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Molecular characterization of selected strains of amoebae of the genus Acanthamoeba, the potential human parasites.
ŠTAUBEROVÁ, Kamila
The genus Acanthamoeba belongs to a group of organisms generally called "amoebae". These amoebae can cause fatal disease in humans, being able to enter e.g. through skin in bloodstream and then spreading through the body. In the body they further parasitize in various tissues including the brain there they cause a little known disease called "granulomatous amoebic encephalitis". The disease is most prevalent in people previously ill with, e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus. Granulomatous amoebic encephalitis leads especially to a brain inflammation, which evolves in brain tissue necrosis. Most prominent symptoms are headaches, nausea and vomiting, aphasia and ataxia. This work mentions also some other amoebae as Neagleria fowleri, Balamuthia mandrillaris, Sappinia diploidea a Entamoeba histolytica. Neagleria fowleri is known as a causative agent of an illness called primary amoebic encephalitis. First, I had isolated DNA using Genomic Mini Kit from five amoeba strains. The next step was PCR amplification it is a method depending on alternation of high and lower temperatures in thermocycler. It was followed by electrophoresis, where the presence of bands in agarose gel, which I had prepared myself, showed the presence of absence of amoebic DNA fragments. In case of successful amplification (presence of PCR product) the fragment was excised from gel with scalpel and transferred in a test-tube. The DNA was then cleaned via extraction. The extraction was done with Gel/DNA Fragments Extraction Kit. An intermediate step before sequencing, we tried to clone the product it became obvious that this way is not very effective. The sequencing was provided by the company Seqme. Following work with sequences was conducted in programs BioEdit and alignment in ClustalX. Then, phylogenetic trees were computed in the program PAUP and viewed in TreeView. The results were interpreted in the terms of relationships between the amoebae majority of them belonged to the most common genotype, T4, but their relations within the genotype were not so tight. Concerning the clinical samples available to me (both from human eyes), one of them (O1) belonged to T4 genotype, whereas the other one (O2) belonged to the genotype T3. Another result was evaluation of the effectivity of different primers: specific primers AcaJDP1 and AcaJDP2 were much more efficient than originally used "eukaryotic" primers ERIB1 and ERIB10.
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International involvement in the peacebuilding process on Sri Lanka
Mojžíš, Michal ; Havlová, Radka (advisor) ; Burešová, Jana (referee)
The final months of Sri Lankan civil war, the 26 year military campaign between the Government of Sri Lanka and the insurgent separatist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, are marked by allegations of war crimes committed by both parties of the conflict, including attacks on civilians, summary executions of prisoners, enforced disappearances, restrictions on humanitarian assistance and recruitment of children. Since the attempts to put the Sri Lankan issue on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council failed on the unwillingness of China and Russia, the UN bodies in Geneva have taken a leading role in promoting the peacebuilding process on the island. The thesis aims to analyse the impact of the Geneva-based human rights bodies, in particular of the United Nations Human Rights Council, on the process of reconciliation in Sri Lanka, for which is crucial that the alleged violations of human rights in the last months of the civil war would be properly investigated and that the perpetrators would be held accountable. In order to put the activity of the UN Human Rights Council into broader context, the paper will examine the political development in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war in 2009 as well as the failed efforts of Sri Lankan governments to launch the process of reconciliation.
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Dynamic model of human resources in project management
Hančar, Michal ; Mildeová, Stanislava (advisor) ; Šviráková, Eva (referee)
This thesis is focused on dynamics of soft factors influencing workers during projects. These factors include motivation, workplace atmosphere, team synergy of workers and their emotions, and attribute of project manager who manages the project. Identification of soft factors and their relationships was achieved by examination of scientific literature in psychology and system dynamics. Description of managing project matters was achieved by examination of scientific literature dealing with project management. The main objective of this thesis is to create a dynamic model which simulates behavior of these soft factors influencing the project staff. The primary metric of the model is efficiency of workers participating on the project based on input parameters. Validation of the model was achieved by verification of historic behavior of key elements. Results of validation experiments correspond with historic behavior with roughly 95 % accuracy. At the end of this thesis is presented an ICT project case study. Based on the results of simulation experiments is performed a scenario analysis which tries to bring possible suggestions for project management.
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Antioxidant, anti-proliferative and immunomodulatory effect of fruits, vegetables and mushrooms in vitro
Doskočil, Ivo ; Havlík, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Orsák, Matyáš (referee)
Recently there has been an increasing interest in discovering of new species of plants and mushrooms which have antioxidant or anti proliferative activity. The interest is caused by the fact that these species have medicinal and food utilization. These properties of plants and mushrooms can be used when dealing with many diseases which may be connected with oxidative stress (inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and tumour disease, etc.).
The thesis propounds characteristics of in vitro antioxidant and anti proliferative activity of 19 types of juices and 28 methanol extracts of fruits and vegetables, which are common parts of a diet. In the thesis there are also characteristics of 13 ethanol extracts of edible mushrooms of the order of Polypore (Popyporales). Antioxidant activity was quantifie by 2, 2 diphenyl 1 picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), and inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) production. Cytotoxicity was measured by MTT (3 (4,5 dimethylthiazol 2 yl) 2,5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide. Immunomodulatory activity was determined by an assay of phagocytic activity of human neutrophil granulocytes. Further a total phenolic content (TPC) and total beta glucan content were investigated; these are considered to be the potentially active constituents participating in mentioned activities.
From the obtained results it is evident that juices (TPC = 1603.2 mg GAE/L; ORAC = 438.5 umol TE/g)
and a bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) fruit extract (ORAC 836.6 umol TE/g; DPPH = 404.6 umol TE/g) showed
the highest antioxidant activity of all tested samples of fruits and vegetables. Capsicum (Capsicum L.)
juices (TPC = 642.1 mg GAE/L; ORAC = 127.9 umol TE/g) and a radish (Raphanus sativus L.) extract
(ORAC 724.5 umol TE/g; DPPH = 52.2 umol TE/g) also proved to have the high values of antioxidant activity. From the tested fruits and vegetables the following inhibited to produce a nitric oxide: onion (Allium cepa L) juices (lowered the NO production by 57%), tangerine juices (Citrus reticulata Blanco)(by 52%), broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis italic) extract (by 21%), and orange (Citrus sinensis Pers.) extract (by 10%). Concerning edible
mushrooms, Lentinus tigrinus (Bull.) Fr. (TPC = 216.2 umol GAE/g of extract), Ganoderma lucidum (Curtis) P. Kras (TPC = 257.9 umol GAE/g of extract), and Royoporus badius (Pers.) A.B. De (TPC = 257.8 umol GAE/g of extract) presented the highest phenolic content. Sparassis crispa (Wulfen) Fr. (117.4 mg/g of extract) had the highest content of beta glucan. Substantial effect on phagocytic activity of granulocytes was noticed in connection with Neolentinus lepideus (Fr.) Redhead & Ginns, Polyporus squamosus (Huds.) Fr., and S. crispa. In connection with the latter of mentioned mushrooms, a moderate inhibitory effect towards HT 29 human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line
(IC50 = 107 ug/ml of extract) was noticed.
The results indicate that the tested plants and mushrooms can be beneficial when reducing the negative effects of oxidative stress. The oxidative stress has been recognized as a contributing factor to a whole range of diseases and the reduction of the oxidative stress may lead to the decrease in the possibility of the diseases´ progression. The results show the possible favourable effects on the human health. When evaluating the results, the following fact should be taken into consideration; the in vitro tests and screenings are considered to be the first phase of systematic research of the effects and serve for the choice of respondents for further detailed studies.
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A historical view of the army nurse profession.
PAVLÍKOVÁ, Andrea
The thesis deals with the profession of a military nurse. We can assert that the official study of military, non-medical health-care related qualifications and its use in practice not only for military purposes dates back to the fifties of the last century. However, women as health care professionals, consequently in uniforms, have always been an actual issue. The development of health care activities always existed, however, we must not neglect influence of scientific and medical findings. The historical timeline of development of medical care in the battle field was recorded and ranges from pre-historical healing. The way of Christian medicine was negatively influenced by the Catholic Church. The dark period of the Middle Ages had actually wrested medical performance from the hands of specialists and the suffering were left to the "tender" mercies of the priests. The following part of the thesis concerns modern medicine where enlightenment reforms were exercised. Some of the original six-month courses for military surgeons were organised in this period of time; they weretransformed into Military Surgical Academy, out of which the famous Josefinum originated. A expression of humanity which supported a form of health care of war veterans was demonstrated by constructing buildings for invalid people. The second half of the nineteenth century is characterized by the phenomenon of the presence of nuns in military hospitals. This study goes further in depth of professionally organized healthcare right in the battle field, which dates back from the era of wars in the Crimea.This stage describes the transformation of caring into nursing which requires the necessity of specialized preparation of persons providing nursing practice. In addition, Henry Dunant engraved himself into the history of the profession of a nurse, as the founder of the Red Cross, who first trained health care professionals for working within armed intentions of the state. The continuation of this action sketches out the process of providing first aid in principal armed conflicts of the twentieth century. It describes the functioning of commander operated military health service of that time. WWI drove Czech medical staff to both sides of the front where they provided medical help to the injured. Nurses of the WWII already performed their duties in uniforms as the rightful members of the army. The thesis also mentions post-war usage of military health care professionals in secret foreign missions and their specialized erudition.Last but not least, it marginally discusses contemporary possibilities of modern health care service of the Army of the Czech Republic. The goal of the endeavours of writing this thesis was to chart out clearly the development of the profession of a military nurse within the historical context, focusing mainly on women coming from Czech regions. In order to make the history background concerning specific female participants of the world war conflicts understandable to the reader, this paper reports, in broader extension, peculiar medical and nursing findings, already from the era of prehistoric civilisations. The history study method were applied for the purpose of the theoretical thesis. The methodology is based on searching, studying, sorting and the consecutive systematic objective describing of the events from the past times with the intention to propose comprehensive report on the subject given. It was necessary to study inexhaustible amount of sources to obtain awareness of historical connections. Factual information was derived by analysing of primary and mainly secondary documents. The thesis sketches out histories of military health care and the profession of a military health care professional stemmed from the exploration of appropriate written sources and conclusion of the basic findings. The intentions of the work are not only to clarify the past but also to contribute to solutions of every-day issues.
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Role of physical activity in the prevention of childhood obesity
VRTALOVÁ, Jana
The thesis deals with physical activity in the prevention of childhood obesity. It is focused on children, namely pupils of the eighth and ninith grades of elementary school. Obesity is responsible for more human lives than both of the world wars and if we want this epidemic of obesity and problems associated with inactivity minimized, we have to start where it is most efficient and that is with children. The main objective is to explore physical activity in a selected group of pupils. Partial aim is to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the investigated group of students using somatometric measurements in the selected location. Another objective is to determine how many of childrens parents did sports in the past or actualy do sports. The final goal is to prepare educational material for students about the importance of physical activity. The work is divided into two parts theoretical and practical. The theoretical part was compiled as a secondary data analysis. Sources of data and information originated from the Czech Republic and abroad in the form of scholarly books, journals and electronic resources. The contents of the theoretical part is focused on explenation of terms such as obesity, its consequences, complications, ways to prevent obesity, physical activity, appropriate kinds of physical activity and its effects on the human body. Distinctive part is the chapter dealing with the myths of obesity some of them are really surprising. The second part is practical part and includes its own research. The investigation was conducted in a primary school Komenského alej in Žatec for pupils of the eighth and ninth grades. File featured 107 pupils. The research was conducted as a quantitative survey complemented by measurements of somatometric indicators. The data were collected using a custom non-standardized questionnaire. The questionnaire contained 14 questions and two columns separated by line for recording the exact weight and height. We checked these data at pre-agreed periods.
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Ability of dogs to discriminate human odor exposed to chemical detergent
Čajágiová, Martina ; Vyplelová, Petra (advisor) ; Jaroslav, Jaroslav (referee)
In the recherche part of our thesis we familiarize ourselves with the human odor, theories of its origin, definition, anatomy of human skin and odors, composition of individual human odors and with odor secretion. We also look closer on the topics of odor absorbent and its use in the world, the transmission of odors to odor sensors and securing of scents. This section of our thesis discusses the resistance and survival abilities of odor, scent identification method and its history, organic acids, and defines the application of laundry detergents and ultrasonic washers. Aim of our thesis was to verify the relevance of the use of chemical detergents in the purification process when working with scents. We tried to verify the ability of detergents to degrade the human scent on odor absorbents to such an extent, that specially trained dogs would not be able to identify it. Our experiment was following a precise determination methodology. In the first phase samples were collected from the hands of targeted persons to a scent carrier - a metal cylinder (extirpate odour), by one researcher. In the second phase samples were collected from the body to a textile carrier, by another researcher. The metal scent carriers were processed. Some of them were left as they were (control sample) and some were exposed to chemical detergents with and without usage of an ultrasonic washer.
In the experiment where we tried to identify the odour samples, six bitches of German shepherd were used. They were specially trained for odour identification. Each dog was let three times to identify the target scent exposed to a detergent and three times to identify the target scent not exposed to a detergent. Target smell was randomly deposited between other samples and its position was changed, so that the handler did not know its position and thus was unable to affect the work of his dog. The indicator of positive identification was a sign the dogs were taught - to sit or lay in front of a sample.
Any dog was unable to identify the scent which was exposed to chemical detergent and all dogs identify the scent unexposed to a chemical detergent. Our experiment has shown that the use of chemical detergents in the purification process when working with scents is relevant to the degradation of individual human scent.
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Human behaviour in crisis situation
Dobrotková, Karolína ; Kebza, Vladimír (advisor) ; Bredárová, Kristina (referee)
Presented bachelor thesis pursues Human behaviour in critical situations. The focus is specifically aimed at the prosocial behaviour and the bystander effect. The theoretical part describes historical context of the bystander effect, experiments performed in laboratory conditions and factors causing the bystander effect. The first part of the thesis defines what the term crisis means, its causes, stages a solutions. There is also the term prosocial behaviour pursued. The practical part is based on questionnaire research's evaluation and verification of pre-established hypothesis. The results of questionnaire research are graphically represented by charts.
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Importance of vitamins in human nutrition
Želinská, Kateřina ; Orsák, Matyáš (advisor)
This Bc. thesis discusses the basic characteristics of vitamins and their essential role in the functioning of human organism. The first half of the work analyses and addresses the vitamins classification and their structure from the chemical point of view. The second half describes in detail the importance of vitamins for the human body, and for the synthetic substitution of these substances.
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