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Clustering and regression analysis of micro panel data
Sobíšek, Lukáš ; Pecáková, Iva (advisor) ; Komárek, Arnošt (referee) ; Brabec, Marek (referee)
The main purpose of panel studies is to analyze changes in values of studied variables over time. In micro panel research, a large number of elements are periodically observed within the relatively short time period of just a few years. Moreover, the number of repeated measurements is small. This dissertation deals with contemporary approaches to the regression and the clustering analysis of micro panel data. One of the approaches to the micro panel analysis is to use multivariate statistical models originally designed for crosssectional data and modify them in order to take into account the within-subject correlation. The thesis summarizes available tools for the regression analysis of micro panel data. The known and currently used linear mixed effects models for a normally distributed dependent variable are recapitulated. Besides that, new approaches for analysis of a response variable with other than normal distribution are presented. These approaches include the generalized marginal linear model, the generalized linear mixed effects model and the Bayesian modelling approach. In addition to describing the aforementioned models, the paper also includes a brief overview of their implementation in the R software. The difficulty with the regression models adjusted for micro panel data is the ambiguity of their parameters estimation. This thesis proposes a way to improve the estimations through the cluster analysis. For this reason, the thesis also contains a description of methods of the cluster analysis of micro panel data. Because supply of the methods is limited, the main goal of this paper is to devise its own two-step approach for clustering micro panel data. In the first step, the panel data are transformed into a static form using a set of proposed characteristics of dynamics. These characteristics represent different features of time course of the observed variables. In the second step, the elements are clustered by conventional spatial clustering techniques (agglomerative clustering and the C-means partitioning). The clustering is based on a dissimilarity matrix of the values of clustering variables calculated in the first step. Another goal of this paper is to find out whether the suggested procedure leads to an improvement in quality of the regression models for this type of data. By means of a simulation study, the procedure drafted herein is compared to the procedure applied in the kml package of the R software, as well as to the clustering characteristics proposed by Urso (2004). The simulation study demonstrated better results of the proposed combination of clustering variables as compared to the other combinations currently used. A corresponding script written in the R-language represents another benefit of this paper. It is available on the attached CD and it can be used for analyses of readers own micro panel data.
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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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The issue of church restitutions in Czech Republic
Novopacká, Zuzana ; Louda, Tomáš (advisor) ; Matula, Miloš (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with the issue called church restitutions and the topic of the separation between churches and the state in the Czech Republic. Its main goal is to provide a comprehensive view on this controversial theme. The theoretical part provides basic definition of related concepts and contains a historical analysis of church property. The practical part consist of analysis of the Act. No. 428/2012 Coll. and highlights its strengths and weaknesses. It also contains some examples of contentious cases dealing with the return of church property. Based on this bachelor thesis we can say there is a many irregularities and critical points of adopted Act and we may find this topic very debatable.
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Usage of unstructured data in Business Intelligence
Rakhmanova, Malika ; Šperková, Lucie (advisor) ; Karkošková, Soňa (referee)
The aim of the thesis is to identify the main trends that are occurring in the market of Business Intelligence and related to unstructured data, to describe the possibilities for integrating unstructured data, to clarify what the impact on the company have the results that can be obtained using these solutions and how generally incorporate an analysis of unstructured data into BI. Another aim is to show the current situation of processing unstructured data on the example of BI system. The thesis is divided into several parts. First part is describing of the Business Intelligence area and the basic components of Business Intelligence, as well as identifying market trends. Then, there is the next part: separating the data into structured and unstructured. Here is the part about how you can access and analyse unstructured data and what is their place in BI systems. This is the end of a block of unstructured data and the beginning of a description of the enhanced version of BI. Finally, the current market situation and BI tools, which include unstructured data, are introduced. This section provides an overview of how BI tools approach to analyse unstructured data. Existed literature, professional and freely available Internet resources are used for writing the work. The purpose is to serve as a source of information for quickly orienting in the current situation, to serve as a guide to the world of BI solutions and to show potential users what are the options and functionality of these BI solutions.
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The impact of South China Sea dispute on trade relations between China and Vietnam
Nguyen Hong, Viet ; Vlčková, Jana (advisor) ; Hasík, Gabriel (referee)
This bachelor thesis investigates the impact of South China Sea dispute on mutual relations between China and Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Thesis lays great emphasis on the analysis of mutual trading relations. The goal of this work is to find out if the dispute over territory has negative influence on mutual relations and to what extent. Therefore, thesis is divided into 3 main chapters. The introductory chapter describes position and development of each country. Second chapter uses findings from the introductory part for the analysis of political and trade relations of both countries. It focuses on the history of mutual relations and mainly it lays emphasis on current mutual relations. Last chapter of the thesis is dedicated to the issues regarding South China Sea. Motives and causes of this dispute are described in this chapter. It provides a view on the course of this territorial dispute, and also impacts on mutual relations are analyzed. The output of all three chapters helps to formulate following conclusion. Dispute over South China Sea has impact on mutual relations. Predominantly, it influences political relations between China and Vietnam, therefore, this dispute is often mentioned in media. However, according to available data this dispute has not had major effect on trading relations. Mutual trading between both countries went off in dispute period without any limitations and barriers.
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Employee motivation and satisfaction in production company
Olszowá, Zuzana ; Matysová, Kamila (advisor) ; Chylíková, Hana (referee)
The main subject of the thesis is employee motivation and satisfaction. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the employee motivation and work satisfaction of a production company, identify areas of dissatisfaction and provide recommendations for future improvements. The study also aims to emphasize the relationship between employee motivation and work satisfaction and the level of their performance, loyalty, absenteeism, fluctuation as well as the correllation between employee motivation and satisfaction and the overall organizational performance. A brief introduction is followed by the theoretical framework of the thesis which includes such concepts as motivation, stimulation, work motivation, job satisfaction or motivation profile, explains and focuses on basic theories of motivation and factors of employee satisfaction. The empirical part of the thesis introduces the human resources management in the production company and the questionnaire investigation conducted among the employees of the production company. The questionnaire icludes parts where the questions about satisfaction of the employee with the selected factors influencing employee motivation and satisfaction were asked. This section also includes conclusions and recommendations for future employee motivation and satisfaction improvements.
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Analysis of the company environment
Hladík, Ondřej ; Dvořáček, Jiří (advisor) ; Strouhal, Jiří (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with methods of analysing the company environment and then using these methods on a company Travel Service, a.s. The primary purpose is to determine main factors affecting the market position of this company. Methods used for analyzing the company environment are introduced in theoretical part of the thesis. For analysing the macroenvironment is used PEST analysis and Porter five force model is used for analysing the critical factors of macroenvironment. The thesis include SWOT analysis and recommendations for the company based on the collected informations.
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Comparison of methods of ECLIA and ELISA in determining the beta-CrossLaps
KOŽANTOVÁ, Jana
Osteoporosis is a very old disease affecting a large majority of population. Its occurrence rate has been growing permanently. It is a systemic disease of bones for which the decrease in bone mass, i.e. of inorganic as well as organic bone part is characteristic. Typical symptoms are osteoporotic fractures. To perform an in time diagnostics of the disease, it is necessary to execute the necessary examinations. One of them is also the laboratory determination of markers of bone resorption and new creation for finding out the state of bone metabolism. The target of my bachelor thesis was to find out the level of the bone resorption marker (beta-CrossLaps) by means of ELISA and ECLIA methods on the same serum from patients with the diagnosed osteoporosis and to process statistically the results. In the next part I dealt with the structure and functions of bones. Then I focused on markers of bone formation and resorption. Finally I mentioned the bone metabolism and its control mechanisms. I concentrated mainly on the metabolism of calcium, D vitamin, parathormone and calcitonin. I carried out the practical part of my bachelor's thesis in the accredited private laboratory STAFILA, spol. s r. o. in České Budějovice. The procedure of my work followed the standard operating procedure of the laboratory. In the research, in total 66 serums of patients with osteoporosis were analysed by me. At first, I determined the concentration by beta-CrossLaps method based on the principle of sandwich ELISA on the appliance NexGen Four from TestLine company. Then I analysed the same samples on the automatic analyser IDS-iSYS from IDS company, this time by ECLIA method. Both appliances on which the determination was executed, principles of both methods, applied analytic sets and the procedures of analysis are described in the methodical part. In the next part of my bachelor's thesis, the results of my measuring are stated. At first I entered the concentrations beta-CrossLaps in ng/ml measured by both methods into the table and for the respective samples I stated the sex and years of birth of individual patients. Moreover I prepared a graph illustrating the share of men and women of various age categories in my research. The second graph shows the differences in values of beta-CrossLaps concentrations between both methods. Resulting concentrations were subject to regression analysis. I applied linear regression and Grubbs test for finding out the outlying values excluded from the further statistical processing. I performed Passing-Bablok regression based on the remaining values. As a result of regression equation and 95% CI of the slope B and intercept A, the proportional error of measuring was rejected but on the contrary, the systematic error was confirmed. Correlation coefficient R = 0,97 shows a very good linear dependency between both methods. It turned out by practice in the laboratory that the evaluation of concentrations beta-CrossLaps from the same patients on various appliances may show partially different values. I worked at two different analysers, each of them was based on another principle, with a different sensitivity and calibration. All of this could have the influence on the resulting concentration of individual samples. The advantage of automatic analyser IDS-iSYS is a quicker determination. Moreover it is possible to perform on this apparatus all the possible examination concerning the bone metabolism from D vitamin, parathormone, osteocalcin up to bone markers. It is advantage for the patients with osteoporosis as well as with other metabolic skeleton diseases. It follows from this that all the necessary examinations may be carried out on one apparatus.
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The Asian financial crisis and post-crisis development of newly industrialized countries of Asia
Panchenko, Victoria ; Bolotov, Ilya (advisor) ; Černá, Iveta (referee)
This thesis analyzes the Asian financial crisis by providing a comprehensive view of the development of the economies of the Asian newly industrialized countries before and after the outbreak of the crisis. The aim of this paper is to explore and understand the causes of the crisis and derive practical lessons. The work is structured as follows. The first chapter is theoretical and defines newly industrialized countries by focusing on the characteristics of the economic and social status of these countries in a period of prosperity. The second chapter examines the financial crisis in 1997 - its origin, causes, indicators and progress. The last chapter discusses the impact of the crisis both on countries of Southeast Asia and on the world economy overall. Afterwards, summarizing of the lessons that can be learned from the Asian financial crisis and that remain urgent even nowadays is outlined.
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Strategic analysis of WARHORSE STUDIOS, s.r.o.
Duda, Martin ; Boukal, Petr (advisor) ; Krause, Josef (referee)
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to define basic methods, which are used for the creation of a business analysis and to apply these methods to a real business. The thesis is divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical part is focused on an explanation of basic concepts required for the understanding of a given topic and afterwards on individual methods and analyses connected with external and internal analysis of a business: PESTEL analysis, Porter's Five Forces Model, strategic analysis of company's internal environment, financial analysis and SWOT analysis. The content of the practical part is an application of the individual defined methods and analyses to create the strategic analysis of Warhorse Studios, s. r. o. The information acquired from the analysis of external and internal environment is summarized in the SWOT analysis. Recommendations are provided based on the results of these analyses. The entire thesis is summarized in the Conclusion chapter.
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