhD Candidate Youngdong Song (center), and Researcher Sreerangappa Ramesh (right) >
Scientists have taken a major step toward a circular carbon economy by developing a long-lasting, economical catalyst that recycles greenhouse gases into ingredients that can be used in fuel, hydrogen gas, and other chemicals. The results could be revolutionary in the effort to reverse global warming, according to the researchers. The study was published on February 14 in Science.
“We set out to develop an effective catalyst that can convert large amounts of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane without failure,” said Cafer T. Yavuz, paper author and associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of chemistry at KAIST.
The catalyst, made from inexpensive and abundant nickel, magnesium, and molybdenum, initiates and speeds up the rate of reaction that converts carbon dioxide and methane into hydrogen gas. It can work efficiently for more than a month.
This conversion is called ‘dry reforming’, where harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, are processed to produce more useful chemicals that could be refined for use in fuel, plastics, or even pharmaceuticals. It is an effective process, but it previously required rare and expensive metals such as platinum and rhodium to induce a brief and inefficient chemical reaction.
Other researchers had previously proposed nickel as a more economical solution, but carbon byproducts would build up and the surface nanoparticles would bind together on the cheaper metal, fundamentally changing the composition and geometry of the catalyst and rendering it useless.
“The difficulty arises from the lack of control on scores of active sites over the bulky catalysts surfaces because any refinement procedures attempted also change the nature of the catalyst itself,” Yavuz said.
The researchers produced nickel-molybdenum nanoparticles under a reductive environment in the presence of a single crystalline magnesium oxide. As the ingredients were heated under reactive gas, the nanoparticles moved on the pristine crystal surface seeking anchoring points. The resulting activated catalyst sealed its own high-energy active sites and permanently fixed the location of the nanoparticles — meaning that the nickel-based catalyst will not have a carbon build up, nor will the surface particles bind to one another.
“It took us almost a year to understand the underlying mechanism,” said first author Youngdong Song, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST. “Once we studied all the chemical events in detail, we were shocked.”
The researchers dubbed the catalyst Nanocatalysts on Single Crystal Edges (NOSCE). The magnesium-oxide nanopowder comes from a finely structured form of magnesium oxide, where the molecules bind continuously to the edge. There are no breaks or defects in the surface, allowing for uniform and predictable reactions.
“Our study solves a number of challenges the catalyst community faces,” Yavuz said. “We believe the NOSCE mechanism will improve other inefficient catalytic reactions and provide even further savings of greenhouse gas emissions.”
This work was supported, in part, by the Saudi-Aramco-KAIST CO2 Management Center and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Other contributors include Ercan Ozdemir, Sreerangappa Ramesh, Aldiar Adishev, and Saravanan Subramanian, all of whom are affiliated with the Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability at KAIST; Aadesh Harale, Mohammed Albuali, Bandar Abdullah Fadhel, and Aqil Jamal, all of whom are with the Research and Development Center in Saudi Arabia; and Dohyun Moon and Sun Hee Choi, both of whom are with the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory in Korea. Ozdemir is also affiliated with the Institute of Nanotechnology at the Gebze Technical University in Turkey; Fadhel and Jamal are also affiliated with the Saudi-Armco-KAIST CO2 Management Center in Korea.
<Newly developed catalyst that recycles greenhouse gases into ingredients that can be used in fuel, hydrogen gas and other chemicals.>
Publication:
Song et al. (2020) Dry reforming of methane by stable Ni–Mo nanocatalysts on single-crystalline MgO. Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6479, pp. 777-781. Available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aav2412
Profile: Prof. Cafer T. Yavuz, MA, PhD
yavuz@kaist.ac.kr
http://yavuz.kaist.ac.kr/
Associate Professor
Oxide and Organic Nanomaterials for the Environment (ONE) Laboratory
Graduate School of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability (EEWS)
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
http://kaist.ac.kr
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Profile: Youngdong Song ydsong88@kaist.ac.kr
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
http://kaist.ac.kr
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
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2020.02.17 View 17523 -
Blood-Based Multiplexed Diagnostic Sensor Helps to Accurately Detect Alzheimer’s Disease
A research team at KAIST reported clinically accurate multiplexed electrical biosensor for detecting Alzheimer’s disease by measuring its core biomarkers using densely aligned carbon nanotubes.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, affecting one in ten aged over 65 years. Early diagnosis can reduce the risk of suffering the disease by one-third, according to recent reports. However, its early diagnosis remains challenging due to the low accuracy but high cost of diagnosis.
Research team led by Professors Chan Beum Park and Steve Park described an ultrasensitive detection of multiple Alzheimer's disease core biomarker in human plasma. The team have designed the sensor array by employing a densely aligned single-walled carbon nanotube thin films as a transducer.
The representative biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease are beta-amyloid42, beta-amyloid40, total tau protein, phosphorylated tau protein and the concentrations of these biomarkers in human plasma are directly correlated with the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease.
The research team developed a highly sensitive resistive biosensor based on densely aligned carbon nanotubes fabricated by Langmuir-Blodgett method with a low manufacturing cost.
Aligned carbon nanotubes with high density minimizes the tube-to-tube junction resistance compared with randomly distributed carbon nanotubes, which leads to the improvement of sensor sensitivity. To be more specific, this resistive sensor with densely aligned carbon nanotubes exhibits a sensitivity over 100 times higher than that of conventional carbon nanotube-based biosensors.
By measuring the concentrations of four Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers simultaneously Alzheimer patients can be discriminated from health controls with an average sensitivity of 90.0%, a selectivity of 90.0% and an average accuracy of 88.6%.
This work, titled “Clinically accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease via multiplexed sensing of core biomarkers in human plasma”, were published in Nature Communications on January 8th 2020. The authors include PhD candidate Kayoung Kim and MS candidate Min-Ji Kim.
Professor Steve Park said, “This study was conducted on patients who are already confirmed with Alzheimer’s Disease. For further use in practical setting, it is necessary to test the patients with mild cognitive impairment.” He also emphasized that, “It is essential to establish a nationwide infrastructure, such as mild cognitive impairment cohort study and a dementia cohort study. This would enable the establishment of world-wide research network, and will help various private and public institutions.”
This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Human Resource Bank of Chungnam National University Hospital and Chungbuk National University Hospital.
< A schematic diagram of a high-density aligned carbon nanotube-based resistive sensor that distinguishes patients with Alzheimer’s Disease by measuring the concentration of four biomarkers in the blood. >
Profile:
Professor Steve Park
stevepark@kaist.ac.kr
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
http://steveparklab.kaist.ac.kr/
KAIST
Profile:
Professor Chan Beum Park
parkcb at kaist.ac.kr
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
http://biomaterials.kaist.ac.kr/
KAIST
2020.02.07 View 10960 -
COVID-19 Update: Precautionary Measures Reschedule Spring Semester to March 16
(Campus-wide preventive measures against the new coronavirus are being enforced.)
In response to the coronavirus outbreak, KAIST has decided to alter the academic calendar, postponing the opening of the spring semester until March 16, two weeks behind the original schedule. This is following the decision of the Deans’ Council to postpone or cancel the major academic ceremonies and events scheduled in February.
According to the decision, the commencement ceremony scheduled on February 21 will be postponed; meanwhile the freshmen orientation and matriculation ceremonies have been cancelled. Additionally, the ceremonies for the KAIST anniversary and faculty retirement ceremony scheduled on February 14 and the faculty workshop on February 27 have been postponed. There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases among the KAIST community as of February 6.
The university is also enhancing campus-wide precautionary safety measures to prevent the spread of the disease. The Facilities Management Office said that they will start disinfecting all dining facilities, cafeterias, libraries, lecture halls, and student halls for two days from Feb. 6. Plastic gloves are provided at cafeteria, which is using buffet spoons and tongs, and cafeteria patrons are being asked to wear the plastic gloves when they place food on their own plate in a preventive measure to avoid possible contact between individuals.
KAIST also launched a 24/7-hour Emergency Response Team and disseminated a response manual to KAIST community members. The Office of Student Life surveyed students, faculty, and staff to report if anyone has traveled to China or been in contact with visitors who made a trip to China within the last two weeks.
The university designated a building in one of the dorm complexes as a quarantine facility and a total of 11 people who visited China have been self-quarantined for two weeks from January 31.
Provost and Executive Vice President Kwang Hyung Lee explained in his letter to KAIST community members on February 4 that the university is exerting all possible measures and efforts against the spreading virus and asked for every member’s cooperation to prevent the further spread of the disease.
“Those who self-quarantined don’t have any symptoms. This is just a precautionary measure. The self-quarantine at our facility is only limited to those who declared that they do not have a legal residence in Korea,” said Provost Lee. The transportation to the facility is specially arranged and meal boxes are delivered to the quarantined room individually. A full-time guard in front of the isolated dorm building will be on duty 24 hours a day.
He explained the university chose the Hwaam Complex as the self-quarantine facility because each building in the complex is set apart from the others and each room has its own bathroom and shower facilities. Provost Lee said that the university will use another dorm complex if any current dorm residents where the quarantine facility has been set up wish to move to other dorm complexes.
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2020.02.06 View 4526 -
Rachmaninoff the most innovative of 18th and 19th century composers according to network science
Rachmaninoff, followed by Bach, Brahms and Mendelssohn, was the most innovative of the composers who worked during the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras of music (1700 to 1900) according to a study published in the open access journal EPJ Data Science.
A team of researchers from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), calculated novelty scores for 900 classical piano compositions written by 19 composers between approximately 1700 and 1900. The scores were based on how musical compositions differed from all prior pieces of piano music and how they differed from previous piano works by the same composer. The authors found that composers from the Romantic era (1820 to 1910) tended to have high novelty scores.
The authors from the Graduate School of Culture Technology at KAIST created a computer model which divided each composition into segments called ‘codewords’. Each ‘codeword’ consisted of all of the notes played together at a given time. Sequences of ‘codewords’ were then compared between compositions. The similarities between the sequences were used to create novelty scores for each composer and to determine the extent to which composers influenced each other.
Juyong Park, the corresponding author, said: “Our model allows us to calculate the degree of shared melodies and harmonies between past and future works and to observe the evolution of western musical styles by demonstrating how prominent composers may have influenced each other. The period of music we studied is widely credited for having produced many musical styles that are still influential today.”
The model distinguished each new musical period from the one before it by the rise of newly dominant and highly influential composers that indicated dramatic shifts in musical styles. The authors found that compositions from the Classical period (1750 to 1820) tended to have the lowest novelty scores. During this period Haydn and Mozart were highly influential but were later overtaken by Beethoven during the Classical-to-Romantic transitional period.
The most innovative composer, indicated by the highest combined novelty score, was Rachmaninoff. His work during the Romantic era was novel when compared to the compositions of the other 18 composers included in the study, and his later works were novel compared to his earlier works.
Lower novelty did not necessarily correlate with low influence. Beethoven was ranked in the lower half of novelty scores yet was the most influential composer during the Romantic period (1820 to 1910) and is widely considered one of the greatest composers of all time.
Dr. Park said: “While novelty is necessary in a creative work it cannot account for all the creative and artistic qualities that go into creating melodies and harmonies that spread to later generations of composers. That may be why being more novel did not necessarily result in composers being more influential.”
The authors suggest that their method could be applied to narrative or visual artworks by creating codewords from groups of words or colours and shapes. However, they caution that as only piano compositions were included in their analysis, it is unknown whether including all works by the 19 composers would have resulted in another composer being identified as the most original.
Profile: Prof. Juyong Park, PhD
juyongp@kaist.ac.kr
Graduate School of Culture Technology (CT)
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
https://www.kaist.ac.kr
Daejeon 34141, Korea
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2020.01.31 View 5222