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Positive experiences of the visiting student at the Master Studies of Applied Mathematics

It is our great pleasure that visiting students, such as Greta, can bring home great impressions about the exchange programmes at our Faculty.

My name is Greta Malaspina, I come from Italy and last year I got the opportunity to spend three months at the Department of Mathematics and Informatics of the University of Novi Sad.

During the second year of my Master program in mathematics at the University of Florence, I decided that I would have liked to go abroad for the traineeship period required by my study program, and my advisor of the time informed me of the international agreement between our department and the University of Novi Sad and suggested me to spend a few months at UNS.

Novi Sad is a beautiful and welcoming city, made lively and young by the huge number of students that every year attend its university, and there I found everything that I could have hoped from an exchange program.

At the DMI I worked at my first research-related task, together with passionate professors who introduced me to the problem and guided me through the whole process of developing, studying and testing new ideas. The collaboration continued when I came back to my university and my work at UNS about subsampled spectral methods for unconstrained optimization became the topic of my master thesis.

During my time there I also got the opportunity to participate to some of the many activities organized by the department and to take part into some of the courses from the Data Science study program. Participating to the weekly seminars and the classes, I’ve been introduced to several new topics which gave me the chance to enlarge my perspective over my interests and to greatly increase my knowledge, not only about my specifical field. These activities also allowed me to meet a number of local students, and getting to know their different backgrounds made me develop a new point of view on all the things that I had been studying in the previous years.

I have always been convinced that working in different environments and with different people is of a great importance for the development of a student, and I think that the University of Novi Sad has been for me an ideal place where to have such an experience.

Achievements

The team of the Faculty of Sciences won the second award for the best business idea in the food sector

The team of the Faculty of Sciences from Novi Sad, comprising Marija Lesjak, Ivana Beara and Natasa Simin, as well as the entrepreneur Bojana Mumovic Perusko also from Novi Sad, won the second award at the prestigious competition for the best business idea in the food sector organized by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

The competition was held on November 16th in Budapest, where, from the initial 75 teams, six best teams competed. The aim of the competition was to present your own innovative business idea in the form of a business plan and a four-minute business pitch to the members of the jury. The team from Novi Sad presented their start-up FeJuice and its innovative product fruit and vegetable juices for the prevention and treatment of anaemia. The idea about FeJuice juices came from the scientific research conducted by the team at the Faculty of Sciences. The jury judged the ideas based on their attractiveness, market demand for the product and team quality and awarded generous prize amounts to the best start-ups as a recognition and an incentive for further development of their business.

Achievements

The Faculty of Sciences participated as a partner institution in the project financed by the European Commission – the Rearing of Larvae and Adult Diptera (fly) and their Application

A project with an interesting acronym – FLYHIGH and the full title – Insect-plant Relationships: Insights into Biodiversity and New Applications, was the first project of this kind financed at the University of Novi Sad in the period 2015 – 2018. The project gathered researchers, students, laboratory workers and technical staff from the University of Helsinki (Finland), the University of Alicante and the company Bioflytech (Spain), the University of Novi Sad and the company AgriProtein (the Republic of South Africa), who studied the life cycle of insects and plants with the aim of obtaining valuable information in terms of ecology and evolution, which will focus on applied ecological research, such as artificial rearing of flies. Artificial rearing of flies can produce useful end products, because adult members and their larvae can be used in animal feeding, valorisation of agricultural by-products or as bio-agents for pollination services in natural, semi-natural and greenhouse environments.

On the one hand, the project gathered outstanding academic experts in the fields of entomology and ecology, and on the other hand, the experts in mass rearing of insects, which resulted in sharing knowledge and experience and enabled the creation of synergy and advancement in the primary ecological and evolutionary sector, and it also encouraged the development of integrated knowledge and innovative ideas for prospective commercial application in the field of artificial rearing of flies.

In the past few days, a final meeting was held in Alicante, Spain. Young collaborators received training in the field of rearing larval stages of insects which can be used as pollenisers, for organic waste decomposition or for animal or human nutrition. Three young researchers from Serbia (the Faculty of Sciences and the Biosense Institute) underwent the training. It was significant that the project accomplished all that was planned and it also exceeded the plans. In effect, two companies that were involved in the realisation of the project had significantly advanced in the past three years:

  • The AgriProtein Company from the Republic of South Africa, Cape Town received an investment of one million dollars and on account to that established its brand which is now being sold in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Korea, Dubai. Two fly factories are made per month, recycling organic waste and producing several different products, with the annual plan to reach 25 on average in each consecutive year.
  • The BioFlyTech Company from Spain, Alicante concluded final negotiations about a huge investment in millions which will enable their growth and expansion.

Regarding the scientific institutions participating in the project (the Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad, Zoological Museum in Helsinki and the Department of the Environmental Sciences from Alicante), their scientific results are really impressive. Numerous scientific publications were issued, and a lot more is to come after the results are obtained. Mass greenhouse production of insects as possible pollenisers could be expected as a follow-up to the research and the obtained results.

In conclusion, these are very impressive results with prospective application in our country.

Achievements

Curricula Development in the fields of reproductive biology/ assisted reproductive technologies and regenerative medicine in Serbia

Reducing infertility in human population, improving genetic potential in animal husbandry and the conservation of autochthonous species as well as the application of regenerative medicine in the treatment of diseases, all represent the challenges of the modern society.

A team of professors from the Department of Biology and Ecology, the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad are leading a big international project “Curricula Development in the Fields of Reproductive Biology/ Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Regenerative Medicine in Serbia”.

The objectives of this project are the following:

  • Modernisation and development of Master Studies in Reproductive Biology in Serbian and English to educate Reproductive Biologists – Embryologists to work in teams for in vitro fertilization, which are jointly carried out by the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad;
  • Developing specialization programmes in Animal Reproductive Biotechnology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade, to educate the veterinarians in the application of assisted reproductive technologies;
  • Developing Master Studies in Regenerative Medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac.

Тhree European universities participate in the project: Sofia University ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’, Bulgaria, the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the University of Newcastle, England, as well as three partners from the SME sector: Special Gynaecological Hospital ‘Ferona’ (Novi Sad, Serbia), Livestock and Veterinary Centre for Reproduction and Artificial Insemination ‘Velika Plana’ (Velika Plana, Serbia), Medical Centre ReproBioMed (Sofia, Bulgaria).

The realization of this project will transfer best practices from the EU universities and enterprises into the higher education institutions in Serbia in the fields of human and animal reproduction and regenerative medicine. The introduction of new study programmes will contribute to the modernization, availability and internalization of university education in Serbia. In October, 2019 these master academic studies will start, which will open up an opportunity for students to choose a new area of expertise, and at the same time this programme will make the studies at the Department of Biology and Ecology and the Faculty of Medicine become more attractive and up-to-date.

It is expected that the first generation of students will complete new study programmes in 2020 and 2021 and become competent and ready to work in the fields of human and animal reproduction as well as regenerative medicine.

Furthermore, in 2019 life-long learning courses for reproductive biologists – embryologists and veterinarians will start. Universities in Serbia, participants in the project, believe that new study programmes will attract more students not only at the national but also at the regional level, since similar study programmes do not exist in the region.

Achievements

Top result in 2017 – H2020 I-BiDaaS project (“Industrial-driven big data as a self-service solution”)

The convergence of the internet of things (IoT), cloud, and big data, create new challenges and opportunities for data analytics. Human- and machine-created data is being aggregated, transforming our economy and society. To face these challenges, companies call upon expert analysts and consultants to assist them. I-BiDaaS (2018-2020) is a EU H2020 research and innovation project that proposes a self-service solution for Big Data analytics.

This solution will be transformative for organizations, as it will empower their employees with the right knowledge, and give the true decision-makers the insights they need to make the right decisions. It will shift the power balance within an organization, increase efficiency, reduce costs, improve employee empowerment, and increase profitability. I-BiDaaS aims to empower users to easily utilize and interact with Big Data technologies, by designing, building, and demonstrating, a unified solution that significantly increases the speed of data analysis while coping with the rate of data asset growth, and facilitates cross-domain data-flow towards a thriving data-driven EU economy. IBiDaaS will be tangibly validated by three real-world, industry-lead experiments, in the domains of banking, manufacturing and telecommunications.

One of the project participants is Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad.

Achievements

The Faculty of Sciences invites us to observe the stars

The project ‘Vojvodina and Bács-Kiskun Night Sky as a Novel Touristic Attraction’, with the acronym VoBaNISTA, is financed by the Interreg-IPA Cross-border Cooperation Programme Hungary-Serbia. The participants in the project are research associates and professors at the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad, as well as the members of Astronomical Societies of Novi Sad and Backa Palanka, together with the Baja Astronomical Observatory Foundation, Hungary.

The aim of the project is to use untouched potential of the region Vojvodina – Bac-Kiskun which is the quality of the night sky, natural reserves and cultural heritage and to develop them into new tourist attractions of the region. Namely, the project will be realised through building a unique mobile observatory which will enable tourists to observe astronomical objects – planets, star clusters and galaxies as well as the phenomena on the sun, our mother star, mainly from the protected nature reserve areas, as well as in urban areas. This calls for the collaboration with tourist organizations and the participation in festivals and other events which are relevant for tourism in the region. Workshops will also be organised with the aim of pointing out the problem of light pollution, as well as several astronomical camps in Fruska Gora.

Achievements

Our Professor, the Vice President of the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry

ECMI – European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry is a consortium of academic institutions from Europe and industrial companies which act cooperatively with the aim of promoting and supporting mathematical modelling in activities which are of social and economic importance. They also educate mathematicians for solving real problems and thus increase the number of mathematical experts in respective fields of applied mathematics.

This renowned organisation has recently announced their new Vice President and they appointed Dr Nataša Krejic, Full Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Informatics, who will take over the new position on January 1st.

Prof. Krejic conducts research in numerical mathematics and optimisation with applications. In the course of her research career, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Campinas in Brazil on several occasions, participating in the projects financed by Sao Paolo Research Foundation, Brazil, Erasmus Mundus researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Holland, 2009), senior researcher at the Central European University in Budapest (2009) and Sigma Agilee scholarship holder at the Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. She published more than 60 scientific papers and five textbooks. In 2004, she received the successful researcher award from the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and Charles Broyden award in 2016. She mentored seven doctoral dissertations. She was the project leader in two research projects and she is the editor in three international mathematical journals.

This choice is a result of the activity of our Department of Mathematics and Informatics within this consortium. The Department became a full member of the ECMI educational node in May last year with the Master Programme in Applied Mathematics and it is the only full member outside the European Union, and together with the Sofia University forms the only full educational node in Eastern Europe. ECMI committee gave high scores to this programme, recognising it as modern and promising, opening up opportunities to follow modern trends in applied mathematics and being harmonized with high standards of ECMI.

As a full member of this big European mathematical family, the Department of Mathematics and Informatics gained numerous advantages. ECMI regularly organizes all forms of meetings, conferences for teachers and students, winter and summer schools for students, meetings aimed to model real problems (so-called Modelling Week), publishing calls for various projects, posting job announcement for European companies, etc. Students can share their experiences and knowledge via courses in applied mathematics. Most importantly, the students of this master programme will also receive ECMI certificate after fulfilling some additional requirements, in addition to the master degree certificate from University of Novi Sad, which will open up a door to Europe for them. Three years ago, the Faculty of Sciences hosted the 99th Meeting of the European Study Group for Solving Current Problems in the Industry which was organised in collaboration with the European Consortium. Over 50 mathematicians from Serbia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Poland participated and jointly solved problems of six Serbian companies. The workshop created opportunities for future scientific projects and further cooperation of the Faculty of Sciences with the present companies, as well as the cooperation among the participating universities.

Next year, the Faculty of Sciences will host ECMI Modelling Week, and will welcome numerous master students from ECMI universities, and the students will work on real problems that can be solved by applying mathematical modelling.

Achievements

Novi Sad – the Centre of Medical Physics

In the Rectorate, University of Novi Sad, 8th Alpe-Adria Medical Physics Meeting was held from 25th May to 27th May 2017, organized by the Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad, Serbian Society of Medical Physics and the Society for Radiation Protection of Serbia and Montenegro. Novi Sad welcomed over 120 experts from 22 countries, and for the duration of three days, more than 50 scientific papers were presented, in the fields of medical physics in radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, diagnostics and radiation protection.

Lecturers were outstanding experts from the entire Europe: Dr Renato Padovani, the director of the Centre for Medical Physics, International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Dr Joanna Izewska, Chief of Dosimetry Laboratory, International Atomic Energy Agency from Vienna, Dr Carmel Caruana, Chairperson for Education and Training of the EFOMP.

New contacts were established, useful information and results of previous research were shared with the aim to achieve better treatment of patients and safer use of ionizing radiation. The central theme of the meeting was the introduction and the implementation of new techniques in the treatment of cancer patients and their treatment during radiotherapy.

The Conference was supported by the funds from the Provincial Secretariat for Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Faculty of Sciences and the University of Novi Sad. The next meeting will be held in Austria.

The Faculty of Sciences has a long tradition in educating medical physicists, as well as a successfully completed IPA project of cross-border cooperation in the field of education and training for medical physicists MEPHYSTE, which made it possible for the Faculty to purchase valuable equipment for training medical physicists students and to obtain accreditation for the doctoral studies in medical physics.

Meeting participants

News

10th International Culinary Competition of Southern Europe

Tenth International Culinary Competition of Southern Europe was held in Thessaloniki from March 3rd to 6th 2017 in the organisation of the Chefs Association of Northern Greece. The competition was supported by the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS) and the Greek Ministry of Tourism and the Government of Greece.

There were over 400 contestants from ten countries in the competition: Taiwan, Turkey, Cyprus, Montenegro, Latvia, Ukraine, Serbia, and the jury featured the best world-known judges from Greece, Italy, France, Mexico, Slovenia, Montenegro, Cyprus, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, USA, Turkey, Latvia, together with the President of the World Association of Chefs Societies Tomas Gugler.

The Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management, the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad had its representatives in this prestigious competition, who returned home with the awards:

  • Goran Radivojevic, Gastronomy Skills Teacher – silver medal in the poultry category in the professional chefs competition,
  • Maja Banjac, PhD student and teaching assistant at the Chair of Gastronomy – silver medal in the pasta category in the professional chefs competition,
  • Jelena Jevtic – 4th year student of Gastronomy – a diploma in the restaurant dessert junior category and
  • Goran Gasparovski – silver medal in the risotto category in the junior competition.

Students Jelena and Goran competed in a team discipline ‘Two to Tango’ with 15 teams from higher vocational schools, faculties and hotels and they won a bronze medal.

Our team got rave reviews from the exceptional world-famous judges who are all respectable and renowned chefs in their countries, which represents a great acknowledgement for the quality of our students and their teachers and assistants.

Contacts were established in the competition with numerous universities from Greece and Taiwan, so we hope we will succeed in developing quality collaboration and contribute to the teaching process for our students.

Achievements

Professors Velimir Popsavin and Slobodan Marković corresponding members of SASA

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts chose 35 new members yesterday: 15 full, 14 corresponding and six international members. The members of SASA had 58 candidates presented to the Election Assembly to choose from by a secret ballot. New members of SASA from the Novi Sad branch are Prof. Dr. Slobodan Marković from the Department of Geography, Tourism and Hotel Management and Prof. Dr. Velimir Popsavin from the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Environmental Protection.

Achievements,