App that adjusts smartphone notifications accordin..

Pictured: KAIST personnel involved in the SCAN technology research effort. From the left, KAIST SoC Professors Sung-Ju Lee, Dongman Lee, and Juho Kim, Ph.D. student Cheonjong Park, and Samsung Electronics SW Center researcher Junsung Lim Our very own School of Computing Professors Sung-Ju Lee and Dongman Lee, with their respective research teams, developed technology to automatically detect the current user’s situation and adjust smartphone notification settings accordingly. The technology, which they call SCAN (Social Context-Aware smartphone Notification system, or Freedom from Notifications), was featured in an Aug. 7 iPnomics article. http://www.ipnomics.co.kr/?p=63868

KAIST SoC Associate Prof. Jinah Park Presents the ..

KAIST School of Computing Associate Professor Jinah Park presented the keynote at the 21st Medical Image Understanding and Analysis Conference (MIUA 2017) last July 11 through 13, held at John McIntyre Centre, Pollock Halls, Edinburgh, UK. The presentation was on “model-based approach to 3D shape recovery and analysis.” MIUA 2017 is a medical image analysis forum for experts in the field held every year in the UK, boasting attendees from various European countries as well as the US, Australia, and Asia. This year, of the 150 organizations attending the conference, 46 were not from the UK, and out of the 105 papers and 22 clinical abstracts submitted, 82 were from overseas. KAIST SoC Prof. Jinah Park was invited as a keynote presenter alongside Prof. Ingela Nyström (Uppsala University) and Prof. Daniel Rueckert (Imperial College London). The conference also invited Sir Michael Brady, a Professor at the University of Oxford, as the Honorary Guest Speaker. Prof. Jinah Park’s lecture was on her 3 dimensional modeling technique for extracting clinical understanding from clinical imaging data, a subject she has worked on for two decades.

Best Paper in Robotic Planning at the Internationa..

KAIST School of Computing Ph.D. graduate Junghwan Lee, and M.S. student Heechan Shin (advisor: Prof. Sungeui Yoon) won the Best Paper in Robotic Planning award at the ICAR 2017, held last July 10 through 12 at Hong Kong. The award recognized their research on data-driven kinodynamic RRT. This research was on a method for constructing a database of known possible states and inputs of a kidonynamic robot’s movements for future reference, such that robots can simply search the database. By removing the need to calculate the inputs in real time, the research greatly reduces the computational load of robotic movement. Lee has a history of outstanding academic achievement, having published multiple papers at various internationally renowned journals and conferences during the course of his Ph.D. years, including the IEEE Transaction on Robotics (TRO), International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), and the International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Systems (IROS). Advisor: Prof. Sungeui Yoon, 1 st Author: Junghwan Lee, 2 nd Author: Heechan Shin IICAR 2017 Website: http://www.ee.cuhk.edu.hk/~qhmeng/icar2017/index.htm We offer our most sincere congratulations on their success.

KAIST SoC Prof. Meeyoung Cha Invited as Keynote Pr..

KAIST School of Computing Professor Meeyoung Cha presented the keynote for the IEEE/ACM International Conference on ASONAM (Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining) with a talk on “The Propagation of Rumors and Fake News”. The conference, held this Aug 1 through 3 at Sydney, Australia, awarded Prof. Cha a plaque of appreciation for her services. The keynote presented an AI based method for detecting fake news online, and the validation of the theory using sociology. This research pointed out the problem that social media, being devoid of any fact checking stage, might propagate false information as if it was true, especially in a society where phones and social media enable a convenient and habitual consumption of information. The research team examined this social phenomenon scientifically, thus proposing a big data and AI algorithm based unsupervised method for online information credibility assessment. The research results were published on various renowned conferences and journals, including ICDM, IJCAI, and PLoS One.

SoC Appoints Professors Hongseok Yang, Meeyoung Ch..

※ Pictured, from left to right: Professors Hongseok Yang, Meeyoung Cha, and Sooel Son We at the School of Computing welcome the appointment of Professors Hongseok Yang, Meeyoung Cha, and Sooel Son. □ Prof. Hongseok Yang was appointed a professor at the SoC as of July 24 His areas of interest include programming languages and machine learning A more detailed introduction is available on his page https://cs.kaist.ac.kr/people/view?idx=552&kind=faculty&menu=160 □ Prof. Meeyoung Cha was appointed a professor at the SoC as of Aug. 1 Her areas of interest include network science, computational social science, and statistical inference A more detailed introduction is available on her page https://cs.kaist.ac.kr/people/view?idx=418&kind=faculty&menu=160 □ Prof. Sooel Son was appointed a professor at the SoC as of Aug. 1 His areas of interest include web security & privacy, and web authentication A more detailed introduction is available on his page https://cs.kaist.ac.kr/people/view?idx=553&kind=faculty&menu=160 We extend our most sincere congratulations on their appointment.

Mobile smart device platform for app functionality..

Linked are articles on School of Computing Professor Insik Shin’s lab and their development oㄹ mobile platform technology for sharing app functionalities on a smart device. The research paper was also published on ACM MobiSys. Articles in Korean. Segye Daily, 2017 July 28: http://www.segye.com/newsView/20170726003462 Sedaily, 2017 July 26: http://www.sedaily.com/NewsView/1OIMI5D8UD Herald Business, 2017 July 26: http://biz.heraldcorp.com/view.php?ud=201707260002

SoC Students Win ACM GECCO Humies Silver Award

A KAIST School of Computing research team led by Professor Shin Yoo won the 2017 Human Competitiveness Award (Humies) Silver Award at Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), a conference held by ACM SIGEVO. The event recognizes human parity achievements in research by evolutionary computation. Prof. Yoo’s research contribution involved machine learning based defect location technology (technology for automatically finding defective code found during software testing), which is on parity with existing methods researched by man, and also proved via machine learning that a more accurate method does not exist. Prof. Yoo provided the core elements of the theoretical proof, as well as led an international research team composed of researchers from China’s Wuhan University, Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology, and Briton’s University College London, and then submitted the paper to ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology in the Humies track. Fourteen teams competed in this year’s Humies track, out of which 9 passed the final selection from a panel of judges. The gold award went to a University of Sidney research team for using genetic algorithms for explaining the causal model of recent quantum entanglement research results. The bronze went to two teams, for a technology to optimize a structure’s truss arrangement, and a technology to optimize A/B testing on websites to maximize customer loyalty. ACM GECCO is a large scale conference with a proud 20 year history in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation research. Its 13 tracks cover various topics, including genetic and evolutionary computation, artificial life, artificial immune systems among others, and welcoms topics on both theory and application. This Humies Award was the 14th such award, created by ex-Stanford Professor John Koza, who greatly contributed to the research of evolutionary computation. Entries must prove via research papers that their evolutionary computation technique shows human parity in their performance in a specific field. Prof. Yoo is a world renown expert in the field of search based software engineering, which uses evolutionary computation techniques to solve software engineering problems.

KAIST Computer Graphics enters world top 20

KAIST became the first Korean university to have one of the world’s top 20 Computer Graphics research institutes, based on the number of papers published in the last 2 years in the top 3 CG conferences. KAIST School of Computing undergraduate CG lecture professors (CS380, by professors Min H. Kim, Jinah Park, and Sungeui Yoon) participated in a survey to mark this occasion. The survey was presented at Eurographics 2017, one of the top 3 graphics conferences alongside ACM SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia. The presentation contained content from Prof. Kim’s undergraduate level lecture, which can be found at http://vclab.kaist.ac.kr/cs380/. We extend our most sincere congratulations. [Reference]​ [Reference] “What we are teaching in Introduction to Computer Graphics”, Balreira, Dennis G.; Walter, Marcelo; Fellner, Dieter W., Proc. Eurographics 2017, The Eurographics Association, http://diglib.eg.org/handle/10.2312/eged20171019 [Eurographics Presentation]​ http://wiki.inf.ufrgs.br/What_we_are_Teaching_in_Introduction_to_Computer_Graphics

Prof. Emeritus Kyu-Young Whang Presented Korea’s B..

This article is on our very own Professor Emeritus Kyu-Young Whang winning Korea’s Best Scientist / Technician Award. http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/it/2017/07/03/2408000000AKR20170703049900017.HTML The award recognizes Koreans for outstanding, globally influential R&D achievements or technical innovations. The award acknowledged Prof. Whang’s accomplishments in developing technologies in the Korean computer science and software industries’ development and promoting information culture. Prof. Whang’s work in the field of database systems led to innovative theories and techniques in probabilistic statistics and close coupling. Probabilistic statistics deals with fast extraction of desired data, and close coupling leads to better performance in databases by deeply embedding information searching and spatial database functionalities in the engine. We would like to congratulate him on his success..

HCI＠KAIST Group Reception (CHI 2017)

HCI＠KAIST Group held a reception at the AC CHI 2017 conference last May 10 in Denver, Colorado. The event aimed to increase interaction between HCI researchers. The School of Computing sponsored event hosted by HCI＠KAIST Group, looked to expand international HCI researcher networks, attracting outstanding HCI faculty, garner more opportunities for student internships, among others. Around 180 HCI researchers attended the event, from over 13 foreign universities including MIT, CMU, Stanford, as well as from the industry including Microsoft Research, Apple, and Google, who came together and mingled until late. HCI＠KAIST Group also performed admirably at the main event, with 7 presentations, 8 poster sessions, and 6 exhibitions at CHI 2017.

SoC Prof. DooHwan Bae Wins ICSE 2020 for Seoul

School of Computing Professor DooHwan Bae attended the Steering Committee of the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), and confirmed the 2020 event will be at Seoul. The conference lasted from last May 20 to 28 at Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 2020 late May ICSE at Seoul will be the 42nd event, and will be held jointly by the ACM/IEEE and the KIISE (Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers), a departure from previous ICSE events. The event is expected to contribute to the globalization of Korean software engineering search, engineers, and researcher, as well as their research and development talents. ICSE normally hosts 1400 – 1500 researchers and practitioners as the world’s foremost conference in the field of software engineering. The event includes 7 other collocated conferences in addition to the main conference, as well as approximately 20 workshops. A combined total of around a 1000 papers are submitted, of which the main conference’s research track receives 500 to 600, of which around 70 are and presented. We congratulate the successful attraction of the largest SE conference in 2020.

Prof. Min H. Kim Awarded Top 10 Distinguished Rese..

Professor Min H. Kim of School of Computing won a Top 10 Distinguished Research Achievements of KAIST award during the 2017 KAIST Research Day, held Tuesday morning at KI building’s Fusion Hall. The award recognized his contributions to KAIST, citing his research in “birefractive stereo imaging for single-shot depth acquisition”. We sincerely congratulate him on his accomplishment.

KAIST to develop quantum computer proof ‘fully hom..

Below is an article on School of Computing Professor Kwangjo Kim’s efforts on developing ‘fully homomorphic crypto-signature’ to prepare us for the age of quantum computing. (in Korean) http://www.etnews.com/20170509000056

KAIST Professor Kwangjo Kim becomes the first Kore..

Following is a link to the ET News article on Professor Kwangjo Kim, the first Korean International Association for Cryptologic Research Fellow. http://www.etnews.com/20170501000100

Prof. Insik Shin awarded Samsung Future Technology..

Our very own School of Computing Professor Insik Shin was awarded Samsung Future Technology Promotion Project, Creative ICT Component. The project launched in 2013 to provide support for basic research, material science, and ICT, with 1.5 trillion won of funding for 10 years. Prof. Shin was awarded the project for: “SecureBox: development of a TEE-based secure system in a cloud / machine learning service environment for user privacy protection”. We congratulate him on the selection. http://www.ebn.co.kr/news/view/885637

School of Computing Professor Otfried Cheong desig..

ACM Distinguished Members can be either a Distinguished Engineer, Distinguished Educator, or a Distinguished Scientist. The title of Distinguished Scientist is awarded to an expert with over 15 years of experience in the field, over 5 years of consistent ACM activities, and a significant contribution or influence to the field of computing. Less than 10％ of ACM members are Distinguished Members, and Prof. Cheong was among the 45 selected this year, the only Distinguished Scientist in Korea. Reference: http://awards.acm.org/distinguished_member/year.cfm Prof. Otfried Cheong received his Ph.D. from Freie Universitaet Berlin in 1992, and enjoyed successful careers at Utrecht, POSTECH, HKUST, and TU Eindhoven before settling in KAIST in 2005. His research group explores discrete geometry and computational geometry.

Prof. Jaehyuk Huh’s lab awarded Star Lab status

Our very own Professor Jaehyuk Huh’s lab was selected as a SW Star Lab, and will receive additional funding associated with the project. We congratulate the lab’s success. Related article (Korean): http://m.news.naver.com/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=105&oid=029&aid=0002396402

Prof. Kwangjo Kim designated International Associa..

Following is an article on how our very own Prof. Kwangjo Kim became the first Korean to become an International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) Fellow. Since 2004, the IACR has selected 2 to 6 members a year as IACR Fellows for their major contributions to and the promotion of scholarly activities in the field of cryptologic research. Prof. Kwangjo Kim is the first Korean to receive such an honor We most sincerely congratulate him on his success. Article (in Korean): http://www.zdnet.co.kr/news/news_view.asp?artice_id=20170313102345&type=det&re=#csidx2f36e03266f76a9bcd32fe513302471

2017 46th Anniversary Awards

The celebrations for the 2017 46th Anniversary of KAIST was held at the KAIST Auditorium on Jan. 16th. Our very own School of Computing Professor Sukyoung Ryu received the Best Lecture Award, undergraduate Soyun Park (Advisor: Prof. DooHwan Bae) received the Creative Activities Award, and School of Computing staff member Mikyung Kim received the Service Award. We congratulate them on their achievements.

Prof. Dae Young Kim launches joint research with t..

Our very own Professor Dae Young Kim and his research team launched a joint research with the European Union (EU) on developing and establishing an open standard and architecture for an integrated Internet of Things (IoT) global produce business ecosystem as a part of The Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020). Article (in Korean): http://www.sedaily.com/NewsView/1OAURXDKKL

KAIST School of Computing Professor Dongman Lee aw..

Our very own School of Computing Professor Dongman Lee was awarded the Individual Contribution Award at the 11th Korea Internet Award, an event held by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning last Dec. 13th at the Gyounggi Creative Economy Innovation Center. The ceremony awards corporations, institutes, organizations, and individuals that made contributions to the Internet industry and social development in Korea. Prof. Lee has been appointed as the Chair of the Korea Internet Governance Alliance (KIGA), which has contributed to strengthening Korea’s international influence by participating in various domestic and international Internet governance activities, such as researching Internet governance policies, holding the Asia-Pacific regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF), among others. Furthermore, KIGA is contributing to laying the foundation for an IoT ecosystem by pushing for research, such as the research on a connected objects platform for personalized services in an IoT environment. Prof. Lee has continued to do research in the Internet of Things (IoT) platform since 2010, publishing 5 papers in SCI-tier journals, over 30 papers in recognized international conferences, over 10 papers in domestic publications, and applied for over 11 patents. In addition, he has established a working Internet of Things testbed environment on the 8th floor of the IT Convergence Center (N1). This allows various experiments to collect data, acting as a foundation for research on a global scale.

Meeting Prof. Sukyoung Ryu, your friendliest mento..

KAIST ACM Student Chapter’s 1st newsletter presents an interview with Prof. Sukyoung Ryu. Every quarter, the ACM Student Chapter newsletter brings you an interview with a professor willing to be a mentor for students. The star of our first newsletter, Prof. Sukyoung Ryu, shares tips for future researchers, and advices for female scientists. You’re well known among the undergraduates for being very interested in them. Is there a reason you’re so attentive towards undergraduates? First, I’m interested in students. I even studied psychology because I wasn’t sure if I was counseling them correctly. I had to give up for various reasons, but I frequently ask for advice from the school’s counsellors. I feel like I can be a mediator between the school and the students. Also, a big part of it is I was a KAIST undergraduate myself. I want to share so many things I wish I knew. I was lucky in that I wasn’t a sensitive sort, and was happy with my time here, but I later found out many students did not feel the same. Many students worry about finding a research area that fits them. What led you to choose your current research area? I’m the kind of person that stumbles around, trying out many different things. I enrolled as a graduate student thinking I’ll work on databases or networks, fields that were popular at the time. However, the selection process at the time was even more professor friendly, and students didn’t have any say in what lab they joined. So I ended up in a PL (Programming Language) lab, an area I wasn’t interested in at all. I’m probably not a good role model, (laughs) but the story definitely fits me. For the School of Computing students: to be a developer or an engineer? First, how comfortable are you with studying things with no real answers? Those with faith and persistence should chose research, and those with talent that feel the joy of programming belong in industry. Secondly, you need experience to know what area you want to be in. There are lots of opportunities: URP, individual research, internships, exchange programs, etc. You’ll never know unless you try for yourself. Of course, you also need to stick with it for some time to really know. For those who want to go for research, how should you choose a research topic? Usually, you know what you don’t like by the junior year. Filtering them out makes it a bit easier. For me, it was architecture, parallel processing, OS and the like. Computer science can be split in to two broad categories, and finding which one you like can be of great help too. As long as you’re in the right half, you should be fine. The details can change later, and research is always about coming up with a problem you like. Any tips for undergraduates looking at graduate school? First, take compiler, networks, and DB. We look at what you took, not the grades you got. A student with lots of major courses will always win over a student with lots of liberal arts courses, even with a poor GPA. The best would be grades that keep climbing. All you need is an answer why. For example, getting lovesick, serving as a club president, just wanted to enjoy college life. Anything works. What do you look for in a graduate student? Depends on the field. For DB and networks, you need diligence, since you’re building large projects. For architecture, experiments can take a while so they want people that enjoy the work in and of itself. How new the lab is is also an important factor. For the first few years, the professor and the students’ chemistry is important. The few students decide how the lab will be. For our lab, we want students with the ability to survive as individuals. We don’t want people with inferiority complexes, or people that feel sorry for themselves. We want people with the nerve to look at an older student in the eye and say “No, that’s probably wrong.” It doesn’t matter how much you know. As a female scientist yourself, you’re also working in many different ways to encourage female students. Do you have any advice for KAIST’s female students? KAIST has so few females that I feel like a black sheep a lot of the times. Even when you’re wronged, it can feel like you were the one that made a mistake. You have to remember it’s not your fault. It’s draining to keep reminding yourself, so it’s also important to be selective about what you focus on. Also, this kind of sensitive issues are better voiced by our male students. Generally, when students see something wrong, they don’t speak out. Our male students should voice their concerns too. If you find yourself discriminated against for being female, or find yourself being sexually harassed, what should you do? First, make yourself heard. If you try to keep it under wraps instead of going public, the experience can stick with you. Find the courage instead of being sorry for yourself. If you can’t, find someone to speak for you. A few years ago, the school instituted the ombudsperson program. We have two really good natured retiree professors as ombudspersons. I think this kind of problem is best solved via ombudspersons. That’s what they’re for, a neutral party to speak on behalf of the wronged. Or, you could come to me. The student human right committee is also a good choice. If it can cause harm to you personally, it might be better for an impartial professor from a different department to be involved, instead of your guidance professor or someone else close to you. How should one solve these problems? Sexual harassment is not something you can solve by having smart people, it’s something you need to be taught. The society is full of sexual harassment we’re too used to to notice without looking for them. For example, an upperclassman at a welcoming party might say “who’s the prettiest freshman”. That’s not acceptable, but no one says anything. We need to educate people that this is wrong. Even the professors are being taught this now, but it’s hard to change things around with just taking a few online lectures. We need to be patient, and little by little be more mindful of our surroundings. That’s how you learn. Lastly, as an alumnus and a professor, what would you say to our undergraduates? First, leave your high school friends behind, and make more friends. If you look back, what high school you’re from is unimportant. When you first join, it feels like what school you’re from determines where you start off in the race, but after a while you realize everyone had a different starting point. You should forget about the unfairness of the starting point, and get many different friends. Second, health. Health is really important. In my 20’s, I exercised a lot, swimming and running. As a graduate student I went swimming with my friend almost daily, and that supported me in to my 30’s. Last, find a way to relieve your stress. Everyone’s different, and it’s up to you to find what works for you. As an undergraduate, I joined a music club and sang or cheered to relieve stress. It’s good to have a sustainable hobby to enjoy whenever things get rough. Credits available in the Korean article.

“You can learn so much by just talking” – An inter..

KAIST ACM Student Chapter’s 2nd newsletter presents an interview with the handsome Prof. Sung-Ju Lee. “You can learn so much just by talking” – An interview with Prof. Sung-Ju Lee IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the largest organization in the field of computer science and electrical engineering, evaluates its member scientists and engineers in to different ranks. From the bottom, you have Student member, Member, Senior member, and on the very top of the membership hierarchy, you have the Fellow. Only those with excellent and internationally renown research in the field qualify for the title. Prof. Sung-Ju Lee is one of the two IEEE Fellows at KAIST’s School of Computing. (Prof. Lee has since become the only Fellow, due to Prof. Kyu-Young Hwang’s retirement this year) What did you major? While studying abroad, wireless communication research was starting to get attention. Back then, we didn’t have Skype, and email was only just getting mainstream attention. I realized knowledge in networks would be crucial for helping people connect. The thought of exchanging information without any wires at all sounded amazing, something I wanted to be a part of; so I chose wireless networks as my major. But you’re not just working on networks. I was at a company for a long time after getting my degree. My work was in infrastructure, which doesn’t afford much people time, even when compared to other network work. As a professor, I want to do research I couldn’t before. My interest was always in connecting people, and mobile devices fit that goal perfectly. Back then, to explain my research to others, I had to be good at analogies. Now, I don’t have to do that anymore with the research I do. Human-Computer Interaction, Natural Language Processing, emotion analysis, Machine Learning, et cetera et cetera. They’re all so interesting, and I’m studying them all, albeit in a rather shallow fashion. Of course, research in Wi-Fi and infrastructure continues as well. Can you share one of your research with us? Smartphone application notifications interrupt people’s social interaction. People tend to ignore notifications when talking with their professors, but not when talking with their friends or family. It’s interesting and ironic that they feel it’s fine to be rude to those you care about the most. But most notifications are not urgent at all. We made an application that collects notifications until it finds a breakpoint between conversations, and only then alerts the user. For example, when people stop talking because someone went to use the bathroom. You were employed for quite some time I worked for HP (Hewlett-Packard Company) for 12 and a half years. It was mostly Wi-Fi work, which included the project with Shell, an oil company. It was the most fun I had, where I was charged with inventing a “next generation oil exploration system”. To find out where oil is, you need to dig, and that costs a lot. You dig holes to bury sensors, which geologists pore over for months, conducting seismology experiments. The research was on reinventing the wired system as a wireless system. It was a world first, and working from the beginning with the actual producers was of great help, learning about them and how they think. Why did you decide to become a professor after 12 and a half years? The reason I chose industry over academia was mostly to get back at my father, who was also a professor. The reason I choose academia over industry now is to be a good son. (laughs) Honestly, I enjoyed working with the young 3 month interns. Although I wasn’t paid anything for it, mentoring them was what felt the most rewarding to me. It felt like that was what I was best at. Research was fun, guiding students was fun, and so I became a professor. Also, I’m making more of a difference when I’m internationalizing Korean students, than if I’m doing research in America. You love talking with people It’s important to share your experiences and knowledge with others in your community, and speaking and listening is much more helpful for learning. Compared to American students, Koreans don’t seem to understand this fact, something I find disappointing. Korea is always about generating results, and showing off the results. The why and how are absent; only the result pops up after working on it alone. In other countries, professors don’t like students that keep to themselves. Is that why you encourage asking questions? I absolutely do encourage asking questions. It’s obvious, but by asking something, students realize they don’t know something. At first they’re skittish, but after one or two students start off, the rest start asking questions as well. At first, you ask the question and let them voice their opinions. Of course, I don’t plan the lessons specifically to encourage questions. I was immersed in a culture that encouraged debates, and it feels like students feel encouraged even if I’m just being myself. I heard students say they didn’t want to speak since they weren’t good at English, but felt encouraged after seeing their friends join in. Everyone was doing it, and so there was nothing to be scared of. It sounds a bit unfair, but 10％ of the grade is participation points, and students with good grades usually have full points in that respect. You have so many papers and patents. How do come up with all the ideas? It’s not something that’s easy to explain. For starters, it’s important to know what the problem is. Sometimes, you get a breakthrough after reading a countless number of papers. Research from other fields is especially helpful. You can look at the other fields’ solutions and get inspiration from them. Students doing research for the first time might find it hard to decide on what papers to read. Do you have any advice for them? Start with the main conferences in the field you’re interested in. Good papers are normally published at good conferences. After reading a few papers, you will recognize a few papers that keep getting referenced. Reading those papers next can then broaden your horizon. Asking for advice from older graduate students can be helpful as well. If you have research you want to do, even if it’s only a vague idea, ask other students and your professor for similar work and researchers in the area. Any words for KAIST undergraduates First, get all you can from KAIST’s excellent faculty. This doesn’t happen in lecture halls. You need to talk with them outside the classrooms. Don’t be afraid of professors. Engage with the professors. Secondly, don’t worry too much about grades. Your skills are much more important than your GPA. Third, make as much friends as you can. You need so many friends on top of your high school friends. Fourth, leave your comfort zone. Get as much new experiences as you can. Do something new, something you’ve never done before. I very much recommend going on an exchange program. It will help overcome the fear of starting something new. Lastly, don’t be afraid of English. Credits available in the Korean version.

KAIST Center for Mobile Software Platform was awar..

KAIST Center for Mobile Software Platform (Head: Prof. Seungryoul Maeng) developed “UX Centric Mobile SW Platform”, designed to assist the development of next generation UX service technologies. During the commissioned research project, the Center has applied for 37 patents, both foreign and domestic, out of which 15 have been granted, while winning the best paper awards 10 times from various international academic conferences, and publishing 133 papers in Korea and internationally. In recognition of such results, they were awarded the Minister of the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning Award during the 2016 SW R&D Research Results Conference (2016 Nov. 29, COEX Grand Ballroom 105), an event hosted by the Ministry and the Institute for Information & Communication Technology Promotion (IITP). “UX Centric Mobile SW Platform” was designed with the advent of new services with new UX, and SW talent education in mind, providing an extensible situation processing platform expected to conserve device power.

Crowdsourcing based global indoor localization sys..

School of Computing Intelligent Service Lab (Prof. Dong-Soo Han) announced that they have developed a system for providing global indoor localization using Wi-Fi signals. The technology uses numerous smartphones to collect fingerprints of location data and label them automatically, greatly reducing the cost of constructing an indoor localization system while maintaining high accuracy. The method can be used in any building in the world, provided the floor plan is available, and there are Wi-Fi fingerprints to collect. To accurately collect and label the location information of collected fingerprints, the research team analyzed indoor space utilization. This led to a technology that classified indoor space in to places used for stationary tasks (resting spaces), and spaces used to reach said places (transient spaces), and separate algorithms to optimally and automatically collect location labelling data. A few years ago, the team has also implemented a means of automatically labelling resting space locations from collected signals in various contexts such as homes, shops, and offices via the users’ address information. The latest one allows for the automatic labelling of transient spaces’ locations such as hallways, lobbies, and stairs using unsupervised learning, also without any additional location information. Testing in KAIST’s N5 building and the 7th floor of N1 building proved the technology is capable of 3 to 4 meter accuracy given enough training data. The accuracy is comparable to technology using manually labeled location information. Google, MS, and other multinational corporations collected tens of thousands of floor plans for their indoor localization projects. Indoor signal map collection was also attempted but proved more difficult. As a result, existing indoor localization services were often plagued by inaccuracies. In Korea, COEX, Lotte World Tower, and other landmarks provide comparatively accurate indoor localization, but most buildings suffer from the lack of signal maps, preventing indoor localization services. Professor Dong-Soo Han claims that “This technology allows easy deployment of highly accurate indoor localization system in any building in the world. In the near future, most indoor spaces will provide localization services, just like outdoor spaces.” He further added that although smartphone collected fingerprints were left unutilized and discarded to date, the development of an application for the data will create a new field of wireless LAN big data fingerprinting. This new indoor navigation technology is likely to be valuable to Google, Apple, or other global firms providing indoor localization information for the whole world. Nonetheless the technology will also be valuable for Korean localization service firms for domestic localization services. Prof. Han added that “the new global indoor localization system deployment technology will be added to KAILOS, KAIST’s indoor localization system.” KAILOS was released in 2014 as KAIST’s open platform for indoor localization service, allowing anyone in the world to add floor plans to KAILOS, and add the building’s signal fingerprint data to help create a universal indoor localization service. As localization accuracy improves in indoor environs, despite the absence of GPS signals, applications such as location based SNS, location based IoT, and location based O2O are expected to take off, leading to various improvements in convenience and safety. Integrated indoor-outdoor navigation service is also visible on the horizon, fusing vehicular navigation technology with indoor navigation. [그림] 무선랜 핑거프린트 기반 스마트폰 실내 위치인식 [그림] 불특정 다수의 스마트폰을 통해서 수집된 핑거프린트의 수집 위치를 자동으로 라벨링하는 자율학습 기법 [그림] KAIST Indoor Locating System (KAILOS) 응용 서비스 및 관련 기술

Controlling a turtle with your mind…amazing techno..

Our very own School of Computing Professor Sungho Jo made an appearance on 8 O’clock News. Here is a copy of the segment. “Controlling a turtle with your mind…amazing technology” From SBS News (article in Korean) http://news.sbs.co.kr/news/endPage.do?news_id=N1003835422&plink=NEW&cooper=SBSNEWSSECTION&plink=COPYPASTE&cooper=SBSNEWSEND <Anchor> Control a turtle with but a thought. Just think “left” and it goes left, “right” and it goes right. This amazing technology is advancing every day. Reporter Kuhee Jung is with a story on how this is possible. <Reporter> Drink with a robot arm just by thinking about it. This is possible via the application of Brain-Computer Interface technology, where a computer reads the changes in brain waves that occurs when you think. Using this technology, you can control animals with just your thought. Turtles walk in figure 8 shaped paths, or walk in circles around an object: all done by a researcher thinking about it. The researcher can control the turtle with the use of a thought controlled curtain mounted on the turtle’s shell, taking advantage of turtles’ instinctive fear of darness, which forces them to walk towards the light. <Sungho Jo, Professor at KAIST> Turtles shrink when they can’t see, and head towards whichever direction their vision is not obscured. If we let them see to their right when the person thinks “right”, the turtle will instinctively walk to the right. <Reporter> These are brain waves, detected from various points on my head. The waveforms change according to whether I’m thinking “left” or “right”, which the computer analyzes, and once it understands what I’m thinking, it can read my mind. As Brain-Computer Interface technology advances, we expect to see applications such as robots to act as limbs of the disabled, remote controlled animals and robots for exploration, or real time analysis of emotions to help prevent mental illnesses such as depression.

School of Computing Research Roundtable Day (2016...

Research Roundtable was held today (2016 October 11th) as the first item in Research Communication Day, where School of Computing professors share their research results with each other. The event involved Professor Sungho Jo, who was in charge of preparations, as well as (in order of presentation, without addressing each with their proper title) professors In-Young Ko, Juho Kim, Byunghoon Kang, Eunho Yang, Min H. Kim, and Alice Oh. The professors’ presentations involved short introductions of their lab, summaries of ongoing research, and exciting future research topics they hope to get in to. There will be two more events, held each week on Tuesday.

Prof. Sung-Ju Lee Wins the WiNTECH Test of Time Aw..

On the 3rd of October, our very own School of Computing Professor Sung-Ju Lee won the 10th WiNTECH (ACM International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & CHaracterization) Test of Time Award in the workshop held in New York City, USA. WiNTECH, a wireless networking workshop started in 2007, has gained recognition for its focus on spotlighting practical research results via experimentation and verification. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the workshop, the workshop’s first Test of Time Award was given. Test of Time Awards are given to papers that are still important in academia and industry many years since its original publication. Prof. Sung-Ju Lee’s paper “An Experimental Study on the Capture Effect in 802.11a Networks” received the Test of Time Award in a unanimous vote by the judges. The 2007 paper was a collaboration between Prof. Sung-Ju Lee and a Seoul National University research team. The research team showed via experiment that, despite the then common knowledge that signals affected by interference become unusable, the signals can be received depending on variables such as transmission power, transmission time, and transmission rate. The paper affected later wireless experiments and modeling research, and has been referenced more than 200 times. Prof. Lee commented that the award means a lot since it shows the paper is still impactful despite being almost 10 years since its original publication.