Tag Archives: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Striking similarity between memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and hippocampus of the human brain

A December 18, 2023 news item on ScienceDaily shifted my focus from hardware to software when considering memory in brainlike (neuromorphic) computing,

An interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers from the Center for Cognition and Sociality and the Data Science Group within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) [Korea] revealed a striking similarity between the memory processing of artificial intelligence (AI) models and the hippocampus of the human brain. This new finding provides a novel perspective on memory consolidation, which is a process that transforms short-term memories into long-term ones, in AI systems.

A November 28 (?), 2023 IBS press release (also on EurekAlert but published December 18, 2023, which originated the news item, describes how the team went about its research,

In the race towards developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), with influential entities like OpenAI and Google DeepMind leading the way, understanding and replicating human-like intelligence has become an important research interest. Central to these technological advancements is the Transformer model [Figure 1], whose fundamental principles are now being explored in new depth.

The key to powerful AI systems is grasping how they learn and remember information. The team applied principles of human brain learning, specifically concentrating on memory consolidation through the NMDA receptor in the hippocampus, to AI models.

The NMDA receptor is like a smart door in your brain that facilitates learning and memory formation. When a brain chemical called glutamate is present, the nerve cell undergoes excitation. On the other hand, a magnesium ion acts as a small gatekeeper blocking the door. Only when this ionic gatekeeper steps aside, substances are allowed to flow into the cell. This is the process that allows the brain to create and keep memories, and the gatekeeper’s (the magnesium ion) role in the whole process is quite specific.

The team made a fascinating discovery: the Transformer model seems to use a gatekeeping process similar to the brain’s NMDA receptor [see Figure 1]. This revelation led the researchers to investigate if the Transformer’s memory consolidation can be controlled by a mechanism similar to the NMDA receptor’s gating process.

In the animal brain, a low magnesium level is known to weaken memory function. The researchers found that long-term memory in Transformer can be improved by mimicking the NMDA receptor. Just like in the brain, where changing magnesium levels affect memory strength, tweaking the Transformer’s parameters to reflect the gating action of the NMDA receptor led to enhanced memory in the AI model. This breakthrough finding suggests that how AI models learn can be explained with established knowledge in neuroscience.

C. Justin LEE, who is a neuroscientist director at the institute, said, “This research makes a crucial step in advancing AI and neuroscience. It allows us to delve deeper into the brain’s operating principles and develop more advanced AI systems based on these insights.”

CHA Meeyoung, who is a data scientist in the team and at KAIST [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology], notes, “The human brain is remarkable in how it operates with minimal energy, unlike the large AI models that need immense resources. Our work opens up new possibilities for low-cost, high-performance AI systems that learn and remember information like humans.”

What sets this study apart is its initiative to incorporate brain-inspired nonlinearity into an AI construct, signifying a significant advancement in simulating human-like memory consolidation. The convergence of human cognitive mechanisms and AI design not only holds promise for creating low-cost, high-performance AI systems but also provides valuable insights into the workings of the brain through AI models.

Fig. 1: (a) Diagram illustrating the ion channel activity in post-synaptic neurons. AMPA receptors are involved in the activation of post-synaptic neurons, while NMDA receptors are blocked by magnesium ions (Mg²⁺) but induce synaptic plasticity through the influx of calcium ions (Ca²⁺) when the post-synaptic neuron is sufficiently activated. (b) Flow diagram representing the computational process within the Transformer AI model. Information is processed sequentially through stages such as feed-forward layers, layer normalization, and self-attention layers. The graph depicting the current-voltage relationship of the NMDA receptors is very similar to the nonlinearity of the feed-forward layer. The input-output graph, based on the concentration of magnesium (α), shows the changes in the nonlinearity of the NMDA receptors. Courtesy: IBS

This research was presented at the 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023) before being published in the proceedings, I found a PDF of the presentation and an early online copy of the paper before locating the paper in the published proceedings.

PDF of presentation: Transformer as a hippocampal memory consolidation model based on NMDAR-inspired nonlinearity

PDF copy of paper:

Transformer as a hippocampal memory consolidation model based on NMDAR-inspired nonlinearity by Dong-Kyum Kim, Jea Kwon, Meeyoung Cha, C. Justin Lee.

This paper was made available on OpenReview.net:

OpenReview is a platform for open peer review, open publishing, open access, open discussion, open recommendations, open directory, open API and open source.

It’s not clear to me if this paper is finalized or not and I don’t know if its presence on OpenReview constitutes publication.

Finally, the paper published in the proceedings,

Transformer as a hippocampal memory consolidation model based on NMDAR-inspired nonlinearity by Dong Kyum Kim, Jea Kwon, Meeyoung Cha, C. Justin Lee. Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 36 (NeurIPS 2023) Main Conference Track

This link will take you to the abstract, access the paper by clicking on the Paper tab.

A graphene-inorganic-hybrid micro-supercapacitor made of fallen leaves

I wonder if this means the end to leaf blowers. That is almost certainly wishful thinking as the researchers don’t seem to be concerned with how the leaves are gathered.

The schematic illustration of the production of femtosecond laser-induced graphene. Courtesy of KAIST

A January 27, 2022 news item on Nanowerk announces the work (Note: A link has been removed),

A KAIST [Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology] research team has developed graphene-inorganic-hybrid micro-supercapacitors made of fallen leaves using femtosecond laser direct laser writing (Advanced Functional Materials, “Green Flexible Graphene-Inorganic-Hybrid Micro-Supercapacitors Made of Fallen Leaves Enabled by Ultrafast Laser Pulses”).

A January 27, 2022 KAIST press release (also on EurekAlert but published January 26, 2022), which originated the news item, delves further into the research,

The rapid development of wearable electronics requires breakthrough innovations in flexible energy storage devices in which micro-supercapacitors have drawn a great deal of interest due to their high power density, long lifetimes, and short charging times. Recently, there has been an enormous increase in waste batteries owing to the growing demand and the shortened replacement cycle in consumer electronics. The safety and environmental issues involved in the collection, recycling, and processing of such waste batteries are creating a number of challenges.

Forests cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s surface and produce a huge amount of fallen leaves. This naturally occurring biomass comes in large quantities and is completely biodegradable, which makes it an attractive sustainable resource. Nevertheless, if the fallen leaves are left neglected instead of being used efficiently, they can contribute to fire hazards, air pollution, and global warming.

To solve both problems at once, a research team led by Professor Young-Jin Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Hana Yoon from the Korea Institute of Energy Research developed a novel technology that can create 3D porous graphene microelectrodes with high electrical conductivity by irradiating femtosecond laser pulses on the leaves in ambient air. This one-step fabrication does not require any additional materials or pre-treatment. 

They showed that this technique could quickly and easily produce porous graphene electrodes at a low price, and demonstrated potential applications by fabricating graphene micro-supercapacitors to power an LED and an electronic watch. These results open up a new possibility for the mass production of flexible and green graphene-based electronic devices.

Professor Young-Jin Kim said, “Leaves create forest biomass that comes in unmanageable quantities, so using them for next-generation energy storage devices makes it possible for us to reuse waste resources, thereby establishing a virtuous cycle.” 

This research was published in Advanced Functional Materials last month and was sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, the Korea Forest Service, and the Korea Institute of Energy Research.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Green Flexible Graphene–Inorganic-Hybrid Micro-Supercapacitors Made of Fallen Leaves Enabled by Ultrafast Laser Pulses by Truong-Son Dinh Le, Yeong A. Lee, Han Ku Nam, Kyu Yeon Jang, Dongwook Yang, Byunggi Kim, Kanghoon Yim, Seung-Woo Kim, Hana Yoon, Young-Jin Kim. Advanced Functional Materials DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202107768 First published: 05 December 2021

This paper is behind a paywall.

Self-assembling salt-crystal nanoscale ‘origami’ balls

This November 4, 2021 news item on Nanowerk features research from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST),

Researchers have developed a technique whereby they can spontaneously encapsulate microscopic droplets of water and oil emulsion in a tiny sphere made of salt crystals—sort of like a minute, self-constructing origami soccer ball filled with liquid. The process, which they are calling ‘crystal capillary origami,’could be used in a range of fields from more precise drug delivery to nanoscale medical devices.

A November 4, 2021 KAIST press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, goes on to provide technical detail,

Capillary action, or ‘capillarity,’ will be familiar to most people as the way that water or other liquids can move up narrow tubes or other porous materials seemingly in defiance of gravity (for example within the vascular systems of plants, or even more simply, the drawing up of paint between the hairs of a paintbrush). This effect is due to the forces of cohesion (the tendency of a liquid’s molecules to stick together), which results in surface tension, and adhesion (their tendency to stick to the surface of other substances). The strength of the capillarity depends on the chemistry of the liquid, the chemistry of the porous material, and on the other forces acting on them both. For example, a liquid with lower surface tension than water would not be able to hold up a water strider insect. 

Less well known is a related phenomenon, elasto-capillarity, that takes advantage of the relationship between capillarity and the elasticity of a very tiny flat sheet of a solid material. In certain circumstances, the capillary forces can overcome the elastic bending resistance of the sheet. 

This relationship can be exploited to create ‘capillary origami,’ or three-dimensional structures. When a liquid droplet is placed on the flat sheet, the latter can spontaneously encapsulate the former due to surface tension. Capillary origami can take on other forms including wrinkling, buckling, or self-folding into other shapes. The specific geometrical shape that the 3D capillary origami structure ends up taking is determined by both the chemistry of the flat sheet and that of the liquid, and by carefully designing the shape and size of the sheet.

There is one big problem with these small devices, however. “These conventional self-assembled origami structures cannot be completely spherical and will always have discontinuous boundaries, or what you might call ‘edges,’ as a result of the original two-dimensional shape of the sheet,” said Kwangseok Park, a lead researcher on the project. He added, “These edges could turn out to be future defects with the potential for failure in the face of increased stress.” Non-spherical particles are also known to be more disadvantageous than spherical particles in terms of cellular uptake. 

Professor Hyoungsoo Kim from the Department of Mechanical Engineering explained, “This is why researchers have long been on the hunt for substances that could produce a fully spherical capillary origami structure.” 

The authors of the study have demonstrated such an origami sphere for the first time. They showed how instead of a flat sheet, the growth of salt-crystals can perform capillary origami action in a similar manner. What they call ‘crystal capillary origami’ spontaneously constructs a smooth spherical shell capsule from these same surface tension effects, but now the spontaneous encapsulation of a liquid is determined by the elasto-capillary conditions of growing crystals.

Here, the term ‘salt’ refers to a compound of one positively charged ion and another negatively charged. Table salt, or sodium chloride, is just one example of a salt. The researchers used four other salts: calcium propionate, sodium salicylate, calcium nitrate tetrahydrate, and sodium bicarbonate to envelop a water-oil emulsion. Normally, a salt such as sodium chloride has a cubical crystal structure, but these four salts form plate-like structures as crystallites or ‘grains’ (the microscopic shape that forms when a crystal first starts to grow) instead. These plates then self-assemble into perfect spheres.

Using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis, they investigated the mechanism of such formation and concluded that it was ‘Laplace pressure’ that drives the crystallite plates to cover the emulsion surface. Laplace pressure describes the pressure difference between the interior and exterior of a curved surface caused by the surface tension at the interface between the two substances, in this case between the salt water and the oil.

The researchers hope that these self-assembling nanostructures can be used for encapsulation applications in a range of sectors, from the food industry and cosmetics to drug delivery and even tiny medical devices.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Crystal capillary origami capsule with self-assembled nanostructures by
Kwangseok Park and Hyoungsoo Kim. Nanoscale, 2021, 13, 14656-14665 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1NR02456F First published 19 Jul 2021

This paper is behind a paywall.

Highly scalable neuromorphic (brainlike) computing hardware

This work comes from Korea (or South Korea, if you prefer). An August 5, 2021 news item on ScienceDaily announces a step forward in the future production of neuromorphic hardware,

KAIST [The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology] researchers fabricated a brain-inspired highly scalable neuromorphic hardware by co-integrating single transistor neurons and synapses. Using standard silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the neuromorphic hardware is expected to reduce chip cost and simplify fabrication procedures.

Caption: Single transistor neurons and synapses fabricated using a standard silicon CMOS process. They are co-integrated on the same 8-inch wafer. Credit: KAIST

An August 5, 2021 The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more detail about the research,

The research team led by Yang-Kyu Choi and Sung-Yool Choi produced a [sic] neurons and synapses based on single transistor for highly scalable neuromorphic hardware and showed the ability to recognize text and face images. This research was featured in Science Advances on August 4 [2021].

Neuromorphic hardware has attracted a great deal of attention because of its artificial intelligence functions, but consuming ultra-low power of less than 20 watts by mimicking the human brain. To make neuromorphic hardware work, a neuron that generates a spike when integrating a certain signal, and a synapse remembering the connection between two neurons are necessary, just like the biological brain. However, since neurons and synapses constructed on digital or analog circuits occupy a large space, there is a limit in terms of hardware efficiency and costs. Since the human brain consists of about 1011 neurons and 1014 synapses, it is necessary to improve the hardware cost in order to apply it to mobile and IoT devices.

To solve the problem, the research team mimicked the behavior of biological neurons and synapses with a single transistor, and co-integrated them onto an 8-inch wafer. The manufactured neuromorphic transistors have the same structure as the transistors for memory and logic that are currently mass-produced. In addition, the neuromorphic transistors proved for the first time that they can be implemented with a ‘Janus structure’ that functions as both neuron and synapse, just like coins have heads and tails.

Professor Yang-Kyu Choi said that this work can dramatically reduce the hardware cost by replacing the neurons and synapses that were based on complex digital and analog circuits with a single transistor. “We have demonstrated that neurons and synapses can be implemented using a single transistor,” said Joon-Kyu Han, the first author. “By co-integrating single transistor neurons and synapses on the same wafer using a standard CMOS process, the hardware cost of the neuromorphic hardware has been improved, which will accelerate the commercialization of neuromorphic hardware,” Han added.This research was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and IC Design Education Center (IDEC). 

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Cointegration of single-transistor neurons and synapses by nanoscale CMOS fabrication for highly scalable neuromorphic hardware by Joon-Kyu Han, Jungyeop Oh, Gyeong-Jun Yun, Dongeun Yoo, Myung-Su Kim, Ji-Man Yu, Sung-Yool Choi, and Yang-Kyu Choi. Science Advances 04 Aug 2021: Vol. 7, no. 32, eabg8836 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg8836

This article appears to be open access.

Smart film lets windows switch autonomously

This work from Korean research scientists gives me some hope that smart windows will one day be the norm. From a June 2, 2020 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) press release (also on EurekAlert),

Researchers have developed a new easy-to-use smart optical film technology that allows smart window devices to autonomously switch between transparent and opaque states in response to the surrounding light conditions.

The proposed 3D hybrid nanocomposite film with a highly periodic network structure has empirically demonstrated its high speed and performance, enabling the smart window to quantify and self-regulate its high-contrast optical transmittance. As a proof of concept, a mobile-app-enabled smart window device for Internet of Things (IoT) applications has been realized using the proposed smart optical film with successful expansion to the 3-by-3-inch scale. This energy-efficient and cost-effective technology holds great promise for future use in various applications that require active optical transmission modulation.

Flexible optical transmission modulation technologies for smart applications including privacy-protection windows, zero-energy buildings, and beam projection screens have been in the spotlight in recent years. Conventional technologies that used external stimuli such as electricity, heat, or light to modulate optical transmission had only limited applications due to their slow response speeds, unnecessary color switching, and low durability, stability, and safety.

The optical transmission modulation contrast achieved by controlling the light scattering interfaces on non-periodic 2D surface structures that often have low optical density such as cracks, wrinkles, and pillars is also generally low. In addition, since the light scattering interfaces are exposed and not subject to any passivation, they can be vulnerable to external damage and may lose optical transmission modulation functions. Furthermore, in-plane scattering interfaces that randomly exist on the surface make large-area modulation with uniformity difficult.

Inspired by these limitations, a KAIST research team led by Professor Seokwoo Jeon from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Jung-Wuk Hong of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department used proximity-field nanopatterning (PnP) technology that effectively produces highly periodic 3D hybrid nanostructures, and an atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique that allows the precise control of oxide deposition and the high-quality fabrication of semiconductor devices.

The team then successfully produced a large-scale smart optical film with a size of 3 by 3 inches in which ultrathin alumina nanoshells are inserted between the elastomers in a periodic 3D nanonetwork.

This “mechano-responsive” 3D hybrid nanocomposite film with a highly periodic network structure is the largest smart optical transmission modulation film that exists. The film has been shown to have state-of-the-art optical transmission modulation of up to 74% at visible wavelengths from 90% initial transmission to 16% in the scattering state under strain. Its durability and stability were proved by more than 10,000 tests of harsh mechanical deformation including stretching, releasing, bending, and being placed under high temperatures of up to 70°C. When this film was used, the transmittance of the smart window device was adjusted promptly and automatically within one second in response to the surrounding light conditions. Through these experiments, the underlying physics of optical scattering phenomena occurring in the heterogeneous interfaces were identified. Their findings were reported in the online edition of Advanced Science on April 26 [2020]. KAIST Professor Jong-Hwa Shin’s group and Professor Young-Seok Shim at Silla University also collaborated on this project.

Donghwi Cho, a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering at KAIST and co-lead author of the study, said, “Our smart optical film technology can better control high-contrast optical transmittance by relatively simple operating principles and with low energy consumption and costs.”

“When this technology is applied by simply attaching the film to a conventional smart window glass surface without replacing the existing window system, fast switching and uniform tinting are possible while also securing durability, stability, and safety. In addition, its wide range of applications for stretchable or rollable devices such as wall-type displays for a beam projection screen will also fulfill aesthetic needs,” he added.

Here’s an image illustrating how the composite scatters light (I think),

Caption: Design concept of and fabrication procedures for the 3D scatterer. Credit: KAIST

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

High‐Contrast Optical Modulation from Strain‐Induced Nanogaps at 3D Heterogeneous Interfaces by Donghwi Cho, Prof. Young‐Seok Shim, Dr. Jae‐Wook Jung, Sang‐Hyeon Nam, Seokhwan Min, Dr. Sang‐Eon Lee, Youngjin Ham, Prof. Kwangjae Lee, Prof. Junyong Park, Prof. Jonghwa Shin, Prof. Jung‐Wuk Hong, and Prof. Seokwoo Jeon. Advanced Science DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201903708 First published: 26 April 2020

This paper is open access.

Korean researchers extend food shelf *life* with nanomicrobial coating

These Korean scientists have applied their new coating to food and to shoe insoles as they test various uses for their technology. From an Aug. 11, 2017 news item on Nanowerk,

The edible coating on produce has drawn a great deal of attention in the food and agricultural industry. It could not only prolong postharvest shelf life of produce against external changes in the environment but also provide additional nutrients to be useful for human health. However, most versions of the coating have had intrinsic limitations in their practical application.

First, highly specific interactions between coating materials and target surfaces are required for a stable and durable coating. Even further, the coating of bulk substrates, such as fruits, is time consuming or is not achievable in the conventional solution-based coating. In this respect, material-independent and rapid coating strategies are highly demanded.

The research team led by Professor Insung Choi of the Department of Chemistry developed a sprayable nanocoating technique using plant-derived polyphenol that can be applied to any surface.

An Aug. 10, 2017 KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) press release, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Polyphenols, a metabolite of photosynthesis, possess several hydroxyl groups and are found in a large number of plants showing excellent antioxidant properties. They have been widely used as a nontoxic food additive and are known to exhibit antibacterial, as well as potential anti-carcinogenic capabilities. Polyphenols can also be used with iron ions, which are naturally found in the body, to form an adhesive complex, which has been used in leather tanning, ink, etc.

The research team combined these chemical properties of polyphenol-iron complexes with spray techniques to develop their nanocoating technology. Compared to conventional immersion coating methods, which dip substrates in specialized coating solutions, this spray technique can coat the select areas more quickly. The spray also prevents cross contamination, which is a big concern for immersion methods. The research team has showcased the spray’s ability to coat a variety of different materials, including metals, plastics, glass, as well as textile fabrics. The polyphenol complex has been used to form antifogging films on corrective lenses, as well as antifungal treatments for shoe soles, demonstrating the versatility of their technique.

Furthermore, the spray has been used to coat produce with a naturally antibacterial, edible film. The coatings significantly improved the shelf life of tangerines and strawberries, preserving freshness beyond 28 days and 58 hours, respectively. (Uncoated fruit decomposed and became moldy under the same conditions). See the image below.

 

a –I, II: Uncoated and coated tangerines incubated for 14 and 28 days in daily-life settings

b –I: Uncoated and coated strawberries incubated for 58 hours in daily-life settings

b –II: Statistical investigation of the resulting edibility.

Professor Choi said, “Nanocoating technologies are still in their infancy, but they have untapped potential for exciting applications. As we have shown, nanocoatings can be easily adapted for several different uses, and the creative combination of existing nanomaterials and coating methods can synergize to unlock this potential.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Antimicrobial spray nanocoating of supramolecular Fe(III)-tannic acid metal-organic coordination complex: applications to shoe insoles and fruits by Ji Park, Sohee Choi, Hee Moon, Hyelin Seo, Ji Kim, Seok-Pyo Hong, Bong Lee, Eunhye Kang, Jinho Lee, Dong Ryu, & Insung S. Choi. Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 6980 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41598-017-07257-x Published online: 01 August 2017

This paper is open access.

*’life’ added to correct headline on Sept. 4, 2017.

Graphene speakers for mobile devices?

Credit: American Chemical Society

Credit: American Chemical Society

This speaker doesn’t look its ready for the marketplace yet but it does possess a rather nifty component, graphene aerogel. A Sept. 7, 2016 news item on phys.org briefly describes the scientists’ accomplishment,

Graphene has been hailed as a wonder material since it was first made more than a decade ago. It’s showing up in an increasing number of products, including coatings, sports equipment and even light bulbs. Now scientists are one step closer to making graphene audio speakers for mobile devices. They report in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces a simple way to fabricate once-elusive thermoacoustic speakers using the ultra-thin material.

A Sept. 7, 2016 American Chemical Society (ACS) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, offers an explanation of how these new speakers differ from conventional speakers and a brief description of graphene aerogel (I once saw aerogel described as ‘solid smoke’),

Conventional speakers today rely on many mechanical parts that vibrate to create sound and must be encased in an acoustic cavity — essentially, in a box. But this approach complicates manufacturing and limits where listeners can put their speakers. Scientists have been pursuing ways around this by turning to a principle conceived of more than a century ago: thermoacoustics, the production of sound by rapidly heating and cooling a material rather than through vibrations. Science has caught up to this concept largely thanks to the development of graphene, which is highly conductive and durable. Some efforts to make graphene speakers have succeeded, but making them en masse would be challenging. Jung-Woo Choi, Byungjin Cho, Sang Ouk Kim and colleagues at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) wanted to come up with a simpler approach.

The researchers developed a two-step (freeze-drying and reduction/doping) method for making a sound-emitting graphene aerogel. An array of 16 of these aerogels comprised a speaker that could operate on 40 Watts of power with a sound quality comparable to that of other graphene-based sound systems. The researchers say their fabrication method is practical and could lend itself to mass production for use in mobile devices and other applications. Because the speaker is thin and doesn’t vibrate, it could fit snugly against walls and even curved surfaces.

Here’s a link to and citation for the paper,

Application of N-Doped Three-Dimensional Reduced Graphene Oxide Aerogel to Thin Film Loudspeaker by Choong Sun Kim, Kyung Eun Lee, Jung-Min Lee, Sang Ouk Kim, Byung Jin Cho, and Jung-Woo Choi. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 8 (34), pp 22295–22300 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b03618 Publication Date (Web): August 17, 2016

Copyright © 2016 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) at summer 2016 World Economic Forum in China

From the Ideas Lab at the 2016 World Economic Forum at Davos to offering expertise at the 2016 World Economic Forum in Tanjin, China that is taking place from June 26 – 28, 2016.

Here’s more from a June 24, 2016 KAIST news release on EurekAlert,

Scientific and technological breakthroughs are more important than ever as a key agent to drive social, economic, and political changes and advancements in today’s world. The World Economic Forum (WEF), an international organization that provides one of the broadest engagement platforms to address issues of major concern to the global community, will discuss the effects of these breakthroughs at its 10th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, a.k.a., the Summer Davos Forum, in Tianjin, China, June 26-28, 2016.

Three professors from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) will join the Annual Meeting and offer their expertise in the fields of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics to explore the conference theme, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Its Transformational Impact.” The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a term coined by WEF founder, Klaus Schwab, is characterized by a range of new technologies that fuse the physical, digital, and biological worlds, such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and automation.

Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department will speak at the Experts Reception to be held on June 25, 2016 on the topic of “The Summer Davos Forum and Science and Technology in Asia.” On June 27, 2016, he will participate in two separate discussion sessions.

In the first session entitled “What If Drugs Are Printed from the Internet?” Professor Lee will discuss the future of medicine being impacted by advancements in biotechnology and 3D printing technology with Nita A. Farahany, a Duke University professor, under the moderation of Clare Matterson, the Director of Strategy at Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom. The discussants will note recent developments made in the way patients receive their medicine, for example, downloading drugs directly from the internet and the production of yeast strains to make opioids for pain treatment through systems metabolic engineering, and predicting how these emerging technologies will transform the landscape of the pharmaceutical industry in the years to come.

In the second session, “Lessons for Life,” Professor Lee will talk about how to nurture life-long learning and creativity to support personal and professional growth necessary in an era of the new industrial revolution.

During the Annual Meeting, Professors Jong-Hwan Kim of the Electrical Engineering School and David Hyunchul Shim of the Aerospace Department will host, together with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and AnthroTronix, an engineering research and development company, a technological exhibition on robotics. Professor Kim, the founder of the internally renowned Robot World Cup, will showcase his humanoid micro-robots that play soccer, displaying their various cutting-edge technologies such as imaging processing, artificial intelligence, walking, and balancing. Professor Shim will present a human-like robotic piloting system, PIBOT, which autonomously operates a simulated flight program, grabbing control sticks and guiding an airplane from take offs to landings.

In addition, the two professors will join Professor Lee, who is also a moderator, to host a KAIST-led session on June 26, 2016, entitled “Science in Depth: From Deep Learning to Autonomous Machines.” Professors Kim and Shim will explore new opportunities and challenges in their fields from machine learning to autonomous robotics including unmanned vehicles and drones.

Since 2011, KAIST has been participating in the World Economic Forum’s two flagship conferences, the January and June Davos Forums, to introduce outstanding talents, share their latest research achievements, and interact with global leaders.

KAIST President Steve Kang said, “It is important for KAIST to be involved in global talks that identify issues critical to humanity and seek answers to solve them, where our skills and knowledge in science and technology could play a meaningful role. The Annual Meeting in China will become another venue to accomplish this.”

I mentioned KAIST and the Ideas Lab at the 2016 Davos meeting in this Nov. 20, 2015 posting and was able to clear up my (and possible other people’s) confusion as to what the Fourth Industrial revolution might be in my Dec. 3, 2015 posting.

KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) will lead an Ideas Lab at 2016 World Economic Forum

The theme for the 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) is ‘Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution’. I’m losing track of how many industrial revolutions we’ve had and this seems like a vague theme. However, there is enlightenment to be had in this Nov. 17, 2015 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) news release on EurekAlert,

KAIST researchers will lead an IdeasLab on biotechnology for an aging society while HUBO, the winner of the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge, will interact with the forum participants, offering an experience of state-of-the-art robotics technology

Moving on from the news release’s subtitle, there’s more enlightenment,

Representatives from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) will attend the 2016 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum to run an IdeasLab and showcase its humanoid robot.

With over 2,500 leaders from business, government, international organizations, civil society, academia, media, and the arts expected to participate, the 2016 Annual Meeting will take place on Jan. 20-23, 2016 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Under the theme of ‘Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ [emphasis mine] global leaders will discuss the period of digital transformation [emphasis mine] that will have profound effects on economies, societies, and human behavior.

President Sung-Mo Steve Kang of KAIST will join the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF), a high-level academic meeting to foster collaboration among experts on issues of global concern for the future of higher education and the role of science in society. He will discuss how the emerging revolution in technology will affect the way universities operate and serve society. KAIST is the only Korean university participating in GULF, which is composed of prestigious universities invited from around the world.

Four KAIST professors, including Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, will lead an IdeasLab on ‘Biotechnology for an Aging Society.’

Professor Lee said, “In recent decades, much attention has been paid to the potential effect of the growth of an aging population and problems posed by it. At our IdeasLab, we will introduce some of our research breakthroughs in biotechnology to address the challenges of an aging society.”

In particular, he will present his latest research in systems biotechnology and metabolic engineering. His research has explained the mechanisms of how traditional Oriental medicine works in our bodies by identifying structural similarities between effective compounds in traditional medicine and human metabolites, and has proposed more effective treatments by employing such compounds.

KAIST will also display its networked mobile medical service system, ‘Dr. M.’ Built upon a ubiquitous and mobile Internet, such as the Internet of Things, wearable electronics, and smart homes and vehicles, Dr. M will provide patients with a more affordable and accessible healthcare service.

In addition, Professor Jun-Ho Oh of the Mechanical Engineering Department will showcase his humanoid robot, ‘HUBO,’ during the Annual Meeting. His research team won the International Humanoid Robotics Challenge hosted by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which was held in Pomona, California, on June 5-6, 2015. With 24 international teams participating in the finals, HUBO completed all eight tasks in 44 minutes and 28 seconds, 6 minutes earlier than the runner-up, and almost 11 minutes earlier than the third-place team. Team KAIST walked away with the grand prize of USD 2 million.

Professor Oh said, “Robotics technology will grow exponentially in this century, becoming a real driving force to expedite the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I hope HUBO will offer an opportunity to learn about the current advances in robotics technology.”

President Kang pointed out, “KAIST has participated in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum since 2011 and has engaged with a broad spectrum of global leaders through numerous presentations and demonstrations of our excellence in education and research. Next year, we will choreograph our first robotics exhibition on HUBO and present high-tech research results in biotechnology, which, I believe, epitomizes how science and technology breakthroughs in the Fourth Industrial Revolution will shape our future in an unprecedented way.”

Based on what I’m reading in the KAIST news release, I think the conversation about the ‘Fourth revolution’ may veer toward robotics and artificial intelligence (referred to in code as “digital transformation”) as developments in these fields are likely to affect various economies.  Before proceeding with that thought, take a look at this video showcasing HUBO at the DARPA challenge,


I’m quite impressed with how the robot can recalibrate its grasp so it can pick things up and plug an electrical cord into an outlet and knowing whether wheels or legs will be needed to complete a task all due to algorithms which give the robot a type of artificial intelligence. While it may seem more like a machine than anything else, there’s also this version of a HUBO,

Description English: Photo by David Hanson Date 26 October 2006 (original upload date) Source Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Mac. Author Dayofid at English Wikipedia

Description
English: Photo by David Hanson
Date 26 October 2006 (original upload date)
Source Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Mac.
Author Dayofid at English Wikipedia

It’ll be interesting to note if the researchers make the HUBO seem more humanoid by giving it a face for its interactions with WEF attendees. It would be more engaging but also more threatening since there is increasing concern over robots taking work away from humans with implications for various economies. There’s more about HUBO in its Wikipedia entry.

As for the IdeasLab, that’s been in place at the WEF since 2009 according to this WEF July 19, 2011 news release announcing an ideasLab hub (Note: A link has been removed),

The World Economic Forum is publicly launching its biannual interactive IdeasLab hub on 19 July [2011] at 10.00 CEST. The unique IdeasLab hub features short documentary-style, high-definition (HD) videos of preeminent 21st century ideas and critical insights. The hub also provides dynamic Pecha Kucha presentations and visual IdeaScribes that trace and package complex strategic thinking into engaging and powerful images. All videos are HD broadcast quality.

To share the knowledge captured by the IdeasLab sessions, which have been running since 2009, the Forum is publishing 23 of the latest sessions, seen as the global benchmark of collaborative learning and development.

So while you might not be able to visit an IdeasLab presentation at the WEF meetings, you could get a it to see them later.

Getting back to the robotics and artificial intelligence aspect of the 2016 WEF’s ‘digital’ theme, I noticed some reluctance to discuss how the field of robotics is affecting work and jobs in a broadcast of Canadian television show, ‘Conversations with Conrad’.

For those unfamiliar with the interviewer, Conrad Black is somewhat infamous in Canada for a number of reasons (from the Conrad Black Wikipedia entry), Note: Links have been removed,

Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, KSG (born 25 August 1944) is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher and author. He is a non-affiliated life peer, and a convicted felon in the United States for fraud.[n 1] Black controlled Hollinger International, once the world’s third-largest English-language newspaper empire,[3] which published The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun Times (U.S.), The Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), and hundreds of community newspapers in North America, before he was fired by the board of Hollinger in 2004.[4]

In 2004, a shareholder-initiated prosecution of Black began in the United States. Over $80 million in assets claimed to have been improperly taken or inappropriately spent by Black.[5] He was convicted of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a U.S. court in 2007 and sentenced to six and a half years’ imprisonment. In 2011 two of the charges were overturned on appeal and he was re-sentenced to 42 months in prison on one count of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice.[6] Black was released on 4 May 2012.[7]

Despite or perhaps because of his chequered past, he is often a good interviewer and he definitely attracts interesting guests. n an Oct. 26, 2015 programme, he interviewed both former Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield, and Canadian-American David Frum who’s currently editor of Atlantic Monthly and a former speechwriter for George W. Bush.

It was Black’s conversation with Frum which surprised me. They discuss robotics without ever once using the word. In a section where Frum notes that manufacturing is returning to the US, he also notes that it doesn’t mean more jobs and cites a newly commissioned plant in the eastern US employing about 40 people where before it would have employed hundreds or thousands. Unfortunately, the video has not been made available as I write this (Nov. 20, 2015) but that situation may change. You can check here.

Final thought, my guess is that economic conditions are fragile and I don’t think anyone wants to set off panic by mentioning robotics and disappearing jobs.