Reports

The aim of the students of the Faculty of Civil Engineering was to get learn and deepen the knowledge of natural constructions, as their diploma theses are focused on straw house construction. As part of the student project, they had built an experimental straw-shaped object and examined it from a number of angles. They investigated the thermal and humidity status of straw walls, compared different methods of clay plasters application, monitored defects caused by deficiencies in the design or construction of the building.

The Dean of the CTU Faculty of Nuclear and Physical Engineering and a specialist in quantum technology, was the first Czech in this millennium to be named Honorary Member (Fellow of the Society) in the international organization The Optical Society (OSA). It is a leading professional international organization for scientists, engineers, students and executives who bring new discoveries, create applications for real life, and accelerate achievements in science of light.

At the 5th annual Structures With Wood Scent 2017 contest, which was attended by 66 students from 9 Czech and Slovak universities, the students from CTU won in several categories. This year's theme was Wood is the Way, which is the title of an awareness campaign launched last year by the Wood for Life Foundation.

On Thursday, 7 September, a videomapping took place on buildings CTU-CIIRC and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering buildings, which concluded the celebrations of the 310th anniversary of CTU. These were commenced on 17 January, the day when an Imperial Rescript was issued in 1707, clearly supporting the funding of engineering education.

On Thursday, 7 September, the Chairman of the State Material Reserves Administration (SSHR), Ing. Pavel Švagr, CSc., And Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, CTU, prof. MUDr. Ivan Dylevský, DrSc., signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, Support and Information.

On 4 September, with almost two hundred guests, the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC), started to develop three important activities. In cooperation with the founding partners, the National Center of Industry 4.0 (NCP 4.0) was established by the solemn signature of a Memorandum. The center aims to disseminate awareness on Industry 4.0 and develop close cooperation between the academic and industrial spheres. In addition, CIIRC introduced the Testbed for Industry 4.0 as a new research and experimental workplace for testing innovative solutions and processes for so-called smart factories. And last but not least, CIIRC, in cooperation with BUT Brno and the leading German research organizations DFKI and ZeMA, launched a prestigious European project, the RICAIP, that develops a completely new concept of advanced industrial production.

On 5 September, Times Higher Education published a new ranking of the world's top 1000 universities. For the second time in a row, the University of Oxford has won, with the University of Cambridge finished second. CTU in Prague defended its position at the 601st - 800th range and is thus still the best technical university in the Czech Republic.

An important discovery that helps to better understand the properties of cosmic matter shortly after the big bang has been accomplished by Czech scientists from the Faculty of Nuclear and Physical Engineering, CTU and the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic together with their scientific colleagues from 12 other countries. The research showing that quark-gluon plasma is a fluid with the best known vortical properties, was published by the prestigious magazine on the front page.

On 30 August, students from the Department of Control Engineering of the CTU Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Ing. Jiří Zemánek and Ing. Martin Gurtner received award for the best video popularizing automated management in the IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest 2017 competition organized by the IEEE International Engineering Organization. The clip they created demonstrates the complex concepts of automatic control to a wider audience with a simple example of a ball and a hoop.

On 28 August, an informal meeting with a six-member delegation of the US Congress was held at CTU. The event, co-organized by the US Embassy in the Czech Republic, was led by Congressman Steve Chabot (Ohio) and Congressman Stephen F. Lynch (Massachusetts). The aim of the visit, which was part of the Central and Eastern European visit of the congress (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia), was the interest of US partners in promoting innovation, young talents and start-ups in an academic environment.