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"We drag the cart of capitalism on and on": Ethnography of factory production
Virtová, Tereza ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Abu Ghosh, Yasar (referee)
This thesis presents the main results of a five-month ethnographic research project in a global factory in the Czech Republic. It is focused on three topics. Due to a number of ethical dilemmas that accompanied the research, the first part examines ethics in anthropology, both the instruments of the institutionalization of professional ethics and "ethics in practice". As a strategy for dealing with ethical dilemmas the thesis aims at a reflexive approach, as proposed by Guillemin and Gillam (2004) not only to ensure rigor in research methodology, but also as a form of "morally adequate research work". The second research focus is the production line. The line makes sense - that is, produces stuff - only when people and machines interconnect. Symmetrical analysis juxtaposes humans and machines and explores the dynamics of agency as it shifts the borders between people and machines and the characteristics that each takes from the other. The last part of the thesis presents the factory as an actor in the labor market. Through the analysis of economic and organizational factors as well as workers" stories and interpretations and regional authorities" accounts, the final part tries to explain the perception of the factory as a stable and relatively solid employer. Keywords: global factory, ethics,...
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Johann Georg de Hamilton. Life and Work.
Ourodová, Ludmila ; Prahl, Roman (advisor) ; Adamcová, Kateřina (referee) ; Jandlová Sošková, Martina (referee)
The content of this dissertation is the life and œuvre of Johann Georg de Hamilton, a relatively obscure painter of hunts, portraits of horses, hunting still-lifes and hunting scenes. Johann Georg de Hamilton (1672-1737), a painter belonging to a famous Scottish family, was influenced in his creative work considerably by the 17th -century Flemish painters of still-lifes and hunting scenes. He was active predominantly in Vienna and in South Bohemia, in service of Adam František, Prince of Schwarzenberg, as well as Karl VI of House Habsburg. He created hunting-themed paintings and portraits of horses to members of both the secular and the ecclesiastic aristocracy of the lands of the Austrian Empire, such as the Houses of Liechtenstein, Serényi, Althan and others. This dissertation is the very first attempt at a monographic analysis of the life and œuvre of this painter. In addition to new bibliographic data, it offers an in-depth insight into the relationship between the person who commissioned his work, Adam František, Prince of Schwarzenberg, and the painter Johann Georg de Hamilton on the basis of extant correspondence, and also attempts to present the painter's œuvre in a cultural-historical and artistic context. The dissertation mentions the first exhibition of a collection of Hamilton's work,...
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Physiology and ecology of saprotrophic basidiomycetes degrading dead plant biomass
Valášková, Vendula ; Baldrian, Petr (advisor) ; Tomšovský, Michal (referee) ; Koukol, Ondřej (referee)
(in English) My theis is focused on soil saprotrophic basiďomycetes, their role in the decomposition of dead plarrt biomass and intera.tioÍts with other members of microbiď community since these fungi play a particularly important role in biotransformation of soil organic matter arrd thereíorealso in the cycling of carbon and mineral nutrients. Three litter.decomposing basiďomycete isolratď from Quelvts petrueo Íorat: Eypholotna tascicularc, Rhodocolly bi,a butgrnrca ard Ggrnnopn sp., efficiently degrarled oak litter unrler both sterile and nonsterile conditions, but the rate of degradation and lignocellulolytic enzyme produc- tion considerably diftbred among isolates. Geuerally, the degrarlation camed by these iso- lates resembled decay caused by whiterot fungi. The fungi produced a broad range of lignocellulose-degrading enzyme: laccase, Mn- peroxidase, endo-I,4-p glucanase, endo-l,4 d >rylanase,p-glucosidase and iJ-xylosidase. Saprotrophic basidiomycetes thus probably contribute to the observed spatial variability in extrarellular enzyme activities in the up per srril horizon in oak forest. Spatial differences in eDzymeactivities were accompanied by diffe.rencesin the microbial commutrity composition, the relative amount of fungal biomass decreased with soil depth. The vertical gradients in soil...
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Archeozoology of the Czech Eneolithic
Kyselý, René ; Horáček, Ivan (advisor) ; Beneš, Jaromír (referee) ; Mlíkovský, Jiří (referee)
This dissertation is a contribution to the understanding of animal history and the relationship between man and animal during the Eneolithic, i.e. spanning the period ca 4500 - 2200 BC. The Eneolithic period differs from the Neolithic in more respects. Traditionally the development of metallurgy (copper) is considered as the primary cause of social economic changes; however Sherratt's theory of a "secondary products revolution" points at the fundamental relevance of a rapid change from the use of primary animal products (meat, skin etc.) to the use of secondary products (milk, wool, labour, mainly yoke) precisely in the period corresponding with the Bohemian Eneolithic. Nevertheless this theory is still being discussed and criticised and, considering possible mosaic nature of the palaeoeconomic situation, it should first be verified at local and regional levels. The author of this thesis analysed in detail ca. 49 500 osteological finds from archaeological settlements in Bohemia, from which ca 13 500 could be zoologically closely determined. Further data were adopted from publications of Czech and Moravian sites (ca. 22 000 finds, from which 11 000 were determinable). This material was subjected to detailed archaeozoological analysis with a unified methodology and techniques covering taphonomy,...
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The paradigms of Uzbek identity
Ibragimova, Bibimaryam ; Horák, Slavomír (advisor) ; Šír, Jan (referee)
The research paper examines the question of Uzbek identity, and how it was pictured and presented by Soviet scholars and historians of independent Uzbekistan. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbekistan announced its independence. One of the important questions on the agenda was the question of national identity. It was up to the newly independent state what they build their ideology on. Soviet historiography had different options for the origin of Uzbeks: some stated that history of Uzbeks starts from the 10th century; some suggested that it was the nomadic tribes to have entered the territory of the present Central Asia in the 15th century. The new government of Uzbekistan somehow continued with the Soviet tradition by following the idea that Uzbeks originate from the 10th century. There is even a group who dates the origin of Uzbeks back to the 1st millennium B.C. The literature written on Uzbek identity can be divided into two approaches taken: primordialism and constructivism. Both Soviet and Uzbek historiography base their thoughts on primordialistic approach, explaining that Uzbek identity is a long and complex process of ethno-genesis and that is associated through blood, language, religion, culture, etc. Whereas constructivists are explaining that Uzbeks as a nation appeared...
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Molecular mechanisms involved in genotoxicity of industrially important monomers (styrene, 1,3-butadiene)
Kuricová, Miroslava ; Vodička, Pavel (advisor) ; Černá, Marie (referee) ; Machala, Miroslav (referee)
1 ABSTRACT The evaluation of individual health risk in workers occupationally exposed to industrial xenobiotics requires the use of a large number of parameters reflecting external exposure, internal exposure, biological effects and individual susceptibility. Environmental, occupational and life style-related exposure to mutagenic agents may contribute to cancer risk in humans. To prevent the potentially hazardous effects of such agents it is important to understand their mechanisms of action. Styrene is one of the most important monomer for producing polymers and copolymers in plastics, latex paints and together with 1,3-butadiene (BD) in the manufacture of synthetic rubbers. In this thesis, a large set of parameters, including markers of external and internal exposure and biomarkers of biological effects and susceptibility have been studied in relation to the occupational exposure to both styrene and BD. First part of the present study was focused on evaluating the role of various biomarkers to assess genotoxic effects of above mentioned xenobiotics. Biomarkers reflecting styrene- and BD-induced genotoxicity and mutagenicity: O6 -styrene guanine DNA adducts, haemoglobin adducts, single-strand breaks (SSBs), SSB Endo III sites, chromosomal aberrations (CA), hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase...
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Habitat as a determinant of abundance and distribution of birds in space and time
Reif, Jiří ; Storch, David (advisor) ; Fuchs, Roman (referee) ; Konvička, Martin (referee)
of the thesis The thesis focuses on various aspects of bird-habitat relationships. We found that the positive correlation between local abundance and regional distribution of birds is not a universal pattern. Its strength and direction depends on the similarity of habitat cover at the locality where the species abundances are measured and habitat cover of the wider region where the species distribution is assessed. In the case of the Cameroon Mountains, many locally abundant species had relatively small ranges in subsaharan Africa. They were probably well-adapted to specific conditions of montane environment, and such tight habitat association precluded their occurrence in regions covered by savannah or humid lowland forest. At the same time, isolation and unusual environmental conditions of the montane forest in the Cameroon Mountains reduced possibilities of their colonization by species widespread within Africa. Such species were confined to deforested areas in the Cameroon Mountains. The strongest gradient in bird community structure was between birds of montane forest and birds of non-forest habitats, and this gradient is probably one of the most important bird-habitat gradients worldwide. Endemic species and species confined to afrotropical mountains had the highest association with montane...
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How the Yellowhammer became a Kiwi: stories hatched at the field margins of bioacoustics and invasion ecology
Pipek, Pavel ; Pyšek, Petr (advisor) ; Slabbekoorn, Hans (referee) ; Sol Rueda, Daniel (referee)
The presented thesis exploits the introduction of the yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) to New Zealand to study the cultural evolution of birdsong dialects in exotic populations after 140 years of complete isolation from the original source populations in Great Britain. The data are interpreted with detailed knowledge of yellowhammer past in New Zealand and of the global (Europe) and regional (Czech Republic) distribution of yellowhammer dialects. Yellowhammer song is simple and males have very limited repertoire. Since the 19th cen- tury it is known that despite its simplicity the song exhibits fascinating geographical variation; the males share the terminal notes to create mosaic-like distribution of dialects. Although this phenomenon has been known for decades and thoroughly studied, many questions remain. One of them is a suspected border between "western" and "eastern" groups of dialects. By combining information about the dialect distributions obtained from works of previous researchers with recordings from online repositories and archives we demonstrate that these groups do not create macrogeographical patterns (Chapter 6). The citizen-science project "Dialects of the Czech Yellowhammers" involved Czech cit- izens in mapping the distribution of yellowhammer dialects in the Czech territory....
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Gene Therapy of CML: Experimental Vaccines against Bcr-abl-transformed Cells
Lučanský, Vincent ; Vonka, Vladimír (advisor) ; Roubalová, Kateřina (referee) ; Reiniš, Milan (referee)
Chronic myeloid leukemia is malignant disease characterized by myeloproliferative clonal expansion of hematopoietic stem cell. It is causally associated with the formation of the so called Philadelphia chromosome and production of its specific product, the chimeric BCR-ABL protein. The amino acid sequence of the fusion region is unique, implying that the BCR-ABL protein carries tumor specific antigen. Currently imatinib mesylate dominates the treatment of CML. It is well tolerated and when compared to the other drugs used, it prolongs the life expectancy significantly. Unfortunately, it is not capable to cure the disease. The only potentially curative approach nowadays is the bone marrow transplantation; however, it is connected with a relatively high morbidity and mortality. Moreover, it is available only to a minority of the patients. Under these circumstances the need for the development of a relatively safe and generally available treatment is understandable. Immunotherapy could be such a treatment. Several experimental vaccines based on BCR-ABL sequence were developed and tested in mice in our institute. The DNA vaccines used were carrying sequences coding for the whole BCR-ABL protein, or for 25 amino acids long junction region (these DNA sequences were fused with adjuvant genes such as...
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Pastoral care, or persuasion? The influence of church leaders and their control of clergy and believers. Research of religiosity, communication strategies of priest and their image in letters in the late 19th and early 20th Century
Pavlíček, Tomáš ; Velek, Luboš (advisor) ; Fasora, Lukáš (referee) ; Hanuš, Jiří (referee)
Pastoral care, or persuasion? The influence of church leaders and their control of clergy and believers. Research of religiosity, communication strategies of priests and their image in letters in the late 19th and early 20th century. Tomáš W. Pavlíček SUMMARY The author of the Ph.D. thesis examines the religious culture in Bohemia in the late 19th century. Contrary to the concept of secularization and the prevalent opinion about an extraordinary decline of religiosity in the Czech society, he attempts to explain the interdependence of social and religious changes in the modern times. Within the sociological concept of secularization and disenchantment of the world, the author focuses on three phenomena: the vocation of a priest, religious practices and conversion, which he treats as religious concepts and at the same time applies them in historical research. The biggest part of the thesis is devoted to the first object of the research - the attitude of a priest towards his vocation, as the clergy is the agent of religious change. The thesis contributes to the current discussions about the relationship of the church and the state and the role of clergy in the society. The main questions are: What is the role of a priest in the religious changes? In what way or under what circumstances does a person get the...
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