Astrocytes, as one of the glial cell types, have many important functions in healthy functioning of the central nervous system (CNS) but also in its pathology. Since they play a key role in maintenance of ionic, neurotransmitter and water homeostasis in CNS, they possess the ability to regulate their volume. Hypo- or hyperosmotic stress can trigger regulatory volume decrease or increase in astrocytes in order to stabilize their volume. During aging, astrocytes undergo many changes together with the rest of the brain. In order to determine whether these alterations involve also regulatory volume mechanisms, we employed three dimensional morphometry, which comprises confocal microscope scanning of fluorescently labelled astrocytes in brain slices of EGFP/GFAP mice and quantification of astrocyte volume during different pathological stimuli. Time-dependent volume changes of hippocampal astrocytes were recorded while applying either hypoosmotic solution or solution with high extracellular potassium concentration. In the four different age groups studied in the experiment, several differences in volume changes were discovered together with some sex-dependent alterations in astrocyte volume. Additionally, in accordance with previous studies, two subpopulation of astrocytes were identified using...

During ontogeny there are a lot of changes in the entire human skeleton. This thesis deals with shape changes in the mandible, which are caused by genetic, hormonal, as well as mechanical factors. The most important mechanical factors influencing the shape of mandible are development of deciduous and permanent dentition and also development of masticatory muscles. 34 children mandibles of known age and 14 adult mandibles were analysed and compared for this thesis. Data were obtained by scanning coordinates of 36 landmarks using Microscribe G2X, and then were processed by software PAST and Morphologika2 using multivariate statistics (PCA, MANOVA). Geometric morphometrics is used for a detailed analysis of shape changes of the mandible. There is no difference between dental and chronological age. In conclusion, lower jaw narrows during growth, the body extends more in the region of third molars and the ramus grows mainly in the region of condylar process. Chin prominence also occurs during ontogeny. In the group of adult mandibles the variability is caused by coronoid process height and the body width. The hypothesis, that age groups are significantly different from each other, and therefore due to tooth mineralization there are marked shape changes, is confirmed.

Thesis deals with the study of palate morphology and variability of patients with UCLP, using modern methods of geometric morphometrics. Dental plaster casts of UCLP patients (average age 14,8) and the control group (average age 14,7) were used for evaluation. The models were scanned using a 3D scanner. For evaluation of total variability of patients with orofacial clefts, previously rated dental casts of BCLP patients (whose age ranged from 12,1 to 16,5) were also included. All patients were operated and treated at The Clinic of Plastic Surgery in Prague. The results are in accordance with literature, which describes the basic size and shape differences in the morphology of the palate in different types of clefts (e.g. narrowing of the palate in UCLP and BCLP and asymmetry of palatal vault in UCLP). Using "Dense correspondense models analysis" average surface models were computed and new informations about the shape and premaxila position were gained. Different location and slope of the palate in different types of clefts and within control group were detected by superimposition of average models and FESA. UCLP palate have typically asymetric palate vault with a maximum height in front of the cleft palate and at the back in the side without malformations. Variability of the shape of palate for each group...

This diploma thesis deals with morphometric analysis and hydrological regime of Skalnaté pleso lake and Hincové Oká lakes, especially the lake level fluctuation, during the period 2011 - 2014. One of the tasks was the bathymetric mapping of observed locations. For Hincové Oká lakes was it the first mapping of bathymetry at all. The hydrological regime and lake level fluctuation regime of observed locations shows interesting differences from the other Tatra lakes whose hydrological regime is controlled by precipitation amounts. The annual culmination of Hincové Oká lakes (the largest lake) is shifted into the spring caused by melting snowpack. When there is no rainfall for a couple of days Skalnaté pleso lake often dries up, even during summer months, when levels of most Tatra lakes reach their maximum values. However summer drying is shortterm. Lake level fluctuation regime is very dynamic. After a strong rainfall event its level rises very steeply, up to 0,14 m per hour. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Interspecific and intraspecific size variability of the skull, mandibles and teeth of the lesser white- toothed shrew Crocidura suaveolens and the bicolored white-toothed shrew C. leucodon was studied on material of 350 skulls and 465 mandibles of white-toothed shrews obtained by analysis of the barn owl pellets originating from four regions in the Czech Republic and one region in the southern Slovakia. C. suaveolens was present in all regions under study, while sympatric C. leucodon occurred in three regions only. In total, 21cranial and dental measurements and 4 mandibular measurements were investigated. It was found that the most reliable measurement enabling discrimination between skulls of both species in the whole studied material is the lenght of the lower dental row. If skulls of both species were evaluated separately for each area of their sympatry it was possible to use also the distance between second molars M2 and the width of premolar P4 . Skulls of these two species can also be distinguished by bivariate graphs using the length and width of premolar P4 and the palatal length. We studied relationships between cranial measurements of both species and geoclimatic factors such as longitude, latitude, mean annual temperature and mean annual percipitation. It was found that variability of...

The aim of this study was to detect and describe the trends in shape variability of proximal and distal human tibia related to sex, age, social status and time period. The variability of its shape and form was analysed first in an early medieval sample, then in two modern populations, an early 20th century sample and the contemporary Czech population. Finally, data from the whole studied time span were analysed. The initial raw data were acquired by optical scanning and computed tomography (CT) scanning of the lower limbs; the three-dimensional bone surfaces of the contemporary tibias were segmented from the clinical CT scan sequences. Geometric morphometrics and multivariate statistical methods were applied to study the variations in shape and form quantitatively. Proximal and distal tibias were evaluated independently, and the potential influence of sex, age at death and time period were investigated. In the early medieval population, we also explored the relationship between tibial morphology and presumed social status derived from the respective grave location within the settlement. Because traditional morphometric analysis revealed statistically significant sex differences in the parameters of both tibial extremities (e.g., Steyn and Işcan, 1997; Šlaus et al., 2013), we thus assumed the...

This Ph.D. thesis presents new facts about a paleoenvironmental development of the northern part of the Bohemian Forest (area of Černé Lake and Čertovo Lake) in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. The main goals of the research are: characterize the glacier landforms in the Bohemian Forest and define the variance of these landforms; determine factors influencing formation and development of the glaciation in the study area; describe environmental settings and its changes during deglaciation and in Early Holocene by using environmental proxies. This research proceeds from original data obtained by geomorphological mapping, morphometric analysis and proxy data analyses originated from a sediment sequence in a peat bog in the Černé Lake vicinity. The common attributes of the Bohemian Forest cirques and cirque variability was determined using morphometric and morphologic characteristics of the cirques on the Bavarian and Czech side of the mountain range. These characteristics were compared with other cirques of the Bohemian Massif and other chosen mountain ranges of the world. The cirque overdeepening was defined on the basis of headwall shapes and it emerged that overdeepening of the cirques in the Bavarian Forest and in the High Sudetes reflects a different extent of the Pleistocene glaciation....

Title: Correspondence Problem in Geometric Morphometrics Tasks Author: Václav Krajíček Department / Institute: Department of Software and Computer Science Education Supervisor of the doctoral thesis: RNDr. Josef Pelikán Supervisor's e-mail address: pepca@cgg.mff.cuni.cz Abstract: Shape analysis in physical anthropology, biomedicine, and related disci- plines is mostly done using landmarks or by measuring distances. New techno- logical advancements allow the digitization of object's appearance in the form of triangular meshes or volume images. These digital images are especially beneficial in the cases when landmarks cannot be used to effectively describe the shape. In order to statistically analyze shape in a sample of observations, which are represented by these modalities, correspondence has to be found. Registration is a crucial tool in mapping the shape representations into a common space where correspondence is found by nearest neighbor principle in the case of triangular meshes or by overlaps in the case of volume images. B- spline based non-rigid registration is chosen because of its versatility, relative speed and ability to handle both meshes and volume images. Experiments were also performed with other alternatives - Thin-plate splines and Coherent point drift. The algorithm was modified to handle...

Micrasterias rotata is a phylogenetically and morphologically well defined species that is widely distributed in Central Europe in a broad temperature gradient. For its complex cell shape Micrasterias rotata is a suitable model organism for cell morphogenesis research. This thesis investigated whether there could be a different pattern in morphological integration resulting from the temperature stress in Micrasterias rotata cells cultivated on a temperature gradient. The optimum and a limits of growth on the temperature gradient were related to the sampling locations of the studied strains isolated from a lowland wetland and an high alpine lake. Differences in the growth rates among the strains suggested a local adaptation to the climatic conditions of the original locations but relatively high values of the assumed optimum growth temperature suggested an intra- species evolutionary adaptation. The temperature-related size reduction rule was not confirmed; however, a similar pattern of variation in shape occurred in both strains. The morphological integration analysis has basically confirmed that the Micrasterias cell is composed of a number of morphological modules related to its differentiation into the lobes and sublobes. Integration between the lobes of the opposite semicell was primarily...

The thesis is focussed on the reconstruction of a damaged skull represented by a polygonal model. The reconstruction is based on a statistical shape model of the skull. The thesis covers the registration of skulls by using a thin-plate spline method, aligning polygonal models by generalized procrustes analysis, the identification of missing parts of a skull by means of statistical shape models outliers analysis. Finally, missing parts of the skull are reconstructed and the accuracy of the reconstruction is estimated.