Tag: Kyungpook National University

A research team at Kyungpook National University (KNU) has developed a method to determine the soil which can cultivate ginseng consistently in advance by using machine learning.

Professor Jae Ho Shin’s team at Kyungpook National University’s School of Biosciences has developed “a method of determining ginseng crops using soil microbiome and machine learning.”

Even if the same ginseng seeds are planted, ginseng grown in Korea’s soil has superior main ingredients and efficacy than ginseng from overseas countries such as China, so the cultivation soil plays a big role in ginseng quality. Ginseng is a crop that is severely damaged by a series of crops that cannot be used again for more than 10 years once it is grown. However, despite various soil analysis methods, it is considered very difficult to determine in advance whether there will be a series of damage to a particular soil.

Professor Jae Ho Shin’s team obtained more than 100,000 microbial information per sample using next-generation sequencing technology (high-speed sequencing of dielectric material as one of the methods of genetic analysis). It produced a model that identifies 13 million big data as support vector machines (SVM) based on machine learning. In other words, it has developed a machine learning model that can predict the occurrence of ginseng rusty root (GRR) disease before planting ginseng. With this technology, a 90.99% chance of damage can be predicted by microbiological analysis without analyzing past cultivation records of land or soil components.

Professor Jae Ho Shin said, “For ginseng farmers, finding land that has never been planted and renting ginseng is a big problem that influences years of farming. However, it has been almost impossible to prove that ginseng has never been planted scientifically so far, and the conflict is frequent because we can only trust the landowner’s word. “As we observe a person’s microbiome, we can predict the future of the soil with soil microbiome. The technology developed by the research team creates an artificial intelligence algorithm that analyzes soil microorganisms, which can determine whether ginseng has ever been planted with an accuracy of about 91%. The accuracy of the model has room for improvement if it costs more to get more samples.”

The findings, which showed the possibility of artificial intelligence being used in the agricultural sector were published in a cover paper on July 28 of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, an international academic journal.

Professor Woong Kim, the Department of Environmental Engineering at Kyungpook National University has developed a photocatalyst that can decompose more than 98% of coloured dye wastewater within an hour through international joint research with Saudi Arabia’s King Saud University and others.

The world’s annual dye production is approximately 1 million tons, resulting in a huge amount of coloured wastewater. Various technologies such as adsorption, chemical oxidation, ozonization, coagulation, membrane process, biological decomposition, electrochemical process, and photocatalytic decomposition are being applied to remove these dye contaminants.

Dual photocatalytic technology is widely applicable and recyclable, so it is considered an eco-friendly technology. However, metal oxides such as zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2), which are mainly used as materials, can be used only in ultraviolet areas, thus increasing the decomposition efficiency.

To improve this, Professor Kim’s team developed a photocatalyst as an iron-organic hybrid composite material doped with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) through solvo-thermal technique technology.

MoS2 can absorb light not only in ultraviolet rays but also in visible light areas, but there is a problem that energy efficiency decreases as electrons and majors generated during the reaction process are quickly recombined.

MoS2 of the photocatalyst developed by the research team decomposes water when it receives light to produce an OH radical with strong oxidizing power. At the same time, electrons generated from MoS2 moved to iron-organic hybrid composite materials, preventing electrons and majors from recombining and creating new reactions to improve the dissolution efficiency of dyes.

The research team confirmed through experiments that if the catalyst dosage developed in wastewater containing 50 mg/L of dye is adjusted to 0.05 mg/L and pH is adjusted to 5.0, the dye decomposes more than 98% within an hour. Conventional photocatalysts had a processing efficiency of approximately 80%, with limitations that took several hours to process.

Regarding the paper, Professor Kim Woong said, “The photocatalyst that we developed this time has drastically improved the decomposition efficiency of visible light areas and reduced the processing time by about 1/3.” “It is very encouraging to develop a catalyst technology that can treat wastewater that threatens the Earth’s environment.” The catalyst is expected to be applied not only to organic dyes but also to organic substances in wastewater.”

The results of the study were published in the journal Journal of Hazardous Materials on July 15.

During the first half of this year, Kyungpook National University (KNU) was selected for nearly 1,700 projects for a total of KRW 214.5 billion in research funds, solidifying its position as a research-oriented university. This amount is more than 90% of the total research funds, KRW 235.7 billion, received from projects last year.

The amount of funding received from national projects by the Ministry of Science and ICT has also surpassed the amount received last year, KRW 76.8 billion, with funding of KRW 80.7 billion this year. This can be attributed to the fact that KNU had recently been selected for many large-scale government projects for cohort research.

Of these projects, ‘University-Focused Research Institute in Science and Engineering by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea is a meaningful academic support project that designates exemplary university-affiliated research institutes of science and engineering to foster the production of research results and nurture accomplished researchers.

This year, KNU Center for ICT & Automotive Convergence (Centre Director Dongseog Han) has been selected for the project and will receive funding of KRW 7.7 billion for up to 9 years. With this selection, KNU now has a total of five major research institutes designated by the Ministry of Education, including the Research Institute for Ulleungdo and Dokdo, Autonomous Cluster Software Research Center, Environmental Science & Technology Institute, and Center for High Energy Physics. Through this newly attained project, KNU Center for ICT & Automotive Convergence plans to develop human-intention-based autonomous driving technologies under the project name, ‘Development of Multi-intelligence-based Human-centric Autonomous Driving Core Technology’.

Major areas of research include reflection of unexpected human behaviour in autonomous mobility, atypical road environment ▷communication and precision positioning for large capacity sensor data transmission ▷human-intention-based driving control and to commercialize AI architecture and embedded AI.

Following KNU’s selection as the ‘University-Focused Research Institute in Science and Engineering,’ KNU was selected for three more ‘Leading Research Center’ projects by the Ministry of Science and ICT. As a result, the total amount of research funding for the next 7 to 9 years is projected to reach KRW 40 billion.

The ‘Leading Research Center’ project by the Ministry of Science and ICT aims to establish exemplary research groups and foster next-generation specialists to ultimately develop world-class competitiveness of core research fields.

To list selected KNU centres in detail, KNU ‘Software Disaster Research Center (Center Director Yunja Choi)’ was selected as an Engineering Research Center (ERC); KNU ‘Tumor Plasticity Research Center’ (Center Director Byungheon Lee) was selected as a Medical Research Center (MRC), and KNU ‘Regional Leading Research Center of Smart Energy System (Central Director Jong Wook Roh)’ was selected as a Regional Leading Research Center (RLRC).

Among 17 projects offered by the ministry this year, KNU was selected for 3 projects, the second most after Seoul National University. Through these projects, KNU is to receive funding of KRW 1.4 to 1.9 billion percenter insole research expenses, or a total of KRW 32.4 billion in the inclusion of all expenses.

To elaborate, the ‘Software Disaster Research Center,’ led by Professor Yunja Choi of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, addresses the issue of software (SW) disaster, or extensive human, wealth, or social damage caused by unintended software operation, by building an integrated framework and developing software disaster management technology to quickly detect and respond to disaster situations caused by software malfunctions and prevent a recurrence.

For this project, KNU is the lead institution with 13 professors and 70 researchers from 7 universities, including Korea University.

The objective of the ‘Tumor Plasticity Research Center’ led by Professor Byungheon Lee of the School of Medicine, is to establish a platform for identifying control mechanisms of cancer based on tumour plasticity and developing control materials. Professor Lee has conducted research related to tumour network control for 7 years since the centre was selected as a leading Medical Research Center (MRC) in 2014.

The ‘Regional Leading Research Center of Smart Energy System’ led by Professor Jong Wook Roh of the School of Nano & Materials Science and Engineering, seeks to develop a highly efficient, eco-friendly energy platform through multi-disciplinary research between nano-technology, information technology, and energy technology, as well as a smart-solution to operate this platform.

As many key national industrial complexes are located within the Daegu-Gyeongbuk area, such as steel, chemical, electrical, and electronic industries, there is a high demand for carbon neutrality. With this project, KNU, along with the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), plans to present a model of energy technology for carbon neutrality and secure foundational technology for innovating energy materials, components, and systems.

Kyungpook National University (KNU) has once again been selected to receive funding from 2021 Open-Lab Support Project for Local Industry-Affiliated Universities by the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Commercialization Promotion Agency for R&D Outcomes, for the second consecutive year.

The Open-Lab Support Project is a project that designates university laboratories as Open-Labs to establish a technology commercialization platform that customizes and supplies technology and human resources to local industries.

With the final selection this year, KNU will receive approximately KRW 1.8 billion to successfully develop this platform and support local industries with the advanced skills, techniques, and specialization of KNU Open Labs.

Through the establishment of the following 6 Open-Labs, KNU plans to contribute to the promotion of strategic industrial planning and the direction of policy-making for the development of core industries within the region.

• Production of World-Class Products through Advanced Performance of Next-Generation LAMP Molecular Diagnostics (Professor Choi-Kyu Park, College of Veterinary Medicine)
• Development of Technology for the Practical Use of Theranos based on the Removal of Reactive Oxygen Species (Professor Yongmin Chang, School of Medicine)
•  Cohort Research on Skin Microbiome for Functional Cosmetics Development (Professor Jae-Ho Shin, School of Applied Biosciences)
•  Advancement and Commercialization of IoT-based Smart Monitoring and Management Technology for Water and Sewage Facilities (Professor ChoonWook Park, Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation)
•  Development of Fiber Optic Splicing and Non-Destructive Measurement Devices for WDM Packages (Professor Mansik Jeon, School of Electronic Engineering)
•  Development of Mecanum Wheel-Type Heavy-Load Pallet Robots with Autonomous Driving based on Environmental Awareness (Professor Soon Yong Park, School of Electronic Engineering).

Jeehyun Kim, head of KNU Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation as well as of this project, states, Last year, 70% of the KRW 3 billion KNU achieved in technical service revenue was produced from biological or IT-related fields directly affiliated with regional industries. Through the project this year, KNU plans to act as the central hub for regional development, stimulating the regional economy and employment via the establishment of Open-Labs and innovative platforms.

Soo Ran Kim, a professor of Kyungpook National University in the Physics Education Department and Harvard University’s research team developed a critical temperature prediction equation for copper-based superconductors using machine learning and first principle calculation and proposed a new copper superconductor.

The results of the study were published in a July 8 cover paper of The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, an international journal of prestigious physics and chemistry. The first author is Dong Geon Lee, an undergraduate in physics education.

Cuprate superconductors are materials with the highest superconductivity critical temperature (the temperature at which resistance becomes ‘0’) at atmospheric pressure, and a clear mechanism of superconductivity has yet to be identified.

Professor Soo Ran Kim’s team developed a formula for cuprate superconductors using data-based machine learning technology without existing mechanisms. A new cuprate superconductor using Ga was proposed as a model developed in conjunction with this. A critical temperature similar to that of cuprate superconductors with the highest critical temperature was predicted for the proposed superconductor.

Professor Soo Ran Kim said, “This study is significant in that it developed a formulation of critical temperature that had never existed with high prediction using machine learning and first-principle calculation. It is also thought that it will help to understand the mechanisms of cuprate superconductors quantitatively and guide the experimental discovery of new superconductors. “We are currently working on another superconductor with machine learning.”

A research team at Kyungpook National University has developed an advanced water treatment system that can break down most of the naproxen, a drug that has failed to filter existing sewage treatment facilities.

Chang Min Park, a professor of Environmental Engineering at Kyungpook National University, and Yeo Min Yoon, a professor at South Carolina University, developed a technology that can break down 99.9% of naproxen, an anti-inflammatory drug, in an hour.

Existing advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), such as photocatalysts, ozone oxidation, and penton oxidation, require high processing costs and energy and often remain in soil and water systems with low efficiency due to incomplete release of residual drugs such as naproxen.

The research team applied a sono-photometric degradation process to a “hybrid catalyst material with a multi-component hierarchical structure” synthesized by doping a cerium oxide-zirconia (CeO2-ZrO2) nanostructure with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanostructure.

As a result, it was confirmed that when multi-component hybrid nanoparticles absorbed photo-ultrasonic energy, they maximized the production of active oxygen species through sonar light and hot spot formation, eliminating 99.9% of naproxen within an hour.

Furthermore, the research team said that even if multi-component hybrid nanoparticles are reused five times, the processing cost is expected to be reduced in that catalytic properties and structural stability are maintained.

“If we actively utilize the next generation of advanced water treatment technology developed this time, we will be able to drastically reduce the existing huge cost, time, and energy required to deal with naproxen remaining in the environment. In particular, the study is expected to be applied to the removal of other aqueous residual drugs.”