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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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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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Information systems security penetration testing
Klíma, Tomáš ; Doucek, Petr (advisor) ; Čermák, Igor (referee) ; Čapek, Jan (referee) ; Štubňa, Ivan (referee)
The aim of this dissertation thesis is to develop new methodology of information systems penetration testing based on analysis of current methodologies and the role of penetration tests in context of IS/IT governance. Integral part of this aim is evaluation of the methodology. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the presentation of history and current state of research in selected area, definiton of basic terms and introduction of role of the penetration tests. This part is followed by the review of relevant sources and comparative study of current methodologies with a goal to identify their weaknesses. Results from this study are further used as a basis for new methodology development. Classification of IS penetration tests types and testing scenarios are also included. The second part includes design of new methodology, at first its history, structure and principles are presented, then its framework is decribed in high level of detail. In the third part the reader can find (theoretical and practical) validation. The biggest scientific contribution is the methodology itself focused on managment of penetration tests (which is the area currently not sufficiently descibed). Secondary contribution is the extensive review and the comparative analysis of current methodologies. Contribution to the economic and technical (practical) application we can mainly see in the development of new methodology which enables companies to improve management of penetration tests (especially planning, operational management and implementation of countermeasures).
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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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Support for Nurses in Death Cases at Resuscitation Units and Intensive Care Units
LAYEROVÁ, Helena
At Resuscitation Units and Intensive Care Units nurses face the issue of dying and death every day. Very often they are in contact with the dying and their immediate family and they are expected to have professional approach and provide comprehensive care. Stress that the nurses experience in these situations results into mental, emotional and physical exhaustion, and can be manifested by psychosomatic problems. Preparation of nurses to these situations and support of their management is therefore a key factor for the management of this demanding profession. The theoretical part of the thesis contains a description of the current state of the issue, characterizes resuscitation and intensive care, and deals with the issue of death and dying in Resuscitation Units nad Intensive Care Units, managing situations associated with death and the support of nurses in these situations. The work has four goals. The first objective is to determine what method of preparation of nurses is in practice ensured in Resuscitation Units and Intensive Care Units for the performance of high-quality nursing care for dying patients. Another objective is to determine whether and how the nurses are prepared and trained in the field of management of situations connected with the death of a patient in Resuscitation Units and Intensive Care Units. The third objective is, whether there is and what is the form of assistance to nurses in RU and ICU provided by the team and the management of the Department in case of deaths of patients, and the fourth objective is to determine what form and manner of support nurses expect and require. Research part of the thesis was carried out by quantitative investigation using an anonymous questionnaire. Respondents were answering 38 questions, 13 questions were closed, 21 half open and 4 were open. The support is most frequently understood as a psychological support, good teamwork, communication, supervision and representation where necessary. Management is expected primarily to provide support through education, ensuring supervision, corresponding financial support and professional psychological assistance where necessary. On the basis of this work?s results a proposal for the course for paramedical professions working in RS and ICU called ?Course of the Strategy of Difficult Situations Management in the Care for the Dying and Their Close Family in Intensive and Urgent Care?, was made.
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Marketing strategy adaptation of Chipotle in Czech markets
Hofmannová, Veronika ; Král, Petr (advisor) ; Janecký, Vlastimil (referee)
This Diploma thesis deals with chain of fast food restaurants named Chipotle, which is predominantly known in the United States of America, and its potential entry into the Czech market. The thesis analyzes the marketing strategy of the company and applies its adaptation for the Czech market. The competitive advantage of the company is using local organic raw ingredients of high quality; therefore, the thesis examines the Czech people´s interest in Mexican cuisine as well as issues of sustainable development. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the marketing strategy of the chain of restaurants with Mexican fast food and subsequently to apply the adaptation of the marketing mix to the conditions at the Czech market.
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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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Micro-electromembrane extraction across multiple aqueous and organic phases for selective pretreatment of raw biological samples
Kubáň, Pavel ; Boček, Petr ; Seip, K. F. ; Gjelstad, A. ; Pedersen-Bjergaard, S.
Micro-electromembrane extraction (μ-EME) across multiple aqueous and organic\nsolutions was developed for selective extractions of various analytes from untreated\nbiological samples. The novel approach requires μL volumes of samples and organic\nsolvents, which form consecutive immiscible plugs in a transparent polymeric capillary\nand the extraction process is accelerated by application of d.c. voltage. Number of the\nplugs, their composition, volume and sequence in the extraction capillary can be chosen\nspecifically for each particular application and high variability and selectivity of the\nextraction process can be achieved. In this contribution, we demonstrate suitability of\na five-phase μ-EME system for simultaneous extractions of cations and anions from\nurine and for selective extractions of basic analytes based on their acid-base strength\nfrom plasma.
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