Korean
Professor Sang Kil Cha Receives IEEE Test-of-Time ..
< Professor Sang kil Cha > Professor Sang Kil Cha from the Graduate School of Information Security (GSIS) in the School of Computing received the Test-of-Time Award from IEEE Security & Privacy, a top conference in the field of information security. The Test-of-Time Award recognizes the research papers that have influenced the field of information security the most over the past decade. Three papers were selected this year, and Professor Cha is the first Korean winner of the award. The paper by Professor Cha was published in 2012 under the title, “Unleashing Mayhem on Binary Code”. It was the first to ever suggest an algorithm that automatically finds bugs in binary code and creates exploits that links them to an attack code. The developed algorithm is a core technique used for world-class cyber security hacking competitions like the Cyber Grand Challenge, an AI hacking contest. Starting with this research, Professor Cha has carried out various studies to develop technologies that can find bugs and vulnerabilities through binary analyses, and is currently developing B2R2, a Korean platform that can analyze various binary codes.
Professor Juho Kim’s Team Wins Best Paper Award at..
The research team led by Professor Juho Kim from the KAIST School of Computing won a Best Paper Award and an Honorable Mention Award at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI) held between April 30 and May 6. ACM CHI is the world’s most recognized conference in the field of human computer interactions (HCI), and is ranked number one out of all HCI-related journals and conferences based on Google Scholar’s h-5 index. Best paper awards are given to works that rank in the top one percent, and honorable mention awards are given to the top five percent of the papers accepted by the conference. Professor Juho Kim presented a total of seven papers at ACM CHI 2022, and tied for the largest number of papers. A total of 19 papers were affiliated with KAIST, putting it fifth out of all participating institutes and thereby proving KAIST’s competence in research. < From left: MS graduate Jeongyeon Kim from the School of Computing, MS candidate Yubin Choi from the School of Electrical Engineering, and Dr. Meng Xia, and Professor Kim > One of Professor Kim’s research teams composed of Jeongyeon Kim (first author, MS graduate) from the School of Computing, MS candidate Yubin Choi from the School of Electrical Engineering, and Dr. Meng Xia (post-doctoral associate in the School of Computing, currently a post-doctoral associate at Carnegie Mellon University) received a best paper award for their paper, “Mobile-Friendly Content Design for MOOCs: Challenges, Requirements, and Design Opportunities”. The study analyzed the difficulties experienced by learners watching video-based educational content in a mobile environment and suggests guidelines for solutions. The research team analyzed 134 survey responses and 21 interviews, and revealed that texts that are too small or overcrowded are what mainly brings down the legibility of video contents. Additionally, lighting, noise, and surrounding environments that change frequently are also important factors that may disturb a learning experience. Based on these findings, the team analyzed the aptness of 41,722 frames from 101 video lectures for mobile environments, and confirmed that they generally show low levels of adequacy. For instance, in the case of text sizes, only 24.5% of the frames were shown to be adequate for learning in mobile environments. To overcome this issue, the research team suggested a guideline that may improve the legibility of video contents and help overcome the difficulties arising from mobile learning environments. The importance of and dependency on video-based learning continue to rise, especially in the wake of the pandemic, and it is meaningful that this research suggested a means to analyze and tackle the difficulties of users that learn from the small screens of mobile devices. Furthermore, the paper also suggested technology that can solve problems related to video-based learning through human-AI collaborations, enhancing existing video lectures and improving learning experiences. This technology can be applied to various video-based platforms and content creation. < From left: Ph.D. candidate Tae Soo Kim, MS candidate DaEun Choi, and Ph.D. candidate Yoonseo Choi, and Professor Kim > Meanwhile, a research team composed of Ph.D. candidate Tae Soo Kim (first author), MS candidate DaEun Choi, and Ph.D. candidate Yoonseo Choi from the School of Computing received an honorable mention award for their paper, “Stylette: styling the Web with Natural Language”. The research team developed a novel interface technology that allows nonexperts who are unfamiliar with technical jargon to edit website features through speech. People often find it difficult to use or find the information they need from various websites due to accessibility issues, device-related constraints, inconvenient design, style preferences, etc. However, it is not easy for laymen to edit website features without expertise in programming or design, and most end up just putting up with the inconveniences. But what if the system could read the intentions of its users from their everyday language like “emphasize this part a little more”, or “I want a more modern design”, and edit the features automatically? Based on this question, Professor Kim’s research team developed ‘Stylette’, a system in which AI analyses its users’ speech expressed in their natural language and automatically recommends a new style that best fits their intentions. The research team created a new system by putting together language AI, visual AI, and user interface technologies. On the linguistic side, a large-scale language model AI converts the intentions of the users expressed through their everyday language into adequate style elements. On the visual side, computer vision AI compares 1.7 million existing web design features and recommends a style adequate for the current website. In an experiment where 40 nonexperts were asked to edit a website design, the subjects that used this system showed double the success rate in a time span that was 35% shorter compared to the control group. It is meaningful that this research proposed a practical case in which AI technology constructs intuitive interactions with users. The developed technology can be applied to existing design applications and web browsers in a plug-in format, and can be utilized to improve websites or for advertisements by collecting the natural intention data of users on a large scale.
Professor Sang Su Lee’s Team Wins Seven iF Design ..
Professor Sang Su Lee from the Department of Industrial Design and his team’s five apps made in collaboration with NH Investment and Securities won iF Design Awards in the fields of UI, UX, service design, product design, and communication. These apps are now offered as NH Investment and Securities mobile applications. The iF Design Awards recognize top quality creativity in product design, communication, packaging, service design and concepts, and architecture and interior design, as well as user experience (UX) and interface for digital media (UI). In the field of UI, ‘Gretell’ is a mobile stock investment app service designed by Lee and his team to support investors struggling to learn about investing by archiving personalized information. Gretell provides investment information including news and reports. Users learn, evaluate, and leave comments. This shows both quantitative and qualitative indications, leading to rational decision-making. Other user’s comments are shared to reduce confirmation bias. Through this process, Gretell helps users who are impulsive or easily swayed by others’ opinions to grow as independent investors. ‘Bright’ is another app created by Lee’s team. It helps people exercise their rights as shareholders. As the need to exercise shareholders’ rights increases, many people are frustrated that investors with a small number of shares don’t have a lot of power. Bright provides a space for shareholders to share their opinions and brings people together so that individuals can be more proactive as shareholders. The Integrated Power of Attorney System (IPAS) expands the chances for shareholders to exercise their rights and allows users to submit proposals that can be communicated during the general meeting. Bright fosters influential shareholders, responsible companies, and a healthy society. For communications, ‘Rewind’ is a stock information services app that visualizes past stock charts through sentiment analysis. Existing services focus on numbers, while Rewind takes a qualitative approach. Rewind analyzes public sentiment toward each event by collecting opinions on social media and then visualizes them chronologically along with the stock chart. Rewind allows users to review stock market movements and record their thoughts. Users can gain their own insights into current events in the stock market and make wiser investment decisions. The intuitive color gradient design provides a pleasant and simplified information experience. In the area of interfaces for digital media and service design, ‘Groo’ is a green bond investing service app that helps users participate in green investment though investing in green bonds that support green projects for environmental improvement. Not restricted to trading bonds, Groo joins users in the holistic experience of green investing, from taking an interest in environmental issues to confirming the impact of the investment. Next, ‘Modu’ is a story-based empathy expression training game for children with intellectual disabilities. Modu was developed to support emotion recognition and empathy behavior training in children with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) and borderline intellectual functioning (BIF). Finally, the diving VR device for neutral buoyancy training, ‘Blow-yancy’, also made winner’s list. The device mimics scuba diving training without having to go into the water, therefore beginner divers are able getting feeling of diving while remaining perfectly safe and not harming any corals. It is expected that the device will be able to help protect at-risk underwater ecosystems.
Professor June-Koo Rhee’s Team Wins the QHack Open..
< From left: Ju-young Ryu, Jeung-rak Lee, and Eyuel Elala in Professor June-Koo Rhee > The research team consisting of three master students Ju-Young Ryu, Jeung-rak Lee, and Eyel Elala in Professor June-Koo Rhee’s group from the KAIST IRTC of Quantum Computing for AI has won the first place at the QHack 2022 Open Hackathon Science Challenge. The QHack 2022 Open Hackathon is one of the world’s prestigious quantum software hackathon events held by US Xanadu, in which 250 people from 100 countries participate. Major sponsors such as IBM Quantum, AWS, CERN QTI, and Google Quantum AI proposed challenging problems, and a winning team is selected judged on team projects in each of the 13 challenges. The KAIST team supervised by Professor Rhee received the First Place prize on the Science Challenge which was organized by the CERN QTI of the European Communities. The team will be awarded an opportunity to tour CERN’s research lab in Europe for one week along with an online internship. The students on the team presented a method for “Leaning Based Error Mitigation for VQE,” in which they implemented an LBEM protocol to lower the error in quantum computing, and leveraged the protocol in the VQU algorithm which is used to calculate the ground state energy of a given molecule. Their research successfully demonstrated the ability to effectively mitigate the error in IBM Quantum hardware and the virtual error model. In conjunction, Professor June-Koo (Kevin) Rhee founded a quantum computing venture start-up, Qunova Computing(https://qunovacomputing.com), with technology tranfer from the KAIST ITRC of Quantum Computing for AI. Qunova Computing is one of the frontier of the quantum software industry in Korea.
KAA Recognizes 4 Distinguished Alumni of the Year
< Distinguished Professor Sukbok Chang, Hyunshil Ahn at the AI Economy Institute at the Korea Economic Daily, PSTech CEO Hwan-ho Sung, Samsung Electrocnis President Hark Kyu Park (from left) > The KAIST Alumni Association (KAA) recognized four distinguished alumni of the year during a ceremony on February 25 in Seoul. The four Distinguished Alumni Awardees are Distinguished Professor Sukbok Chang from the KAIST Department of Chemistry, Hyunshil Ahn, head of the AI Economy Institute and an editorial writer at The Korea Economic Daily, CEO Hwan-ho Sung of PSTech, and President Hark Kyu Park of Samsung Electronics. Distinguished Professor Sukbok Chang who received his MS from the Department of Chemistry in 1985 has been a pioneer in the novel field of ‘carbon-hydrogen bond activation reactions’. He has significantly contributed to raising Korea’s international reputation in natural sciences and received the Kyungam Academic Award in 2013, the 14th Korea Science Award in 2015, the 1st Science and Technology Prize of Korea Toray in 2018, and the Best Scientist/Engineer Award Korea in 2019. Furthermore, he was named as a Highly Cited Researcher who ranked in the top 1% of citations by field and publication year in the Web of Science citation index for seven consecutive years from 2015 to 2021, demonstrating his leadership as a global scholar. Hyunshil Ahn, a graduate of the School of Business and Technology Management with an MS in 1985 and a PhD in 1987, was appointed as the first head of the AI Economy Institute when The Korea Economic Daily was the first Korean media outlet to establish an AI economy lab. He has contributed to creating new roles for the press and media in the 4th industrial revolution, and added to the popularization of AI technology through regulation reform and consulting on industrial policies. PSTech CEO Hwan-ho Sung is a graduate of the School of Electrical Engineering where he received an MS in 1988 and a PhD in EMBA in 2008. He has run the electronics company PSTech for over 20 years and successfully localized the production of power equipment, which previously depended on foreign technology. His development of the world’s first power equipment that can be applied to new industries including semiconductors and displays was recognized through this award. Samsung Electronics President Hark Kyu Park graduated from the School of Business and Technology Management with an MS in 1986. He not only enhanced Korea’s national competitiveness by expanding the semiconductor industry, but also established contract-based semiconductor departments at Korean universities including KAIST, Sungkyunkwan University, Yonsei University, and Postech, and semiconductor track courses at KAIST, Sogang University, Seoul National University, and Postech to nurture professional talents. He also led the national semiconductor coexistence system by leading private sector-government-academia collaborations to strengthen competence in semiconductors, and continues to make unconditional investments in strong small businesses. KAA President Chilhee Chung said, “Thanks to our alumni contributing at the highest levels of our society, the name of our alma mater shines brighter. As role models for our younger alumni, I hope greater honours will follow our awardees in the future.”
A Team of Three PhD Candidates Wins the Korea Semi..
“We felt a sense of responsibility to help the nation advance its semiconductor design technology” < PhD candidates at the School of Electrical Engineering Yoon-Seo Cho, Sun-Eui Park, and Ju-Eun Bang (from left) > A CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor)-based “ultra-low noise signal chip” for 6G communications designed by three PhD candidates at the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering won the Presidential Award at the 22nd Korea Semiconductor Design Contest. The winners are PhD candidates Sun-Eui Park, Yoon-Seo Cho, and Ju-Eun Bang from the Integrated Circuits and System Lab run by Professor Jaehyouk Choi. The contest, which is hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Semiconductors Industry Association, is one of the top national semiconductor design contests for college students. Park said the team felt a sense of responsibility to help advance semiconductor design technology in Korea when deciding to participate the contest. The team expressed deep gratitude to Professor Choi for guiding their research on 6G communications. “Our colleagues from other labs and seniors who already graduated helped us a great deal, so we owe them a lot,” explained Park. Cho added that their hard work finally got recognized and that acknowledgement pushes her to move forward with her research. Meanwhile, Bang said she is delighted to see that many people seem to be interested in her research topic. Research for 6G is attempting to reach 1 tera bps (Tbps), 50 times faster than 5G communications with transmission speeds of up to 20 gigabytes. In general, the wider the communication frequency band, the higher the data transmission speed. Thus, the use of frequency bands above 100 gigahertz is essential for delivering high data transmission speeds for 6G communications. However, it remains a big challenge to make a precise benchmark signal that can be used as a carrier wave in a high frequency band. Despite the advantages of CMOS’s ultra-small and low-power design, it still has limitations at high frequency bands and its operating frequency. Thus, it was difficult to achieve a frequency band above 100 gigahertz. To overcome these challenges, the three students introduced ultra-low noise signal generation technology that can support high-order modulation technologies. This technology is expected to contribute to increasing the price competitiveness and density of 6G communication chips that will be used in the future. 5G just got started in 2020 and still has long way to go for full commercialization. Nevertheless, many researchers have started preparing for 6G technology, targeting 2030 since a new cellular communication appears in every other decade. Professor Choi said, “Generating ultra-high frequency signals in bands above 100 GHz with highly accurate timing is one of the key technologies for implementing 6G communication hardware. Our research is significant for the development of the world’s first semiconductor chip that will use the CMOS process to achieve noise performance of less than 80fs in a frequency band above 100 GHz.” The team members plan to work as circuit designers in Korean semiconductor companies after graduation. “We will continue to research the development of signal generators on the topic of award-winning 6G. We would like to continue our research on high-speed circuit designs such as ultra-fast analog-to-digital converters,” Park added.
Professor Sung-Ju Lee’s Team Wins the Best Paper a..
< Professor Sung-Ju Lee, Professor Eun Kyoung, Choe Hyunsung Cho, Daeun Choi, Donghwi Kim, Wan Ju Kang (from left) > A research team led by Professor Sung-Ju Lee at the School of Electrical Engineering won the Best Paper Award and the Methods Recognition Award from ACM CSCW (International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing) 2021 for their paper “Reflect, not Regret: Understanding Regretful Smartphone Use with App Feature-Level Analysis”. Founded in 1986, CSCW has been a premier conference on HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and Social Computing. This year, 340 full papers were presented and the best paper awards are given to the top 1% papers of the submitted. Methods Recognition, which is a new award, is given “for strong examples of work that includes well developed, explained, or implemented methods, and methodological innovation.” Hyunsung Cho (KAIST alumus and currently a PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University), Daeun Choi (KAIST undergraduate researcher), Donghwi Kim (KAIST PhD Candidate), Wan Ju Kang (KAIST PhD Candidate), and Professor Eun Kyoung Choe (University of Maryland and KAIST alumna) collaborated on this research. The authors developed a tool that tracks and analyzes which features of a mobile app (e.g., Instagram’s following post, following story, recommended post, post upload, direct messaging, etc.) are in use based on a smartphone’s User Interface (UI) layout. Utilizing this novel method, the authors revealed which feature usage patterns result in regretful smartphone use. Professor Lee said, “Although many people enjoy the benefits of smartphones, issues have emerged from the overuse of smartphones. With this feature level analysis, users can reflect on their smartphone usage based on finer grained analysis and this could contribute to digital wellbeing.” < Research achievements diagram : Application feature level usage analysis / UI LAYOUT Analysis >
Aline and Blow-yancy Win the Red Dot Design Awards..
Professor Lee sought ‘sustainability’ while developing Aline to meet the growing awareness of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing. ESG investing relies on independent ratings that help consumers assess a company’s behavior and policies when it comes to its social impact. Aline’s personal value index with six main criteria translates values into sustainable finance. By gathering data from the initial survey and regular value updates, the index is weighted according to the user’s values. Based on the index, the investment portfolio will be adjusted, and consumption against the values will be tracked. Blow-yancy is a diving VR device for neutral buoyancy training. Blow-yancy’s VR mask helps divers feel like they are wearing an actual diving mask. Users can breathe through a regulator with a built-in breathing sensor. It allows training like actual diving without going into the water, therefore enabling safer diving. “We got an idea that about 74% of scuba divers come into contact with corals underwater at least once and that can cause an emergency situation. Divers who cannot maintain neutral buoyance will experience a tough time avoiding them,” said Professor Lee. The hardware consists of a nose covering VR mask, a regulator with a built-in breath sensor, and a controller for virtual BCD control. Blow-yancy’s five virtual missions were organized according to the diving process required by PADI, a professional diving education institute. Professor Lee’s team already received eight recognitions at the iF Design Award in April. Professor Lee said, “We will continue to develop the best UX design items that will improve our global recognition.”
Prof. Changho Suh Named the 2021 James L. Massey A..
< Professor Changho Suh > Professor Changho Suh from the School of Electrical Engineering was named the recipient of the 2021 James L.Massey Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in research and teaching by young scholars in the information theory community. The award is named in honor of James L. Massey, who was an internationally acclaimed pioneer in digital communications and revered teacher and mentor to communications engineers. Professor Suh is a recipient of numerous awards, including the 2021 James L. Massey Research & Teaching Award for Young Scholars from the IEEE Information Theory Society, the 2019 AFOSR Grant, the 2019 Google Education Grant, the 2018 IEIE/IEEE Joint Award, the 2015 IEIE Haedong Young Engineer Award, the 2013 IEEE Communications Society Stephen O. Rice Prize, the 2011 David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize (the best dissertation award in UC Berkeley EECS), the 2009 IEEE ISIT Best Student Paper Award, the 2020 LINKGENESIS Best Teacher Award (the campus-wide Grand Prize in Teaching), and the four Departmental Teaching Awards (2013, 2019, 2020, 2021). Dr. Suh is an IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer, the General Chair of the Inaugural IEEE East Asian School of Information Theory, and a Member of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology. He is also an Associate Editor of Machine Learning for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, the Editor for the IEEE Information Theory Newsletter, a Column Editor for IEEE BITS the Information Theory Magazine, an Area Chair of NeurIPS 2021, and on the Senior Program Committee of IJCAI 2019–2021.
Prof. Junil Choi Receives the Neal Shepherd Memori..
< Professor Junil Choi > Professor Junil Choi of the School of Electrical Engineering received the 2021 Neal Shepherd Memorial Award from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. The award recognizes the most outstanding paper relating to radio propagation published in major journals over the previous five years. Professor Cho, the recipient of the 2015 IEEE Signal Processing Society’s and the 2019 IEEE Communications Society’s Best Paper Award, was selected as the awardee for his paper titled “The Impact of Beamwidth on Temporal Channel Variation in Vehicular Channels and Its Implications” in IEEE Transaction on Vehicular Technology in 2017. In this paper, Professor Choi and his team derived the channel coherence time for a wireless channel as a function of the beamwidth, taking both Doppler effect and pointing error into consideration. The results showed that a nonzero optimal beamwidth exists that maximizes the channel coherence time. To reduce the impact of the overhead of doing realignment in every channel coherence time, the paper showed that the beams should be realigned every beam coherence time for the best performance. Professor Choi said, “It is quite an honor to receive this prestigious award following Professor Joonhyun Kang who won the IEEE VTS’s Jack Neubauer Memorial Award this year. It shows that our university’s pursuit of excellence in advanced research is being well recognized.”
Professor Kang’s Team Receives the IEEE Jack Newba..
< Professor Kang (far left), Professor Sung-Ah Chung at KNU, and Professor Osvaldo Simeone of KCL > Professor Joonhyuk Kang of the School of Electrical Engineering received the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society’s 2021 Jack Neubauer Memorial Award for his team’s paper published in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. The Jack Neubauer Memorial Award recognizes the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology journal in the last five years. The team of authors, Professor Kang, Professor Sung-Ah Chung at Kyungpook National University, and Professor Osvaldo Simeone of King's College London reported their research titled Mobile Edge Computing via a UAV-Mounted Cloudlet: Optimization of Bit Allocation and Path Planning in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 2049-2063, in March 2018. Their paper shows how the trajectory of aircraft is optimized and resources are allocated when unmanned aerial vehicles perform edge computing to help mobile device calculations. This paper has currently recorded nearly 400 citations (based on Google Scholar). "We are very happy to see the results of proposing edge computing using unmanned aerial vehicles by applying optimization theory, and conducting research on trajectory and resource utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles that minimize power consumption," said Professor Kang.
Dr. Won-Joon Lee from the ADD Wins the Jeong Hun C..
< From left: KAIST PhD candidate Sok-Min Choi, Dr.Won-Joon Lee from ADD, Chong-Ho Park from Kongju National University High School, and Korea University > Dr. Won-Joon Lee from the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) became the 17th Jeong Hun Cho Award recipient. KAIST PhD candidate Sok-Min Choi from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Master’s-PhD combined course student Hyong-Won Choi from Korea University, and Chong-Ho Park from Kongju National University High School were also selected. The award recognizes promising young scientists who makes significant achievements in the field of aerospace engineering in honor of Jeong Hun Cho, the former PhD candidate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering who died in a lab accident in May in 2003. Cho’s family endowed the award and scholarship to honor him. Three scholarship recipients from Cho’s alma mater, KAIST, Korea University, and Kongju National High School are selected every year. Dr. Lee from the ADD has conducted research on shape design methods and radar absorbing structures for unmanned aerial vehicles, publishing more than 24 articles in SCI-level journals and 17 at academic conferences. Dr. Lee was awarded 2.5 million KRW in prize money. the two students from KAIST and Korea University each received a 4 million KRW scholarship and Park received 3 million KRW.