On March 23, POSTECH announced a plan for the creation of the “Pohang Bigdata-AI Innovation Center”. The center will be established over the next five years with an investment worth 20 billion KRW and public funds. The Postech Times contacted Professor Sangmin, Choi of the POSTECH Institute of Artificial Intelligence (PIAI) for further information about the center.The vision of the Pohang Bigdata-AI Innovation Center is to make Pohang an innovative and accessible city that will lead the data and AI industry. Accordingly, it aims to serve as a control tower for the data industry by establishing

On Feb. 23, POSTECH announced that it will shift to face-to-face classes from the eighth week (April 11) of the Spring Semester.As the vaccination rate in Korea reached 80%, the Ministry of Education has recommended universities to resume face-to-face classes, due to the concern of “accumulated learning deficits.”From the midterm exam period, professors can choose between staying non-face-to-face or converting to face-to-face. The exact plan for each course will be announced by the individual course instructors. Students are allowed to move into the dormitories from March 31 to April 3. April

In a TV address on Feb. 24, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, declared that Russia feels a constant threat from Ukraine. Immediately after the announcement was made, the military headquarters of Ukraine were attacked. Afterward, troops from Russia, Crimea, and Belarus crossed the border of Ukraine. Putin banned the terms of “war” or “invasion” in Russian articles and broadcasts, insisting the attack is a “special military operation”. According to Putin, the attack was for the “demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine and for protecting Russians from genocide in Ukraine. However, Vol

Think of an ambulance carrying an emergency patient. It successfully passed the suburban area with the help of the ground-traffic control center. However, in the urban area, the patient is running out of time due to traffic congestion. Dramatically, the C-ITS integrated control center manages the situation and changes all traffic lights on the ambulance route to the green. The patient safely arrives at the hospital on time. This is just an example of what the Cooperative Intelligent Transport System (C-ITS) does.The C-ITS is a next-generation model of the Intelligent Transport System (ITS). Th

Humankind and the UniverseHumankind has been observing the universe since the ancient past. In 3000 B.C., many civilizations such as the Sumerians, who carved stars on clay plates, observed and recorded the movements of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. Egyptians observed the sky and predicted the flooding period of the Nile River, and the ancient Greek philosophers such as Thales, Aristotle, and Ptolemy observed the sky and mathematically organized the movements of stars, systematizing the field of astronomy.The desire to seek the origin of the universe led to the development of a technolo

Despite being in an era of a smooth logistics system, we have experienced the shock of shortages; not being able to buy or having to wait days for masks, smartphones, etc. Shortages occur when demand is greater than supply. There are various reasons for the shortage; lack of labor force, lack of materials, circulation problems, and sometimes it is just a kind of marketing. For whatever reason, shortages continue to occur, and we must seek the causes and measures to be taken. Here are two shortage cases that occurred recently.Diesel exhaust fluid shortageOn Oct. 11, Chinese customs officials an

From 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has stopped the cultural industry from providing cultural products such as offline concerts and overseas trips. Although cultural facilities were busy catching customers by operating vaccine pass centers and introducing discount events for ticket prices, there were still restrictions such as those on gatherings and business hours which made consumers hesitate. However, from Nov. 1, the Korean government implemented the “living with COVID-19” strategy to abolish all restrictions in three stages. As the restrictions are being lifted, the cultural industry is prep

On Sept. 27, officials from POSTECH, Apple, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and Pohang-si signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU). Under the MOU, Apple will cooperate with POSTECH to establish and manage the Apple Developer Academy and Manufacturing R&D Support Center. This is part of Apple’s major investment program which aims to foster economic development and worldwide innovation. The Apple Developer Academy will be established in the C5 building, and the Manufacturing R&D Support Center will move into the National Institute for Nanomaterials Technology (NINT) building at POSTECH.The Apple Developer A

On Sept. 8, Naver and Kakao’s stock price showed a sharp decline of 7.87% and 10.06%, respectively. The cause of the decrease was an announcement made by the financial arms on Sept. 7 about regulations on Big-tech. Big-tech companies are prevailing IT firms, including Naver and Kakao. They flourished amid the non-face-to-face era triggered by COVID-19. However, their excessive market dominance and overuse of power became a problem.On Sept. 7, the financial arms judged Naver Financial and Kakao Pay’s recommendation on funds, insurance, and other financial products offered to customers on their

The Big Short (2015) is a biographical drama film which portrays how a few financial industry professionals predicted the real estate bubble before the subprime mortgage loan collapse in 2008. Few investors were aware that the U.S. housing market was built on a bubble that might burst within a few years. The film explores the stories of these investors separately but also in parallel.SynopsisMichael Burry, a manager of the hedge fund Scion Capital, carefully analyzes the data of the subprime mortgage loan, a financial product designed to offer unlimited home loans to credit borrowers who lack

Recently, I was depressed because it seemed that I had done nothing during this summer recess. I did not participate in the Undergraduate Research Program (UGRP) nor any internship programs. Rather than partaking in various programs provided on or off campus, I wanted to study alone during this recess and cultivate my academic understanding. I had a lot to learn, such as financial mathematics, combinatorial analysis, Python, and Spanish. Despite studying these disparate fields on a planned basis, I was perturbed about what I was doing. My studies did not seem to be headed towards one consisten

The 17-day long Tokyo Olympics came to an end with a closing ceremony on Aug. 8. The Tokyo Olympics was unprecedented compared to the previous Olympics: it was postponed for a year due to COVID-19, and spectators were banned after a state of emergency was declared on July 8 in Tokyo. Nevertheless, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics ended successfully with lots of memorable moments and new records. Team USA secured the top spot on the table by winning 39 gold medals, 41 silver medals, and 33 bronze medals, followed by China and Japan in second and third place. Team Korea ranked 16th place with six gold me

With the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI has recently been utilized in smartphone cameras, providing functions such as auto-focusing, face recognition, and 100x zoom. It has also been applied to the research and development of new materials.A joint research team from POSTECH and the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) has applied deep learning to the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) system, which is an essential material analysis equipment, to detect and improve the quality of SEM images without human intervention. The findings were recently published in Acta Materialia

From June 14 to Sept. 3, Postechians are given a summer recess. During this time, Postechians participate in various activities. Some participate in internships to gain social experiences and experience office life before starting their careers. Some students conduct research in laboratories on campus to cultivate academic depth. Others prepare for achieving various certificates that they could not prepare for during the busy semester. POSTECH has a long summer recess of 82 days, so it is a good time for Postechians to either gain out-of-school experience or to rest and recharge. To find out h

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin have become popular in recent years. A cryptocurrency is a computer code generated by publicly available software that allows people to store and send value online—the code groups transactions onto the “blockchain”, a public record. Blockchain is a large file storing every transaction ever made. This makes cryptocurrency highly secure and private. One can “mine” cryptocurrencies using the methods such as POW and POS. POW (Proof of Work) is a method that uses hardware (GPU, ASIC mining machine) that processes hash operations to ensure tha

A famous IT YouTuber, ITSub, raised the issue of the slowing down of high-speed internet in his video on April 17. In his video, he claimed, “I subscribed to KT’s 10Gbps internet plan, and when I measured the speed, the actual speed was 100Mbps.” He found out the internet speed was limited to 100Mbps when he checked the modem and the router. ITSub claimed that it was not the first time he faced a speed problem with KT’s 10Gbps internet service. ITSub dialed customer service to protest and requested that the issue not be repeated. However, he received an answer that customers should check and p

On April 23, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has conditionally approved two types of COVID-19 self-examination kits: the STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test by SD BIOSENSOR and Humasis COVID-19 Ag Home Test by Humasis. Meanwhile, the disease control authorities emphasized that after using the self-examination kit, one should get the PCR test to verify the negative response. They also pointed out that one should not determine whether one is positive/negative to COVID-19 by only using the self-examination kits. The Central Disease Control Headquarters announced, “The self-examination kit appro

A research team led by Professor Seung-Woo Lee (LIFE), Sookjin Moon (LIFE Ph.D. Candidate), and Prof. Yunji Park (LIFE) revealed the mechanism by which intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) regulate the differentiation of T cells (intraepithelial lymphocytes, IELs). The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), an authoritative journal on immunology.IELs work at the forefront of the human body, regulating immune responses by interacting with symbiotic bacteria. Therefore, the appropriate differentiation of IELs plays a vital role in the regulation of intestinal immune hom

Hwang Ha-na, granddaughter of the Namyang Dairy Products’ founder, received a one-year suspended prison sentence with two years’ probation for drug abuse in 2019. Hwang purchased and injected herself with methamphetamine multiple times. On Dec. 7, 2020, Hwang was prosecuted again for using drugs with her acquaintances. While Hwang Ha-na’s first drug test returned negative results, the case became more complicated as her husband committed suicide and one of her acquaintances, suspected to be the supplier of the drugs, also made a suicide attempt but ended up in a coma. This incident exposed dru

The Infectious Disease Control is an institution at POSTECH that manages the university’s quarantine and safety of Postechians in response to infectious diseases. Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Infectious Disease Control is assessing the infection situation in POSTECH and reviewing quarantine regulations. The Postech Times interviewed Joon Won Park, director of the Infectious Disease Control, to take a closer look at what he does.What are your duties as the director?I am taking care to ensure that all members of the university are safe from infectious diseases. Specifically, I determine