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Robustness of High-Dimensional Data Mining
Kalina, Jan ; Duintjer Tebbens, Jurjen ; Schlenker, Anna
Standard data mining procedures are sensitive to the presence of outlying measurements in the data. This work has the aim to propose robust versions of some existing data mining procedures, i.e. methods resistant to outliers. In the area of classification analysis, we propose a new robust method based on a regularized version of the minimum weighted covariance determinant estimator. The method is suitable for data with the number of variables exceeding the number of observations. The method is based on implicit weights assigned to individual observations. Our approach is a unique attempt to combine regularization and high robustness, allowing to downweight outlying high-dimensional observations. Classification performance of new methods and some ideas concerning classification analysis of high-dimensional data are illustrated on real raw data as well as on data contaminated by severe outliers.
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Is import of goods from european countries to Czech republic more or less influenced by changes in nominal and real exchange rates than in non european countries?
Vereš, Jan ; Stroukal, Dominik (advisor) ; Slaný, Martin (referee)
This bachelor thesis analyses the connection between import of goods from foreign countries to Czech Republic and the exchange rate changes. The initial hypothesis of this paper is to prove that the depreciation of domestic currency has positive influence on balance of trade balance. For this purpose there is eight econometric models which were created by using time series from years 2003 to 2016. These models are divided in pairs among four chosen countries. For each country two models were created that follow the development of trade balance between Czech Republic and one of the countries in two different time frames. All the models always use the real effective exchange rate, growth rate of GDP for Czech Republic and growth rate of GDP for one of the countries as explanatory variable. It is connected with the second task of this thesis, which is the analysis of the differences in the behaviour of the models that belong to the countries which are members of the EU and these that are not. The aim is to find out whether the existence of tariffs on imported goods from countries out of the EU causes visible differences in the behaviour of the variables that were included in the models. Based on the outcomes of all eight models the main hypothesis has been proved right for three out of four countries. In the models for Germany, China and France the relation of real exchange rate and trade balance came out as positive in long term, in short term the outcome was ambiguous. The second question of this thesis has been answered, but its added value is questionable. The final models for each state do show some noticeable differences and they can be used to determine if the influence of the change of exchange rates on trade balance is smaller or bigger in the countries where tariffs are used. On the other hand, from the results we can learn that the sample of only four countries is insufficient for the deduction of any conclusions.
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The status of women on the labour market in Czech Republic
Skopalíková, Anna ; Chytil, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Čermáková, Klára (referee)
The bachelor thesis addresses discrimination of women on the labour market in Czech Republic. Its aim is to verify hypothesises about the existence of lower mean wages of women and about the existence of discrimination of women on the labour market in Czech Republic. Oaxaca wage differential decomposition which is introduced in the theoretical part of the thesis confirmed the existence of wage differentials between the wages of men and women on the Czech labour market, in selected regions and in selected occupational fields. This confirms the hypothesis about lower mean wages of women. Oaxaca wage differentials decomposition also confirms that the wage gap can be explained in most cases up to 18 %. The second hypothesis is confirmed only partially. The discrimination of women probably exists on the labour market but it is not possible to confirm the size of it. The unexplained component of the wage gap (based on the Oaxaca decomposition) includes besides other things the discrimination coefficient. The size of this coefficient is not possible to determine. The secondary aim of the bachelor thesis is to determine the impact of individual variables on the observed wage gaps. Factors which most often influence the wage gaps are education and age.
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Fiscal rules in selected EU countries between 2004-2015: sensible method for consolidation of public finances or fad of politicians?
Veselý, Lukáš ; Strejček, Ivo (advisor) ; Chmelová, Pavla (referee)
The subject of fiscal rules is very topical issue. The rise of public debt in certain developed countries resulted in what is sometimes called "debt crisis". Debt of those countries which is higher than their annual gross domestic product is viewed as unpayable by some economists. The main objective of this thesis has been to prove or disprove hypothesis that the fiscal rules studied in this paper are an effective solution for public finance consolidation. This verification was based on the analysis of fiscal rules functioning in selected countries between 2004 and 2015. As per results of analysis the paper aims to give recommendations for the Czech financial constitution proposal. The actual results of inquiry proved the hypothesis. Well-chosen fiscal rules are the right way towards fiscal consolidation, provided they are observed. Fiscal rules making thus requires an emphasis to be placed on the well-formulated exit clauses altogether with prospective sanctions. The current Czech financial constitution proposal is built on the correctly picked fiscal rule type, although the reference value lacks economic sense and it would not lead, with a high degree of probability, towards fiscal consolidation.
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Orienteering club support system
Buk, Jindřich ; Vojíř, Stanislav (advisor) ; Sklenák, Vilém (referee)
Nowadays, an increasing number of processes and life situations is getting IT support. Often the use of the Internet aims to accelerate and simplify existing processes. In addition, there is a big area of social networking that can be complementary. This thesis deals with the possibilities of using web technologies to support the running of a club and its subsequent development. Indeed, the club has the potential to simplify and automate many processes which previously have been carried out by someone in person. It has also a potential to use social networks for its publicity and development. The aim is to first determine what areas of the clubs operations are the most appropriate to be supported by any information system. Another objective is to find out how other clubs already integrate any information systems. The final objective is to design and create a specific application. The first two objectives are addressed through a survey among the leaders of the biggest Czech clubs. Indeed in these clubs, the use of automation and simplification of existing processes could have a great potential. The proposal for a specific application is then based on the previous survey and the field experience of the author. While serving many existing processes in running the club, the proposed application adds many elements of social networking.
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Application of art therapy elements for students at high special school (practical)
Koubská, Patricie ; Valešová Malecová, Barbara (advisor) ; Šiška, Jan (referee)
Application of art therapy elements for students at high special school (practical) The theme of this bachelor thesis is the use of art therapy procedure for pupils from practical two-year high school. The aim of this thesis is to consider the possibilities of using elements of group art therapy for the development of self-knowledge, communication, for strengthening of prosocial ties and increasing of a sense of group belonging. In the narrower sense, art therapy is underwood as a fine art therapy. Theoretical basis of the thesis will be the methods of art therapy, their possibilities and procedures, developmental aspects of maturing, specifics of maturing for pupils with handicaps (mental retardation issues, specific disorders of behavior problems of pupils with social and physical handicaps). In the practical part of the thesis there is described the use of these methods in my own art lessons.
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Analysis and design of intranet structure
Novák, Miroslav ; Pour, Jan (advisor) ; Šedivá, Zuzana (referee)
Nowadays, Intranet is an inseparable part of every company, notwithstanding of their size or field of activity. Both, in my work and personal life, I often come across different intranets that usually do not get a positive response. But they usually have the same source of the problem, which is based on their wrong structure. This is why is chose this topic for my thesis. The goal of my thesis is to perform an analysis of an existing intranet of a particular company and subsequently create a design of the intranet new structure using the card-sorting method. This thesis primarily represents a generalized method of how to proceed during such realization and which areas to look into. Theoretical part of this thesis covers the topics of information architecture and also the term intranet itself, where the most frequent issues I came across in the intranets are pointed out. Practical part covers the analysis itself, where I focus on the structure of the existing intranet, categorization of its content, connections with other systems, customization, permission management, surveys of contentment, and intranet usage. The analysis is performed manually by scanning through the existing intranet of the company, since other methods or approaches could not be applied due to technical limitations or insufficient permis-sions. Based on the outputs of the analysis, web categorizations and the card-sorting method, a design of a structure of the new intranet has been proposed. The design itself is a demonstration of the method how to approach the new intranet design.
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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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Differences between men and women in the Czech labour market
Stroukal, Dominik ; Kadeřábková, Božena (advisor) ; Pavelka, Tomáš (referee) ; Němec, Otakar (referee)
This thesis consists of five articles that apply current world research on labor economics at the Czech Republic and confirms the significant differences between men and women in this market. It shows that gender has a significant influence on the preference on the labor market and, consequently, on employment and health. First, the thesis shows that preferences are relevant determinant of career and then we study the difference in preference of salary for men and women. Subsequently it shows that gender plays a significant role in explaining the relationship between homeownership, and unemployment, as well as unemployment and health. The first chapter was able to demonstrate that the preference for a career has a positive influence on the choice of career. The influence of higher education on prioritizing career proved to be positive and significant. Probability of a career choice is reduced by the presence of children, however, is not dependent on their number, which is contrary to the theory of preferences. The second chapter shows that Czech women prefer more non-monetary rewards than men. It has also been shown that people with university education are same in the preferences of non-monetary rewards regardless of the gender of the respondents, however, compared to the world's research, the Czech higher education increases this preference. It turned out that women prefer risk less than men. The third chapter demonstrates that although the housing market undermines labor mobility and employment in the Czech Republic at the regional level, therefore, that in regions with a higher rate of home ownership is higher unemployment, at the individual level, the owners of housing are unemployed are less likely. The estimates are significantly different for men and women. Men living in owner-occupied housing have a higher likelihood of employment than women. At regional level, however, this thesis shows that the high rate of home ownership increases unemployment for both men and women, in the long run only to women. The fourth chapter showed that men transition to homeownership reduces the likelihood of unemployment next year. For women, this relationship has proved to be insignificant. In addition, as insignificant showed the opposite relationship, the transition from unemployment to the newly acquired home ownership. The last chapter shows that the change in the working status to unemployment will increase in the future probability of worse health. Influence in less than two years, however, proved to be significant. An important conclusion is that men have a significantly stronger relationship between health and unemployment than women.
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Synura echinulata (Synurales) - silica scale plasticity in natural populations influenced by environmental factors; accompanying scaled chrysophytes
Kreidlová, Jana ; Němcová, Yvonne (advisor) ; Hodač, Ladislav (referee)
The silica scale shape variation in Synura echinulata has been investigated only in laboratory conditions, so far. The aim of this thesis was to study scale shape variation in natural populations and to determine which environmental parameters influence the scale shape. The scale shape variation was investigated using landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics. Scale shape changes related to environmental factors were analyzed using the two-block method PLS (Partial Least-Squares analysis) and adonis (R). The scale shape was mostly influenced by locality, pH and altitude. Shape distinguished populations of S. echinulata probably exist in different localities. The more distant localities are, the less similar are scales of S. echinulata in their shape. This scale shape variation is probably genetically determined, even thought all so far sequenced populations belong to the same species. High morphological disparity which was probably caused by anthropogenic pollution, was recorded in the locality Brdy. During sampling of the natural populations of Synura echinulata in the Czech Republic, several localities representing a significant reservoirs of species diversity, were found. Therefore, the thesis was extended and biodiversity research in the Czech Republic was added. A few samples were...
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