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Fast Dependency-Aware Feature Selection in Very-High-Dimensional Pattern Recognition Problems
Somol, Petr ; Grim, Jiří
The paper addresses the problem of making dependency-aware feature selection feasible in pattern recognition problems of very high dimensionality. The idea of individually best ranking is generalized to evaluate the contextual quality of each feature in a series of randomly generated feature subsets. Each random subset is evaluated by a criterion function of arbitrary choice (permitting functions of high complexity). Eventually, the novel dependency-aware feature rank is computed, expressing the average benefit of including a feature into feature subsets. The method is efficient and generalizes well especially in very-high-dimensional problems, where traditional context-aware feature selection methods fail due to prohibitive computational complexity or to over-fitting. The method is shown well capable of over-performing the commonly applied individual ranking which ignores important contextual information contained in data.
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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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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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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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Karyotype differentiation of Euscorpius scorpions (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae) in Europe
Novotný, Tomáš ; Šťáhlavský, František (advisor) ; Ráb, Petr (referee)
The aim of presented work is to provide characteristics of the karyotypes of scorpions of the genus Euscorpius. Genus Euscorpius is a typical representative of scorpions in Europe. Its occurrence is wide throughout Europe. Until now, 18 species of this genus have been described. In this work six species were karyologically analyzed and one species was shown to possess only basic diploid number of chromosomes: E. carpathicus - 2n=90, E. concinnus - 2n=88, E. hadzii - 2n=68, E. sicanus - 2n=66, E. tergestinus - 2n=60, E. naupliensis - 2n=60, E. italicus - 2n=36. Description of the karyotypes revealed that all species studied exhibit achiasmatic meiosis; no presence of sex chromosomes was detected. The basic hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships and karyotype evolution of the genus Euscorpius was outlined. High interspecies variability in chromosome total count was found and by analysis of the 16S rRNA gene the taxonomic status of the species was confirmed. Hence, it seems that cytogenetic methods can contribute to the understanding of species diversity and differentiation of possible cryptic species within the genus Euscorpius.
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The current state and prospects for sustainable development of tourism in Slovakia.
Libantová, Silvia ; Indrová, Jarmila (advisor) ; Chaloupka, Radek (referee)
Tourism contributes to the prosperity of destinations by bringing financial resources, new jobs, a higher level of services and infrastructure development. However, if tourism does not develop sustainably, it is accompanied by negative factors, as well. Especially, negative impacts on the environment, such as: water and soil contamination, increased noise and overcrowded destination during the high season. As a response to the worsening state of the environment and possible irreversible changes caused by irresponsible human behavior, the idea of sustainable development is becoming more important. The theoretical part describes tourism in the Slovak Republic and highlights plans for sustainable tourism development. In the practical part, the results of the questionnaire, related to the awareness of sustainable tourism in the Slovak Republic, are evaluated. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the current situation in the field of sustainable tourism and to make suggestions for its future development.
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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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