Faculty of Informatics

The Faculty of Informatics was established in 1994. Today, with more than 2,300 students, it offers study programmes at Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral levels in various fields of studies such as computer science, Informatics, Applied Informatics and Teaching for Secondary Schools, Computer Systems and Technologies.

Contact information

link to a new windowwww.fi.muni.cz
www.muni.cz/research

Botanická 68a
602 00 Brno
Czech Republic
Phone: +420-549 491 810
Fax: +420-549 491 82
research@fidotmunidotcz

Detailed information on R&D areas and projects:

 

Formal modelling and verification of computer systemsback

The research covers both theoretical foundations and experimental tools for formal modelling and verification of computer systems. The main research priorities can be summarized as follows: algorithmic analysis of probabilistic aspects of computer systems modelled by stochastic processes and games, algorithms and tools for parallel model-checking, equivalence-checking and model-checking of infinite-state systems, the design and analysis of component systems, static analysis of programmes written in imperative languages.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Quantum information processingback

Attempts to make use of the laws and limitations of quantum physics to improve efficiency and quality of computation, communication, and cryptography belong to the most challenging problems of current science and technology. Research in this area at FI MU concentrates on exploration of the power of quantum entanglement and non-locality, perhaps two of the most puzzling quantum phenomena, and on a variety of problems of quantum cryptography such as encryption or anonymity.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Algorithmic applications of discrete mathematicsback

The group investigates the current hot "structural" trends in discrete mathematics, and mainly in graph theory, and is looking for applications of related deep theoretical results in design of more efficient algorithms for hard combinatorial problems. The two main areas of interest are (1) the use of structural width parameters in fixed parameter tractable algorithms on graphs, digraphs and matroids, and (2) the use of topological graph theory in approaching the notoriously hard crossing number problem. Another research priority are algorithms for GPS routing.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Computer graphics and visualizationback

The focus of the research activity is the development of a suite of powerful mathematical routines and data structures for fast visualization, real-time collision detection, and for haptic rendering and exploration. On the system level, multiple computer processors are tied together with diverse and imperfect peripheral devices, and with a human being into one working system. The principles as well as integrated tasks are tested in three core applications: general travelling and manipulation techniques in 3D virtual environments, protein analysis and visualization (system CAVER 2.0), collision detection methods in dynamic environments, and haptic visualization of 2D and 3D objects.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Biomedical image analysisback

The Centre for Biomedical Image Analysis focuses on the development of methods for the processing of biomedical image data acquired using optical microscopy. The following topics are covered: image acquisition, aberration correction, image pre-processing, image registration, image segmentation, object reconstruction and object tracking in time-lapse imaging. Special attention is paid to the studies of spatial structure and function of cell and its components.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Similarity searching in digital data collectionsback

In order to support content based retrieval in a variety of exponentially growing digital data collections on the web, extensible and scalable search engines are developed.  The extensibility is achieved by considering similarity as the mathematical metric space, while the peer-to-peer communication paradigm is applied to deal with scalability. The tuning of search performance is achieved by a clear separation of logical peer structure and a suitable physical computer network infrastructure. The scalability and extensibility of the metric space searching has been successfully tested on numerous data collections and demonstrated mainly on image databases. However, numerous application areas can benefit from this versatile approach, for example computational biology, data mining, geographic and multimedia databases, data cleaning and integration, computer aided design, etc.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Large distributed systems and networkback

The research focus spans from protocols for transport and processing of multimedia data, through problems of building and operating large scale distributed infrastructures (Grids) to applications that use distributed systems. In collaboration with national and international partners - most notably CESNET and CzechLight - we work on design of optic network components (e.g. fully optical splitters) and protocols for high-speed and multi-point data transfers, processing and presentation (including HD multi-display visualization system SAGE), using a combination of parallelization and active network principles. The orchestration and self-organization of distributed systems, including problems of planning in a non-reliable environment, are also investigated. Another aspect is a security of such large distributed systems, with emphasis on seamless integration of different authentication and authorization protocols. Recently, we added virtualization as a mean to solve difficult problems of scheduling and heterogeneity in distributed systems.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Computer and communications securityback

The main areas of research are computer network security (for both wireless and metallic networks, and including sensor networks), smart card security and related cryptographic applications, biometric authentication and the use of cryptography for creation and operation of secure systems. Group members are also involved in computer privacy and identity related research projects, as well as in investigation of cryptographic protocols and applications.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Enterprise systems and servicesback

The Enterprise Systems and Services group focuses on various aspects of enterprise-size software architectures, information systems, and IT services in both teaching and R&D. The group participated in several European R&D projects, such as Leonardo da Vinci V3, GS Soil, and DELLIISS together with prominent industrial partners, namely IBM Czech Republic. The group is involved in large projects for healthcare and environment protection. The UIRON project aimed at implementation and validation of a robust knowledge management and analytical system for oncology. The group also actively contributes to open-source.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Natural language processingback

The Laboratory of Natural Language Processing at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, performs both theoretical and applied research in the following areas: analysis of all levels (morphological, syntactical and semantic level) of written texts; corpus management and lexical databases; semantic representation of natural language expressions; semantic web, ontologies, knowledge representation and reasoning; synthesis and recognition of speech (spoken Czech); dialog representation and management; assistive technologies; applications of machine learning techniques to disambiguation of corpus data.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Mission-critical systemsback

The Computer Systems Unit is concerned with research, development and production of large-scaled information systems and data services with high number of active users, complex on-line transactions and massive data processing. Practical results include thousands of application used by tens of thousands concurrent users daily. The research provides also several unique solutions of load management, distributed computing, language processing and plagiarism detection.

International awards:

  • EUNIS Elite Award 2005 for excellence in implementing Administrative Information Systems for Higher Education: Award Winner
  • PAN'09 - 1st International Competition on Plagiarism Detection: 2nd place
  • Itanium Solution Alliance Award 2009 in Mission-Critical Data: Finalist

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Electronic publishing and digital librariesback

Research on conveying information by digital means, especially by the process of computer typesetting and publishing for print, web and retrieval from digital libraries is carried on, with the emphasis on handling of mathematical and scientific texts.

Selected projects solved in this area:

 

Collaborative foreign entitiesback

  • Aalborg University [DK]     
  • Academia Sinica [TW]        
  • Adam Mickiewicz University [PL]
  • Argonne National Laboratory [US] 
  • Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí [MX]  
  • Brandeis University [US]    
  • ENS Cachan [FR]    
  • EuriX, Italy [IT]       
  • European Environment Agency [DK]        
  • Free University of Amsterdam [NL]        
  • German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg [DE]     
  • Heidelberg University [DE]  
  • IBM Research Lab in Haifa [IL]     
  • INRIA Lyon [FR]      
  • Institute for Informatics and Telematics [IT]      
  • Instituteof Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Sciences [SK]        
  • Istanbul University[TR]
  • Itanium Solutions Alliance [US]
  • Johann Wolfgang Goethe - University Frankfurt am Main [DE]
  • Joseph Fourier University [FR]
  • Jozef Stefan Institute [SI]
  • KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) [KR]
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology [DE]
  • Korea Institute for Advanced Study [KR]
  • Kyushu University[JP]
  • Louisiana State University [US]
  • Max Planck Institute for Informatics [DE]
  • Microsoft Research Cambridge [UK]
  • National Research Council of Italy [IT]
  • Novell (Europe)
  • RWTH Aachen University [DE]
  • Saint Petersburg State University [RU]
  • Slovak Environmental Agency [SK]
  • Soka Gakkai International (Europe)
  • Technical University Dortmund [DE]
  • Technical University of Dresden [DE]
  • Technical University of Munich [DE]
  • Telefonica [ES]
  • Telenor Group [NO]
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [US]
  • University of Bologna [IT]
  • University of Bristol [UK]
  • University of Cambridge [UK]
  • University of Cordoba [ES]
  • University of Edinburg [UK]
  • University of Gottingen [DE]
  • University of Illinois at Chicago [US]
  • University of Lisbon [PT]
  • University of Malaga [ES]
  • University of Namur [BE]   
  • University of Navarra [ES] 
  • University of Nottingham [UK]      
  • University of Padova [IT]
  • University of Porto [PT]     
  • University of the West of England, Bristol  [UK]
  • University of Tokyo [JP]     
  • University of Twente [NL]
  • University of Vienna [AT]   
  • University of Zagreb [HR]
  • Uppsala University [SE]      
  • Xerox Research Centre Europe [FR]        
  • Zentralblatt Math, Germany [DE]
 
 
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