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Study of behavior of concrete and cement based composite materials exposed to high temperatures
Bodnárová, L. ; Horák, D. ; Válek, J. ; Hela, R. ; Sitek, Libor
The paper describes possibilities of observation of behaviour of concrete and cement based composite material exposed to high temperatures. Nowadays, for large-scale tests of behaviour of concrete exposed to high temperatures, testing devices of certified fire testing stations in the Czech Republic and surrounding states are used. These tests are quite expensive. For experimental verification of smaller test specimens, a testing device was built at the Technical University in Brno, where tests of thermal loading of concrete tests specimens of various sizes can be carried out (dimensions up to 800 x 800 x 800 mm or slabs up to 1100 mm of length). The testing device opens new ways of observation of behaviour of concrete and cement based composite materials exposed to high temperatures as well as preparation of specimens for observation of interaction of water jet and concrete degraded by action of high temperatures.
Fulltext: content.csg -  DOC
Plný tet: UGN_0398264 - DOC
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Integrated Education of a Pupil with Special educational needs - Case Study
Habartová, Iva ; Mrkosová, Eva (advisor) ; Ptáčková, Klára (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to analyse the current situation in integrated educating of a pupil with special educational needs, or more specifically, of a child with high functioning autism combined with practical deafness. Through analysis of specialised literature, the theoretical part defines the expression integration; other definitions include hearing disability and autism as the causes limiting the pupil's inclusion in educating in a mainstream elementary school. The practical part of the thesis includes a case study - description of the pupil's case. Experience is described from the current integrated education in a special elementary school where the pupil is educated according to the Framework Educational Program for Elementary Schools, with the prospective of upcoming re-integration into the mainstream elementary school, or, as the case may be, depending on the parents' decision, his integration in an elementary school for hearing impaired children. In drawing up the case study, the following methods were applied: observation and analysis of the pupil's educational products.
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Products with Protected Designations of the European Union and Their Position in Regional Tourism
Licková, Kamila ; Kalábová, Markéta (advisor) ; Abrhám, Josef (referee)
The master thesis deals with products with protected designations of the European Union. The main objective of the master thesis is to evaluate the importance of the chosen product with protected designation of the EU in regional tourism and analyse the perception of the product by a producer and by tourists. The sub-objective is the description of the European system of food labelling. The thesis is divided into five main chapters. The first part explains basic concepts which are related to the thesis. The second chapter introduces the best known food quality labels. Greater attention is devoted to the description of the food protection system of the EU. The third chapter deals with the characteristics of the chosen region Beskydy-Wallachia. The second part of this chapter is focused on the chosen protected product Štramberské uši. The forth chapter includes a structured interview with the chosen producer of Štramberské uši and a survey research, which was conducted in two phases. The last chapter contains the evaluation of the implemented survey. The main finding of this thesis is the fact that a relatively high percentage of respondents know the product Štramberské uši. An interesting finding is the fact that only a small portion of them know that the product Štramberské uši is the holder of the protected designation of the European Union. The chosen producer of Štramberské uši sees the main benefit of the label in greater publicity. Among problems he ranks the enforceability of the label and lack of general promotion of Štramberské uši.
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Use of Interest Rate Models for Interest Rate Risk Management in the Czech Financial Market Environment
Cíchová Králová, Dana ; Arlt, Josef (advisor) ; Cipra, Tomáš (referee) ; Witzany, Jiří (referee)
The main goal of this thesis is to suggest an appropriate approach to interest rate risk modeling in the Czech financial market environment in various situations. Three distinct periods are analyzed. These periods, which are the period before the global financial crisis, period during the financial crisis and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and calming subsequent debt crisis in the eurozone, are characterized by different evaluation of liquidity and credit risk, different relationship between financial variables and market participants and different degree of market regulations. Within this goal, an application of the BGM model in the Czech financial market environment is crucial. Use of the BGM model for the purpose of predicting a dynamics of a yield curve is not very common. This is firstly due to the fact that primary use of this model is a valuation of interest rate derivatives while ensuring the absence of arbitrage and secondly its application is relatively difficult. Nevertheless, I apply the BGM model to obtain predictions of the probability distributions of interest rates in the Czech and eurozone market environment, because its complexity, direct modeling of a yield curve based on market rates and especially a possibility of parameter estimation based on current swaptions volatilities quotations may lead to a significant improvement of predictions. This improvement was also confirmed in this thesis. Use of swaptions volatilities market quotations is especially useful in the period of unprecedented mone- tary easing and increased number of central banks and other regulators interventions into financial markets that occur after the financial crisis, because it reflects current market expectations which also include future interventions. As a consequence of underdevelopment of the Czech financial market there are no market quotations of Czech koruna denominated swaptions volatilities. I suggest their approximations based on quotations of euro denominated swaptions volatilities and also using volatilities of koruna and euro forward rates. Use of this approach ensures that predictions of the Czech yield curve dynamics contain current market expectations. To my knowledge, any other author has not presented similar application of the BGM model in the Czech financial market environment. In this thesis I further predict a Czech and Euro area money market yield curve dynamics using the CIR and the GP models as representatives of various types of interest rates models to compare these predictions with BGM predictions. I suggest a comprehensive system of three criteria, based on comparison of predicti- ons with reality, to describe a predictive power of selected models and an appropria- teness of their use in the Czech market environment during different situations in the market. This analysis shows that predictions of the Czech money market yield curve dynamics based on the BGM model demonstrate high predictive power and the best 8 quality in comparison with other models. GP model also produces relatively good qua- lity predictions. Conversely, predictions based on the CIR model as a representative of short rate model family completely failed when describing reality. In a situation when the economy allows negative rates and there is simultaneously a significant likelihood of their implementation, I recommend to obtain predictions of Czech money market yield curve dynamics using GP model which allows existence of negative interest rates. This analysis also contains a statistical test for validating the predictive power of each model and information on other tests. Berkowitz test rejects a hypothesis of accurate predictions for each model. However, this fact is common in real data testing even when using relatively good model. This fact is especially caused by difficult fulfilment of test conditions in real world. To my knowledge, such an analysis of the predictive power of selected interest rate models moreover in the Czech financial market environment has not been published yet. The last goal of this thesis is to suggest an appropriate approach to obtaining pre- dictions of Czech government bonds risk premium dynamics. I define this risk premium as a difference between government bond yields and fixed rate of CZK IRS with the same length. I apply the GP model to describe the dynamics of this indicator of the Czech Republic credit risk. In order to obtain a time series of the risk premium which are necessary for estimation of GP model parameters I firstly estimate yield curves of Czech government bonds using Svensson model for each trading day since 2005. Resulting si- mulations of risk premium show that the GP model predicts the real development of risk premiums of all maturities relatively well. Hence, the proposed approach is suitable for modeling of Czech Republic credit risk based on the use of information extracted from financial markets. I have not registered proposed approach to risk premium modeling moreover in the Czech financial market environment in other publications.
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Microstructural Investigation and Mechanical Testing of an Ultrafine-grained Austenitic Stainless Steel
Chlupová, Alice ; Man, Jiří ; Polák, Jaroslav ; Karjalainen, L. P.
Special thermomechanical treatment based on high degree deformation followed by reversion annealing was applied to 301LN austenitic stainless steel to achieve ultrafine-grained (UFG) structure with considerably enhanced mechanical properties. Two different conditions of the thermomechanical treatment were adopted and resulting microstructures with different grain sizes were characterised by optical and high resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM-FEG). Hardness measurements and tensile tests were performed to characterize mechanical properties. To reveal structural changes induced during thermomechanical treatment and during tensile tests a magnetic induction method was additionally applied. Experimental study validated the ability of the above special treatment to produce austenitic stainless steel with grain size about 1.4 m which exhibits tensile strength about 1000MPa while ductility remains on level about 60 %. The results obtained for both thermomechanical conditions are compared and the relationship between microstructure refinement, phase content and mechanical properties is discussed.
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Impact of low oil and natural gas prices on the economy of Qatar since 2014
Šamánek, Ondřej ; Stuchlíková, Zuzana (advisor) ; Hasík, Gabriel (referee)
The bachelor thesis examines the impact of the oil and gas prices slump, which befell the world in 2014, on the economy of Qatar. The main objective of the thesis is to evaluate if and to what extend the price collapse influenced the relevant economic indicators and behaviour of the state and companies active in the affected field. The selected objective is examined using the method of data comparison, namely before and after the price slump, and with the help of the case study, in which the qatari company operating in the oil and gas is examined. From the conducted analysis it is possible to conclude that Qatar was directly influenced by the oil and gas prices collapse: its GDP slumped, fiscal deficit increased. The analysed company also experienced troubles caused by low prices: one year after the price slump, total amount of assigned tenders to company decreased substantially and historically high number of tenders was cancelled. Conclusions deriving from the thesis might be applied to other oil and gas export economies in the Persian Gulf, for fundamental traits of such economies are shared with the economy of Qatar.
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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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Antibodies against sand flies saliva in domestic animals from endemic areas of visceral leishmaniasis
Košťálová, Tatiana ; Volf, Petr (advisor) ; Kopecký, Jan (referee)
The main aim of this thesis was to test sera of domestic animals from endemic areas of visceral leishmaniasis in north and northwest Ethiopia for antibodies against presumed vector P. orientalis salivary glands and to clarify behavior of the sand fly and the role of domestic animals in transmission of visceral leishmaniasis. Specific IgG antibodies against P. orientalis saliva were tested in dogs, cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys. Above the cut-off value there was 76 % analyzed dogs, 15 % cattle, 26 % goats, 60 % sheep and 45 % donkeys. Dogs, goats and donkeys revealed significantly higher anti-P. orientalis antibodies compared to control animals. In the case of cattle, goats and donkeys cut-off levels were very high and is questionable if observed results are relevant. Canine sera were screened also for anti-P. orientalis IgG2 and 88% of Ethiopean sera revealed significantly higher IgG2 than control sera. The next aim was to detect if canine sera from Ethiopia with anti-P. orientalis antibodies react with other bloodsucking insect saliva by using immunoblotting method. In saliva of sand fly Sergentomyia schwetzi, which is abundant in Ethiopia, canine sera reacted mostly with 36, 37 and 51 kDa proteins. Mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus is cosmopolitan species and canine sera most intensely...
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STRAIN ENGINEERING OF THE ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF 2D MATERIALS
del Corro, Elena ; Peňa-Alvarez, M. ; Morales-García, A. ; Bouša, Milan ; Řáhová, Jaroslava ; Kavan, Ladislav ; Kalbáč, Martin ; Frank, Otakar
The research on graphene has attracted much attention since its first successful preparation in 2004. It possesses many unique properties, such as an extreme stiffness and strength, high electron mobility, ballistic transport even at room temperature, superior thermal conductivity and many others. The affection for graphene was followed swiftly by a keen interest in other two dimensional materials like transition metal dichalcogenides. As has been predicted and in part proven experimentally, the electronic properties of these materials can be modified by various means. The most common ones include covalent or non-covalent chemistry, electrochemical, gate or atomic doping, or quantum confinement. None of these methods has proven universal enough in terms of the devices' characteristics or scalability. However, another approach is known mechanical strain/stress, but experiments in that direction are scarce, in spite of their high promises.\nThe primary challenge consists in the understanding of the mechanical properties of 2D materials and in the ability to quantify the lattice deformation. Several techniques can be then used to apply strain to the specimens and thus to induce changes in their electronic structure. We will review their basic concepts and some of the examples so far documented experimentally and/or theoretically.
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