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Chytrá a udržitelná města v kontextu vědecké a inovační strategie EU
Horniecká, Marie ; Žamberský, Pavel (advisor) ; Procházková Ilinitchi, Cristina (referee)
The thesis explores how the EU support to research and innovation towards urban sustainability is designed, what the existing EU intiatives striving for achieving smart and sustainable cities are. The analysis of theoretical approaches forms the basis for developing the definition of smart and sustainable city for the purpose of this thesis. An overview of the principal EU strategic documents which address urban sustainability together with European networks is provided in order to demonstrate the linkage to the research Framework Programmes. A separate chapter is devoted to the analysis of the most pressing challenges European cities face nowadays. Database of EU funded research and innovation calls and projects is examined (E-CORDA). Calls and projects related to urban areas are identified and juxtaposed with the urban problems. Final recommendations concern with social aspects of sustainability which should be, in the author's opinion, addressed in future EU research Framework Programmes with a particular attention.
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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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Freedom of Expression and Censorship on the Internet and Social Networks
Reindl, Jan ; Čermák, Radim (advisor) ; Sova, Martin (referee)
This thesis is focused on freedom of expression and censorship on the internet and social networks. Its goal is to evaluate current situation of censorship of the internet, to describe the most often used methods of censorship and suppressing free speech, as well as methods of its circumvention. The thesis is focused on the progress of internet censorship in its shift from a tool of governmental domestic network control into a tool in the hands of multinational organizations. Some focus is also given to the importance of anonymity as a way to freedom of speech, and to the analysis of current situation and possible future outcomes. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first one serves as an introduction into the problematics. Second chapter describes methods of internet censorship, the third one describes its circumvention. The fourth chapter looks into the current situation regarding the role of social media in terms of internet censorship and possible results of censorship as well as future evolvement. Fifth and last chapter is dedicated to research of anonymous parts of internet community that could otherwise face censorship.
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Economic diplomacy of the Czech Republic - a current situation and new challenges for the future
Polednik, Petr ; Peterková, Jana (advisor) ; Trávníčková, Zuzana (referee)
This thesis deals with economic diplomacy of the Czech Republic. The first chapter focuses on a definition, functions and tasks, players and models of management of economic diplomacy. The second chapter characterizes from a perspective of state actors approaches to economic diplomacy in selected European countries which can server as an inspiration for the Czech Republic. The third chapter is devoted to the current situation of the economic diplomacy of the Czech Republic, planned innovations and its possible development and challenges in the coming years.
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Valuation of the company Tank ONO, s.r.o.
Novák, Petr ; Strouhal, Jiří (advisor) ; Smrčka, Luboš (referee)
The output of this Master´s Thesis on the theme "Valuation of the company Tank ONO, s.r.o." is the estimation of market value of company as at the date of December 31, 2014, with the goal of selling off the company to a hypothetical general investor in the future. The theoretical part includes metodology and instruments used for company valuation, eg definition of main terms, explanation of valuation proces and methods, that are recognised as valid by specialised public. Afterwards, the second part (eg practical part) is aimed at applying the metodology in practice. First, the valuated company is shortly introduced and it is followed by financial and strategic analysis in order to evaluate the financial soundness and assess the perspective for company future. The conclusions of the above analysis are used for elaborating the value drivers and complex financial plan, that is followed by valuation of Tank ONO, s.r.o. In light of the company capital structure, there is chosen DCF equity method for final valuation, in this Thesis.
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Developing open approach to mathematics in future primary school teachers
Samková, L. ; Tichá, Marie
In our contribution we focus on the possibility to develop open approach to mathematics in future primary school teachers during a university course on mathematics conducted in inquiry-based manner. We analyse data obtained in the beginning and in the end of the course with respect to two main aspects related to open approach to mathematics: searching for all solutions of a task, and acceptance of different forms of notation of a given solution. Data analysis revealed in the participants three different shifts towards open approach to mathematics, and showed that after the active participation in the course each of the participants improved at least in one of the monitored aspects, and that none of the participants got worse in any of the aspects.
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Modelling, parameter estimation, optimisation and control of transport and reaction processes in bioreactors.
ŠTUMBAUER, Václav
With the significant potential of microalgae as a major biofuel source of the future, a considerable scientific attention is attracted towards the field of biotechnology and bioprocess engineering. Nevertheless the current photobioreactor (PBR) design methods are still too empirical. With this work I would like to promote the idea of designing a production system, such as a PBR, completely \emph{in silico}, thus allowing for the in silico optimization and optimal control determination. The thesis deals with the PBR modeling and simulation. It addresses two crucial issues in the current state-of-the-art PBR modeling. The first issue relevant to the deficiency of the currently available models - the incorrect or insufficient treatment of either the transport process modeling, the reaction modeling or the coupling between these two models. A correct treatment of both the transport and the reaction phenomena is proposed in the thesis - in the form of a unified modeling framework consisting of three interconnected parts - (i) the state system, (ii) the fluid-dynamic model and (iii) optimal control determination. The proposed model structure allows prediction of the PBR performance with respect to the modelled PBR size, geometry, operating conditions or a particular microalgae strain. The proposed unified modeling approach is applied to the case of the Couette-Taylor photobioreactor (CTBR) where it is used for the optimal control solution. The PBR represents a complex multiscale problem and especially in the case of the production scale systems, the associated computational costs are paramount. This is the second crucial issue addressed in the thesis. With respect to the computational complexity, the fluid dynamics simulation is the most costly part of the PBR simulation. To model the fluid flow with the classical CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) methods inside a production scale PBR leads to an enormous grid size. This usually requires a parallel implementation of the solver but in the parallelization of the classical methods lies another relevant issue - that of the amount of data the individual nodes must interchange with each other. The thesis addresses the performance relevant issues by proposing and evaluation alternative approaches to the fluid flow simulation. These approaches are more suitable to the parallel implementation than the classical methods because of their rather local character in comparison to the classical methods - namely the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) for fluid flow, which is the primary focus of the thesis in this regard and alternatively also the discrete random walk based method (DRW). As the outcome of the thesis I have developed and validated a new Lagrangian general modeling approach to the transport and reaction processes in PBR - a framework based on the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) and the model of the Photosynthetic Factory (PSF) that models correctly the transport and reaction processes and their coupling. Further I have implemented a software prototype based on the proposed modeling approach and validated this prototype on the case of the Coutte-Taylor PBR. I have also demonstrated that the modeling approach has a significant potential from the computational costs point of view by implementing and validating the software prototype on the parallel architecture of CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). The current parallel implementation is approximately 20 times faster than the unparallized one and decreases thus significantly the iteration cycle of the PBR design process.
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Arctic tundra dendrochronology
Lehejček, Jiří ; Svoboda, Miroslav (advisor) ; Monika, Monika (referee)
Historically unprecedented environmental change in the Arctic ecosystems is often given into the context of its past and possible future development. In the region where instrumental meteorological observations are scarce archives need to be investigated in order to address this issues. The comprehensive synthesis one of the archives: long-live circumpolar evergreen Juniperus communis L. shrub is presented here. 20 individuals from southwest Greenland were investigated at the cell anatomy level to understand the ecology of the species and unhide its potential for environmental and climate reconstructions. The findings are as follows:
i) Stop of exponential cross-sectional conduit-lumen widening with increasing age is in contrast with conduit-lumen nature of trees. This indicates that shrubs do not need to saturate their water and nutrient demands via traits of classical hydraulic conductivity law but rather developed different mechanisms. Extreme weather conditions result in prostrate growth form. However, different weather factors probably influence shrub growth differently: While snow and wind act mechanically (a), temperature influences the form of growth physiologically (b). a) So long as the young shrub stem has high resilience to bend back to an upright position after snow melt and so long as it can withstand the wind during the vegetation season it most likely grows upright and the conduit-lumens widen. b) Temperature, resp. freeze-thaw events are responsible for the shrubs preference of safety (finite size of conduit-lumens) over hydraulic efficiency, thus not allowing for more primary growth. All of these (and other) factors are apparently working together and the transition of vertical to more horizontal growth is gradual. As a consequence, the conduit-lumen sizes may not have to be further increased (due to ecophysiological restrictions possibly also must not) because water is no longer transported against gravity.
ii) Observed age/growth trend has to be taken into consideration for further employment of the wood anatomical parameter in paleoenvironmental studies. That is, shrub cell parameters can only be used for this purposes if correctly detrended. This allows for more accurate as well as longer reconstructions because youth trend was often neglected in reconstructions based on shrub annual-rings.
iii) The south-western Greenland Ice-Sheet (GrIS) melt rates reconstruction is presented for the whole 20th century. This part of GrIS is considered as the most active. According to the presented reconstruction current GrIS melt rates are not uncommon for the last century being comparable to first decades of 20th century. This finding is particularly important contribution to the debate on Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Too high fresh water inputs into the Northern Atlantic from GrIS melting may slow down or even stop the AMOC which would result in more continental climate in Europe. Presented results indicate that this threshold lies higher than observed current melt rates of GrIS.
Fascinating Juniperus comunnis species has shown to be able to address many ecological as well as environmental open questions and due to its longevity and abundant distribution has a great potential to become an important player in the Arctic research.
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International Monetary Fund
Drobná, Martina ; Hrdlička, Pavel (advisor) ; Severová, Lucie (referee)
The object of this thesis is an analysis of the current role of the International Monetary Fund in the 21st century. The first part of this thesis is focused on history that led to foundation of this international organisation, the reasons for its establishment and its characterization. The second par introduces one from the most important roles of this Fund, which is providing of credit to the countries that have financial difficulties. The result of this part is an appraisal of these loans and their future development. The last part of this thesis assesses current tasks of the Internationl Monetary Fund and its role in the future.
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