Central and Eastern European Survey
General Info
Department of Computer Science
University of West Bohemia
Type of Organisation: public
Number of Employees: Less than 10
Activities developed: Research, Education.
A Brief Information about the University of West Bohemia:
The University of West Bohemia was established by the decree
of the Czech National Council in 1991 when the Institute of
Technology in Pilsen and the College of Education were
merged.
The Institute of Technology was founded in 1949 as a branch
of the Czech Technical University in Prague. In 1953 it
became an independent institution and began to grow rapidly.
In 1960 it was divided into two faculties -- the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering} and the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering. For the greater part of its existence the
Institute provided courses for students preparing for
careers in mechanical and electrical engineering. Two new
faculties -- the Faculty of Applied Sciences and the Faculty
of Economics -- were established in 1990, a few months after
the Velvet Revolution.
The College of Education was founded in 1948 as a part of
the Faculty of Education of Charles University, Prague. For
some time it operated as an independent Higher School of
Education, then as an Institute of Education and since 1964
as an independent College of Education training teachers for
both primary and secondary schools. Since 1991 the College
of Education has been a part of the University of West
Bohemia.
In 1993, two years after the University of West Bohemia was
founded, a sixth faculty -- the Faculty of Law -- was
established in order to meet the increased demand for legal
education arising from the changes in the Czech economic,
social and legal systems after 1989. At present, plans are
being made for the establishment of the Faculty of
Humanities. Together with the Faculty of Medicine, which is
a part of Charles University, Prague, the University of West
Bohemia is able to provide higher education in most of the
major areas. Although it attracts students from all over the
country and also from abroad, its focus is on students from
West Bohemia as it is the only institution of higher
education in that part of the country which prepares
students for careers in engineering (electrical and
mechanical), science (computer science, applied mathematics,
physics, mechanics), education (for both primary and
secondary school teachers in a wide range of subjects),
economics, humanities (philosophy, fine arts), and law.
The Department of Computer Science guarantees a five-year engineering
and a three-year bachelor studies programme in Computer Science at the
Faculty of Applied Sciences. Students can specialise in one of the
following fields: Distributed Systems, Software Engineering, Digital
Systems, Computer Graphics and Visualization, Multimedia Information
Systems, Parallel Processing and Numerical Methods. The Department is
accredited to provide doctoral studies in the field of Computer
Science.
The department also guarantees lecturing of Information Technology
courses at the faculties of Electrical Engineering, Economics and Law,
and in co-operation with Department of Mathematics runs a course in
Information and Financial Management on both bachelor and master
levels, with specializations in Financial Informatics, and Applied
Statistics and Finances.
The graduates find work in the research, development and
implementation of computer systems and their software. They are active
in the design and operation of information systems and networks and in
application software developments for industry, agriculture, banking,
medicine, economy, etc. The Computer Science Department offers
optional teacher training courses that qualify the graduates to be
employed as secondary school teachers.
The research activities of the Department are focused on the following
topics:
Hardware equipment for distributed systems, signal processing,
parallel systems and computer networks. Means of formal spcification
of digital structures and their implementation. Methods and means of
data communication in distributed systems; means of formal
specification of network protocols, their implementation and
testing. Performance and reliability models; experimental
verification of distributed algorithms in quasi-parallel and
parallel environments, and fault tolerance of these algorithms.
Methods and means of information and database system design;
integration of database and knowledge systems; translation of
declarative languages into SQL. Object oriented analysis and design
of information systems. Knowledge representation in deductive
databases. Web pages -- database integration. Knowledge discovery
in databases.
Application of artificial intelligence, knowledge--based systems, and
visual data processing concepts and methods in pattern recognition.
Development of an effective human--machine communication system based
on multimedia interaction. Speech recognition and natural language
processing, development of a multi--lingual information retrieval
dialog system. Application of pattern recognition methods in
fingerprint recognition.
Fundamental algorithms for computer graphics, computational
geometry, scientific and medical visualization, multimedia and
hypermedia systems, graphical interaction and virtual reality
systems.
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