Reports

January 15th witnessed the successful defence of dissertation thesis before International Committee in doctoral study program ‘History of Technology’ within the double degree / co-tutelle program in which CTU in Prague cooperates with the Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. The author of the thesis is doc. Ing. Martin Pospíšil, Ph.D., who elaborated a study ‘Graphical structural engineering in the Czech Lands’, covering 2nd half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century.

‘Transformation of ethical aspects with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence Journalism (UI)’ is a new project that builds on the interdisciplinary concept of journalism and computer science. Collaborators on this project are The Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University, the Department of Computer Science at CTU Electrical Engineering Faculty, Department of Information Technology at the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the West Bohemian University in Pilsen and Czech Press Agency. The primary objective of the research is the emergence of a UI system that will generate texts for further use in journalism.

The new Internet application for controlling the interactive facade at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Dejvice was developed by students from the Center for Knowledge Management (CZM). Visitors to the site will learn about the graphics it is currently displaying, or they can change it according to the selected template. The LINKY facade also provides information on public transport departures, displays binary hours, or can even launch a simplified version of the world-famous Space Invaders arcade game.

The jury of the largest international student design contest in the world (TISDC 2018) has appreciated the bachelor work of student Tereza Vacková from the Studio of Tvarůžek of the Institute of Industrial Design at the Faculty of Architecture. The jury awarded her a special award in the International Design Association category for the CleS tool - Clever Seek. This is an unobtrusive device that helps the visually impaired in orientation. The device is reminiscent of headphones, but it does not fit in the ears, but around the neck.

CTU in Prague succeeded in appealing to the Supreme Court in a dispute with entrepreneur Ing. Radim Jančura. In the debate about the repair of the D1 motorway he accused the CTU in Prague of participating in a criminal plot. Ing. Jančura is obliged to publish the apology contained in the verdict of the court of first instance and also to pay for the costs of the proceedings.

On Thursday, 17 January, a total of six original structures were presented to the public with participation of the Faculty leadership, CTU Rector doc. Vojtěch Petráček and partner of the project, the Administration of the Krkonoše National Park. The shelters will be moved to the mountains in the spring, until then they will be displayed in front of the building of the Faculty of Architecture in Dejvice.

A great public and academic interest was raised by the memorial act at the Jan Palach Memorial Plaque on the building of the Charles University's Faculty of Philosophy at Jan Palach Square on 16 January 2019. This was organized by the Student Council of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of burning of student Jan Palach on Wenceslas Square in protest against the increasing passivity of the society in regard to the soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in January 1969.

Questions about breathing of a person trapped in an avalanche or how quickly oxygen is lost are being investigated at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at CTU by a team of scientists from the Department of Biomedical Technology in cooperation with the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport at the Charles University and the Czech Army. Within the avalanche research, they focus on breathing of victims under the snow.

There are several large-scale international evaluations that compare world universities, using different methodologies to measure higher education institutions. The CTU in Prague is ranked higher or lower in these evaluations, but it perceives the QS as a standard, especially for reasons of quality, reputation, quotations and number of students. QS World Rankings compares thousands of world universities based on criteria such as the academic reputation of the workplace and its staff, the number of quotes or the number of local and foreign students. The Czech universities were placed as follows: 317. Charles University, 531-540. Czech Technical University in Prague, 571-580. Masaryk University and 651th - 700th. Brno University of Technology and Palacký University.

The international team from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague and Delft University of Technology won in the competition announced by Taxify and Robotex International 2018 in spring of this year. The task was to optimize the operation of the fleet of passenger service vehicles. The competition teams had to design a dispatching algorithm for a simulated fleet of autonomous taxi vehicles in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. A successful algorithm had to maximize reward for transported passengers, while respecting various constraints that simulate actual operating conditions. The winning solution was then awarded a prize of € 4,000.