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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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Specific features of nursing care provided to members of the Church of Scientology.
MATOUŠKOVÁ, Eva
The Church of Scientology was officially registered in Los Angeles in 1954. It is present in more than 150 countries of the world, and is professed by over 8 million people. The founder of the movement is the American author of science fiction and fiction, Laffayete Ron Hubbard, who conducted research in the sphere of the human spirit, summarised in his books "Dianetics". Later on, he focused his research on spiritual beings and their abilities. This gave rise to an applicable religious philosophy - Scientology. It has not been possible to register the Church of Scientology officially in the Czech Republic so far, and therefore it acts as the civil association of "Dianetické centrum" (the Dianetic Centre). The number of its members and sympathisers in this country is not very high, reaching approximately 800 persons. Still, it is important for us to know the differences of this minority, to be able to provide its members with nursing care corresponding to their specific needs. This subject is dealt with by the multi-cultural nursing care studying cultures and religions from the point of view of nursing practice. In connection with globalisation, this subject becomes even more topical. The national, cultural and ethnic structure of the population undergoes gradual changes and the number of foreigners legally residing in the territory of the Czech Republic keeps growing. For this reason, it is important even for nurses to be prepared and have at least the minimum knowledge of multi-cultural / trans-cultural nursing care that will enable them to provide adequate nursing care respecting the specifics in question. The objective of my thesis is to get to know the specific features of nursing care provided to members of the Church of Scientology and to establish the specific features of their life style. To meet the objectives, I set five research questions. Research question 1: Do members of the Church of Scientology have specific needs when they are being provided nursing care? Research question 2: What is the attitude of members of the Church of Scientology to the health care provided in the Czech Republic? Research question 3: Do members of the Church of Scientology have specific spiritual needs? Research question 4: What attitude do members of the Church of Scientology have towards their health? Research question 5: Do members of the Church of Scientology have a specific life style? To collect data for fulfilling my research objectives and obtaining answers to the research questions, I applied the method of qualitative research. To conduct the qualitative research I used the technique of a semi-structured interview with the members of the Church of Scientology attending the Dianetic Centre in Prague. The interview contained altogether 46 questions divided into four areas, and the participants were four men and four women of different ages and different lengths of being members of the Church. The qualitative examination established the main and most distinct specific feature in providing nursing care to members of the Church of Scientology, which is maintaining silence at the time when human mind is weakened. Further, the research showed that scientologists respect physicians and do not exclude them in cases of accidents or danger of life. They normally undergo preventive examinations and do not object to being vaccinated provided that they are supplied with sufficient information. The only exception is psychiatry. Being provided with assists constitutes the only spiritual need, and the Church of Scientology has no specifics in terms of diet. This thesis may be used as a study material for general nurses and students of nursing studies, to expand knowledge in the field of multi-cultural / trans-cultural nursing care, which will facilitate providing culture-specific nursing care to members of this religious minority.
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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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Pulsed liquid jet generated by pulse multiplication technique
Dvorský, R. ; Sitek, Libor ; Sochor, T.
First theoretical papers summarizing the high mechanical energy cumulation when high-speed drops impacting the solid surface as a result of the water hammer effect have been known since 1960’s. Heymann has demonstrated that pressure maximum in the impact of a spherical drop of a liquid is several times higher than the presupposed maximum for the classical water hammer effect. The latter maximum pressure itself exceeds the mere stagnation pressure of the continuous jet many times hereat. When developing devices for pulse jet generation a new generalization of the classical water hammer theory for high pressures has been implemented. Based on this the new patented principle of “pulse multiplication” has been formulated. The pulse multiplier is the source of high-pressure pulses with 100% depth of modulation of liquid jet discharge velocity that allows increasing the jet disintegration effect significantly without the abrasive material application.
Fulltext: content.csg -  DOC
Plný tet: UGN_0398574 - 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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Migration to selected EU countries: Labor market integration
Kaclíková, Roberta ; Šaroch, Stanislav (advisor) ; Němcová, Ingeborg (referee)
The aim of this master thesis is to analyse the labor market of European Union and its certain countries in relation to the immigration with the backgound of various social welfare models. The paper is analysing the topic of labor market of European Union, integration of immigrants on this market, with focus on economies and labour markets of Sweden, United Kingdom and Germany as countries with high level of immigration that are representing three different social welfare models, such as Nordic model, Liberal model and Conservative model. The main objective of this thesis is the analysis of labor markets in selected countries of the European Union in relation to immigration and their subsequent comparison using the background of different social welfare models. The result is the evaluation of effectivness of the various social models based on statistical data, acquired knowledge and performed comparisons. The thesis is divided into four chapters and contains 13 tables and 8 charts.
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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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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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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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