Reports

An international team led by Czech scientists has demonstrated that one of the basic natural principles is also involved in emergence of epileptic seizures. Revealing the existence of the so-called critical deceleration principle in the epileptic brain assumes that the seizure is preceded by a gradual loss of stability and resistance of the brain, which becomes more prone to the onset of seizures. The results obtained provide important insights into understanding the mechanisms of seizure formation, opens up space to explain the impact of many other epileptic events, and unify the current - often contradictory - theory of seizure. The results of the research bring new possibilities to explain the causes of loss of brain stability, to develop seizure risk prediction techniques, to adjust treatment depending on the rate of seizure risk, or to increase the effectiveness of healing brain stimulation. Researchers at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Institute of Physiology at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in cooperation with colleagues from the Institute of Computer Science of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the Second Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University and colleagues from foreign universities in Melbourne, Oxford and Birmingham have demonstrated on experimental models and real-world patients that detectable changes in brain activity can precede an epileptic seizure.

The Alquist team, made up of students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Information Technology, took the second place in the finals of the prestigious Alex Prize Competition on Best Conversational Artificial Intelligence, organized by the American giant Amazon. For the second time, it was the only team from a non-English-speaking country that made it to the final round. The aim of the competition is to develop an artificial intelligence for Amazon Alexa, capable of chatting with people on popular topics such as movies, sports or music. The competition was attended by leading universities from around the world. Moreover, the Czechs again advanced from the first place in semifinal. The results were announced at Re: Invent 2018 on Monday 26 November in Las Vegas in the evening, local time. The team, headed by Jan Šedivý from CTU-CIIRC and formed by Jan Pichl, Petr Marek, Jakub Konrad, Martin Matulík and Petr Lorenc, will come back from the USA with the $ 100,000 prize which converts to over 2 million crowns.

In the penultimate weekend of November, the CTU's sports team took part at the IVth World Interuniversity Games held in Barcelona. The opportunity to represent our university in strong competition from 3 continents, 30 countries, 76 universities and about 2,500 athletes has been revarded to 67 of our students, members of 7 sports teams. The most striking success has been achieved by our women’s basketball players who have won the first price in this important world competition. In their group, consisting of strong teams, they had defeated the Economics University of Bratislava 26:14, the Paris IESEG 29:5, the St. Petersburg Mining State University 29:10, and had lost to Cairo American University 29:32. In the quarterfinals, they had dealt with the Polytechnic University Bucharest 23:7, with the Comenius University Bratislava 23: 11 in the semifinals and then defeated the Egyptian Arab Academy AASTMT 28: 14 in the finals.

The Day of the Fight for Freedom and Democracy, was comemorised bz the Faculty of Architecture together with the Rector of the Czech Technical University, doc. Vojtěch Petráček and Dean of the faculty prof. Ladislav Lábus by lighting a candle on Národní třída and touring the new polyfunctional building called DRN on the corner of Mikulandská and Národní streets.

Ambassador of the Republic of India Narinder Chauhan visited the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering to get acquainted with its activities and equipment and discuss the possibilities of further cooperation in the field of education. She had also launched the VR-1 School Nuclear Reactor model Vrabec on her own. The ambassador was accompanied by the Rector of the Czech Technical University, doc. Vojtěch Petráček, Dean of FJFI prof. Igor Jex and Vice-Dean for Science and Research at FJFI, doc. Libor Šnobl.

Students of the Czech Technical University and Charles University from the Alquist team created the first experimental film in collaboration with the Rebel & Glory and the CoFilm which can be controlled by the audience. ‘The Story of Alquist’ connects the latest technology with film production to create an innovative, interactive experience. The whole application is in English and aims to outline current technological possibilities. It's available for free on the internet or for download on Google Play.

More than 300 new professional computers and other equipment can be used by students and teachers from this academic year at the Faculty of Information Technology. By modernizing the technical background of the teaching space, the faculty thus took the first step towards complete innovation of its ICT infrastructure. The innovations were launched during summer months so that students and teachers could experience them immediately from the start of the semester. There has been a complete and unified replacement of the hardware used and the installation of new software.

Already for the fifth time, employers have evaluated high-quality secondary schools at regional level in regions and faculties of colleges and universities at the national level. The aim of the competition is to highlight their strengths and results, to inform prospective pupils and their parents.

On Thursday 1 November, the 2018 Samsung Hockey Battle was held in the Tipsport Arena with CTU, UE,CUNI and CULS teams competing. The final between our CTU team and the UE team was decided by the raids. The winning raid by none other than Our team captain Josef Vostracký got the third raid and made it the winning one. This year our guys in blue jerseys won the 1st place.

CTU joins the Defense and Security Industry Association as its member. Companies from the defense and security industry have long been cooperating with CTU in the field of research and development. This cooperation greatly helps to raise the technical and technological level of the defense and security industry in the Czech Republic and also helps to train top professionals who are already preparing for their work in this industrial area during their studies.