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Combatting Disinformation Campaigns: A Reappraisal of Strategic Communications
Wilson, Alyssa Joy ; Karásek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
In the context of increasing technologicalization and the growing interconnectedness of our world through social media, this thesis aims to answer the question, why is disinformation not being sufficiently handled in the United States in the wake of the foreign meddling in the 2016 Presidential Elections, and what can and should be done about the threat? This master thesis therefore aims to delve into the inherent vulnerabilities in the U.S. societal fabric, and thus conduct an in-depth explanatory case study model analysis of what should be done to further combat and counteract disinformation and election meddling within the country. The author argues that disinformation and election meddling are not only a serious security threat, but are also not being properly handled as they are only being addressed technologically, and not through the realm of information, and societal resilience. This thesis therefore argues that strategic communication, which should be redefined and expanded in definition, should be used to combat disinformation campaigns to prevent further election meddling. The author posits that a two-level approach is best, one which aims to negate the negative disinformation campaigns through a single governmental body, while also addressing the root causes through education.
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US Strategic communication towards Islamic state
Truchlá, Jana ; Beneš, Jan (advisor) ; Riegl, Martin (referee)
The main topic of my bachelor thesis is illustration of public image and strategic communication towards ISIS of two US most recent presidents Obama and Trump. In the theoretical part of the bachelor thesis I will outline the basic description of the Islamic state as a terrorist aggressor and the threat of the West as opposed to US protective policy and leadership in the World Anti-Terrorist Coalition. In this part of thesis I would primarily try to depict the main concept of strategic communication, its forms and the differences between the notions strategic communication and propaganda. In the main part I will describe the activities and the ways of formulating US strategic communication actors to explain the individual steps during the war against ISIS for the relevant audience - US citizens. In particular I will concentrate on official political strategic communication of the US Presidents which I will demonstrate on the particular examples - presidential press conferences and releases. Among digital media, I will focus on using the Twitter social network as a phenomenon to implement diplomacy through tweets. The key point of the work will be a determination of the priorities of strategic communication in the timeframe of Obama's and Trump's term in office. Choosing this specific timeframe...
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New trends in perioperative monitoring and glycaemic control.
Lipš, Michal ; Kunstýř, Jan (advisor) ; Bešík, Josef (referee) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
Glycaemic control in critically ill patients has been a topic of considerable attention for the past 20 years. In literature and at scientific meetings, there have been ongoing debates regarding the efficacy of glycaemic control in these patients with frequently entirely opposite opinions. These range from a strict invasive approach with target glycaemia 4-6 mmol/l to a liberal approach tolerating even values higher than 12 mmol/l. In the preview of this PhD thesis we have analysed so far published literature and describe the reasons for this inconsistency. According to the results of recent studies, the most significant efficacy of tight glycaemic control has been observed in cardiac surgical patients. If we consider the concept of tight glycaemic control as efficient strategy, there are three important questions remaining unanswered as follow. Does the specific algorithm-protocol play a key part in the concept of tight glycaemic control alongside the knowledge and skills of nursing staff in safe and efficient blood glucose control? What is the ideal timing of starting the strategy of tight glycaemic control (TGC) in cardiac surgical patient? And is there any benefit in outcome respect to mortality or morbidity? Do we have any more safe and efficient option or add-on to standard perioperative...
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Analysis of Negative Political and Security Impacts of Asylum Seekers Hosting in the European Union Member States
Vargová, Martina ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
Diploma thesis Analysis of Negative Political and Security Impacts of Asylum Seekers Hosting in the European Union Member States reflects upon the increasing numbers of asylum seekers arriving at the shores of the European Union and therewith associated potential negative political and security impact of their hosting. The aim of the thesis is to assess whether any negative impact of asylum seekers hosting can be observed within three areas of concern identified as a) crime rate, b) terrorism rate and c) political tension between the host states and whether higher hosting performance of the member states produces a more negative impact. In order to fulfil the aim of the thesis, a quantitative ordinary least squares linear regression analysis followed by a qualitative approach is conducted. The analysis processes data on the number of asylum seekers arriving in each member state available via United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees database, the crime rate data available via Eurostat and the terrorism rate data available via Global Terrorism Database administered by University of Maryland. Two levels of analysis are present, a generalized level focusing on four categories of member states based on their per capita hosting performance and an individual level of analysis focusing on individual...
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Procedural building reconstruction from building outlines
Kužel, Vojtěch ; Kahoun, Martin (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
This thesis presents a method for fast procedural generation of plausible buildings out of their outlines. There are a few methods in existence varying in their speed and in the amount of detail in their results. All of these methods can be utilized on diverse occasions. The user might prefer speed over complexity or maybe better-looking results over robustness to every input. The method presented in this thesis prefers speed and semi-automatic approach. It takes building outlines as an input along with some user defined parameters such as height, reconstructs the building mass with a general hip roof, and synthetizes plausible textures. The results can be then used for example in flight simulators for fast reconstruction of large urban areas based on the data available through, e.g., Open Street Maps.
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Analysis of the network of information war experts in the Czech Republic
Kohút, Martin ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
The rise of 'information disorder' that undermine Western political principles has become one of the key political concerns in current Europe and United States and led to searching for new solutions how to fight the spread of mis- and dis-information. While the nature of this danger is still subject to much debate, we can already observe a rise of new experts explaining the threat of information war and how to deal with it. This research looks at how this novel problematization of security affects the politics of security expertise. Or, who gains power in this 'battle for truth'? Building on sociological approaches in security studies, this thesis focuses on the Czech Republic as a country that has become very active in the fight against disinformation and analyses the network of actors recognized as providing security expertise on information warfare. Based on social network analysis, the research maps the structure of social relations among actors recognized as experts and points out the empowerment of think-tanks and journalists, who build their expertise by bringing together their social capital, bridging knowledge of Russian politics and the new media environment, and introducing new practices to make the society resilient towards information warfare.
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The change of normative perception and thinking about the Nuclear Sharing within NATO
Kořínek, David ; Ludvík, Jan (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
The main aim of this thesis is to analyse the development of the NATO's normative perception and thinking over the nuclear weapons and the nuclear sharing concept. While the nuclear sharing lays in the main area of the interest of this thesis, the approach towards the nuclear weapons itself is the inseparable component of this research. This thesis is divided into three main chapters. The chapter one explains the historical position of the nuclear weapons in the NATO thinking and the history of the nuclear sharing in relation to the NPT. It also introduces the basic theoretical debate and definition of the concept. The chapter two explains the chosen methodological framework, describes the set of analysed documents and sets rules for the coding of those documents. For the purposes of this analysis, I decided to use the methodological framework of the content analysis, which is created through the content analysis software NVivo 12. It is followed by the chapter three which is visualising and explaining the results of the content analysis created following the script already described in the chapter two.
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An Analysis of Counter-Terrorism Strategies in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia
Buroňová, Zuzana ; Střítecký, Vít (advisor) ; Beneš, Jan (referee)
This thesis is focusing on counterterrorism policies that are used in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Because of the limited research on the counterterrorism in non-Western world, this thesis decided to contribute to this research and widen literature on this issue. It first introduces the term terrorism and analyses the counterterrorism models (criminal, war and disease models), which can be found mostly in Western literature. It includes critique of these models and attempt to create an alternative one, because it finds the current models unsuitable even for the Western counterterrorism policies. Besides that there is also introduction to other counterterrorism strategies such as terrorist financing and a subsection on deradicalization that is important part of counterterrorism as well. Then the thesis focuses on two parallel case studies of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. It examines counterterrorism policies of both of them. The thesis first introduces the countries character, threats they are facing and attacks they have experienced and then analyses what measures are used to fight terrorism. After analysing all aspects of their counterterrorism efforts - legislature, cooperation, deradicalization, military methods etc., the alternative model is applied on each case to see if it is suitable for...
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Procedural Modeling of Tree Bark
Laitoch, Petr ; Beneš, Jan (advisor) ; Kahoun, Martin (referee)
Even though procedural modeling of trees is a well-studied problem, realistic modeling of tree bark is not. However, the more general techniques of texture syn- thesis, including texture-by-numbers, may be helpful for modeling tree bark. Tex- ture synthesis is a process of generating an arbitrarily large texture similar to an input image. This method is capable of generating homogeneous textures. This is not enough as many types of bark are inhomogeneous. Texture-by-numbers improves texture synthesis by further guiding the process with provided label maps to allow the generation of even inhomogeneous textures. Many texture-by- numbers algorithms are not currently implemented. In this thesis, we implement a promising texture-by-numbers algorithm along with algorithms for generating the required label maps. This combination of algorithms creates a pipeline for synthesizing realistic tree bark textures based on a single small input image. We test out the pipeline on samples of multiple types of real-world tree bark images and discuss the results. We further suggest multiple directions for improving the employed techniques.
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Alphanumerical external wireless display device for PC
Veverka, Vítězslav ; Prokopec, Jan (referee) ; Beneš, Jan (advisor)
In this work was created the basic description and theoretical design of alphanumeric extern wireless module which could be connected to PC by the USB. This work includes the basic description of some alphanumerical visual modules connectable to PC, the charecterization of general used electrical networks and components, the basic parameters of high frequency modules and wireless transmision. On the basis of theoretical studies are described the oppotrunities of the project of complete alfanumerical extern wireless display and reasons of selected options. Next the creation of circuit diagrams and printed circuit boards. The result of this work is a functional prototype of the equipment including software for microprocessors and computer control. Verification of functionality and usability is part of the project.
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