Reports

The search for a lost miniature source of radioactive caesium-137 has managed to keep authorities and emergency services in Western Australia busy in recent days. The source of the dangerous beta and gamma radiation was finally found after an intensive deployment of rescue and firefighters and special equipment, but the alarming incident will continue to raise many questions.

Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalization and Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartoš and Director of Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of CTU Ondřej Velek signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of building construction development on 30 January 2023. This will be implemented in particular by National Centre for Construction 4.0, which operates at the Institute. The cooperation will contribute to the development of information technologies in the construction industry and their integration into practice. Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Bartoš also discussed with representatives of the building construction sector current issues in the industry.

The Centre for International Development Projects at Czech Technical University in Prague (ICWD) is proud to announce the successful completion of a three-year global development education and awareness project. During this project, more than a hundred lectures were organized, covering a wide range of disciplines and interdisciplinary specializations. The lectures were aimed at the general public, university students, and students in high school and the final years of primary school. These lectures provided participants with the opportunity to broaden their horizons, gain new knowledge and insights into various issues of humanitarian and development projects from different regions of the world, learn new information about the importance of these projects and the importance of technical aspects in their implementation.

The Gaudeamus further and higher education fair at the Prague-Letňany fairground was again a popular event, especially for secondary school students, for whom selecting a university and a study programme is a major step in their lives. It was estimated that about 13 thousand people attended the fair. The CTU stand was busy on all three days, not only because of the prestige of the university and its study programmes, but also because of the opportunity to see the interesting exhibits that were on show.

Three CTU students, the winners of the second edition of the EuroTeQaThon international competition held at Technical University of Munich in November 2022, spent two very busy days in Brussels. On 19 and 20 January 2023 they presented their project on waste heat recovery and met with representatives of the European Commission, including visit to the European Parliament.

Czech Technical University in Prague together with Technical and Testing Institute of Construction Prague and certification company Research Institute of Civil Engineering have been operating, managing and developing the SBToolCZ tool for assessing the sustainability of buildings since 2011. Its users will have access to an updated version from 2023, which will offer improved features and will be in line with the current legislative, environmental and social situation.

Staff members and friends of CTU in Prague came together on the invitation of the rector, Dr. Vojtěch Petráček, on Tuesday, January 17th at the New Year concert in the Rudolfinum.

Degradation processes occurring in materials of structural parts and technological units exposed to mechanical stresses, high temperatures, aggressive environment, radiation, etc. during operation can cause serious operational accidents leading to significant economic and ecological damage, possibly even loss of life. The research of these processes and fractographic analysis of damaged parts is one of the main activities of the Fractographic Department of the Department of Materials (KMAT) of Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FJFI), which is celebrating 50 years of its existence. The anniversary celebration will take place in the FJFI building at Trojanova 13, Prague 2 on Thursday, 19 January 2023, from 13:00.

The game Hell Baked, in which players as hell officials punish sinners, won this year's competition of semester projects by students of Faculty of Electrical Engineering of CTU. The winning team, consisting of Ondřej Baštař, Jan Kabíček, Ondřej Pelikán and Jakub Profota, scored points in a competition of 12 other groups. The presentation of all beta versions of the game and the announcement of the winners took place on Tuesday, 10 January, at FEL CTU building on Prague's Charles Square. The three best projects were decided by a 15-member jury consisting of academy members and representatives of game studios.

Experts in artificial intelligence from Faculty of Information Technology of Czech Technical University in Prague (FIT CTU) have won two competitions at the prestigious international conference NeurIPS 2022 (Neural Information Processing Systems). Scientists from FIT CTU won the competition for modelling the atmosphere of exoplanets and the competition for the most accurate weather forecast, such as extreme rainfall in developing countries. The New Orleans conference on machine learning was attended by 10,000 artificial intelligence experts from around the world.