PREFACE

It was a great honour and pleasure, for the thermophysical research group of the Department of Building Physics, Institute of Construction and Architecture, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, to organize the eight meeting of the Thermophysical Society - Working Group of the Slovak Physical Society. The meeting was held in the Teaching and Training Centre of the Slovak University of Technology in Kočovce, Western Slovakia.

Since the first seminar organized by prof. Štefan Barta on January 22, 1996 at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava the Termophysics meetings have been established as periodical meetings of the scientists working in the field of investigation of heat transfer and measurement of thermophysical and other transport properties of materials. Dr. Ľudovít Kubičár acted as the coordinator of the group and organized meetings at the Institute of Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava in the following three years – 1997, 1998 and 1999. Then the thermophysical research group of the Department of Physics, Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra led by prof. Libor Vozár coordinated the activities of the society for next three years. They organized seminars in Nitra, Račková dolina and Kočovce in 2000, 2001 and 2002, respectively.

Organizers of the meeting were delighted to have an opportunity to listen to the increased number of contributions – participants delivered 16 original lectures in which their authors presented current progress in research and original results achieved at their home institutions. Participants were delighted to listen to the lectures of scientists from the Czech Republic and Germany and share experience of the research conducted in Austria and France.

For the second time the proceedings are released in the form of a CD. They are also available in a digital form at the homepage of the Thermophysics – http://www.tpl.ukf.sk, or upon a request at the e-mail address usarmat@savba.sk.

                                                                                                        Peter Matiašovský