DISSERTATION - Abstract in English Three Essays on Electricity Markets Author: PhDr. Petra Luňáčková Academic Year: 2017/2018 This thesis consists of three papers that share the main theme - energy. The articles introduce characteristics and behavior of electricity focusing on its unique properties. The dissertation aims at the Czech electricity market and analyzes also highly discussed solar power plants. The first article studies long term memory properties of electricity spot prices through the detrended fluctuation analysis, as electricity prices are dominated by cycles. We conclude that Czech electricity prices are strongly mean reverting yet non-stationary. The second part of the dissertation investigates possible asymmetry in the gas - oil prices adjustment. Oil prices determine the price of electricity during the times of peak demand, as the reaction of power plants fueled by oil is quick but marginal costs are high. We chose the gasoline - crude oil relationship known as "rockets and feathers" effect and offer two new tests to analyze such type of relationship as we believe that error correction model is not the most suitable tool. Analyzing international dataset we do not find statistically significant asymmetry. The third study assesses the impact of renewable energy sources, solar plants in...

目前國內對同性戀的態度似乎日益正面，但同性戀歧視的事件仍層出不窮，顯示探討影響同性戀歧視因素的重要性。本論文擬探討過往學者較少關注的因素，即情境對歧視同性戀者的影響。本論文探討兩種情境：缺少明確行為準則的情境與訊息呈現不同順序的情境。根據過去研究種族歧視的學者對嫌惡型歧視（Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986）的探討，他們主張嫌惡型歧視者只有當情境缺少明確行為準則時，才會表現出對特定族群的負面行為（即歧視）。由於黑人族群與同志族群有些共通點，本論文根據嫌惡型歧視理論假設：缺乏明確行為準則的情境容易引發對同性戀者的歧視。除此之外，延伸嫌惡型歧視理論的看法，本論文嫌惡型歧視者雖信奉族群平等，卻無法控制其未意識到的負面情緒，而較容易受到情境中訊息呈現順序的影響（Krosnick, 1999）。當訊息呈現順序加強族群間對立，或凸顯族群特性，就會造成歧視行為（McConahay, 1983; Wilson, 2010）。研究一以實驗法操弄多位目標人物的職業與性傾向以及人物呈現順序，預期在評價刻板印象中同性戀不適合的職業（老師）時，參與者會因為缺乏工作平等對待的行為準則，降低對同性戀工作者的工作評價，不過未獲得支持證據。訊息呈現順序效果則發現支持證據，若先評異性戀再評同性戀，會引發群際比較，降低對同性戀的評價。研究二改採判決目標人物是否有罪的情境，以犯罪證據是否矛盾操弄情境是否有明確準則，並同樣操弄性傾向呈現順序，加入態度內隱測驗以分辨嫌惡型歧視者與無歧視者。研究二符合預期，發現在證據矛盾時才會認為同性戀有罪程度高於比異性戀，證據相符時則否。性傾向呈現順序則重複驗證研究一發現。本論文延伸嫌惡型歧視理論以瞭解對男同性戀的歧視，並發現特定訊息呈現順序可能引發男同性戀歧視行為，這些結果可以提供發展性別平等教育方案，以有效降低這些歧視行為，促進社會平等。 / In Taiwan, people’s attitudes toward gay men and lesbians have become more and more positive. However, gay men and lesbians are still suffer discrimination, suggesting that it is important to study the causes of discrimination against gay men and lesbians. In this thesis, I investigated the impact of context on discrimination against gay men because 1) gay men suffer more hostile and overt discrimination than lesbians and 2) impact of context is rarely studied. I targeted two kinds of context: context norm and information order. According to aversive racism theory (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986), individuals may discriminate against a person when they do not have to follow a norm. Thus, I hypothesized that people discriminate gay men only when there is no specific norm to follow. Furthermore, I applied the basic principle underlying aversive racism theory to order effect. That is, according to aversive racism theory, individuals may believe in social equality but may discriminate when they have no control over their negative emotions unconsciously aroused by some subordinate group member (e.g., Blacks). Because it is not possible for individuals to be aware of the order effect (Krosnick, 1999), I hypothesized that individuals may discriminate against gay men when the information order makes intergroup comparisons salient (McConahay, 1983; Wilson, 2010). In Study 1, I manipulated the target person’s job title and sex orientation, expecting that when the job was generally considered unsuitable for gay men, participants might believe that equal employment rights did not apply to gay men. As a result, they derogated against gay men. The result was not substantiated. However, I did find supporting evidence for the order effect. When judging a heterosexual male applicant before a gay male applicant, intergroup comparisons became salient, people would derogate against the gay male applicant. In Study 2, I adopted a crime judgment paradigm to address several potential problems in Study 1. I also applied the affect misattribution procedure to measure participants’ implicit attitude against gay men. This procedure allows me to distinguish aversive discriminators from non-discriminators. The results were consistent with the hypotheses derived from aversive racism theory. Participants derogated against a gay male suspect only when there was no consistent evidence in a criminal case; they treated a gay male suspect and a heterosexual male suspect equally when there was consistent evidence. Also, when participants judged a heterosexual male suspect before a gay male suspect, they would consider the gay male suspect to be guiltier than the heterosexual male suspect. The findings extend aversive racism theory to the understanding of discrimination against gay men and in the context of information order that makes intergroup comparisons salient. With the knowledge of context effects on discrimination against gay men, we are able to develop education programs for gender equality and offer insight on how to best guard against discrimination against gay men so that social equality may become possible.

L’effet d’ordre de la présentation des stimuli a un impact sur leur discriminabilité. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions le phénomène d’asymétrie et comment celui-ci réagit avec divers facteurs cognitifs localisés dans différentes étapes du traitement. Nous nous focalisons sur le rôle de la périphéricité acoustique, de la dégradation auditive et des représentations mentales permanentes. Des données sur la perception visuelle complètent la partie principale de notre travail. Nous envisageons aussi la variabilité inter- et intra-sujet dans la perception et et dans la production des voyelles. Nos données révèlent que les effets d’ordre sont un mécanisme complexe qui ne peut pas être réduit à un seul facteur déclencheur. / It has been knonw for 150 years that the order of presentation of stimuli has an impact on their discriminability. In this thesis, we have examined the phenomenon of asymmetries in vowel perception ad how it interacts with various cognitive factors located at different steps of the stimulus decoding. We have focused on the role of acoustic peripherality, of auditory decay and of permanent mental representations. Data from visual perception complements the main body of our work. Inter-subject variability in vowel perception and production is also deal with. Our data shows that order effects are a complex mechanism which cannot be reduced to a single trigger factor.

Recent results from cognitive psychology suggest that human behavior can be, in some situations, better described by laws known from physical quantum theory. This work responds to this development and seeks to answer the question of how quantum models of cognition and decision-making can contribute to our understanding of the social world. We introduce the approaches to the application of quantum theory in social sciences - quantum consciousness, quantum reasoning and quantum metaphor and further develop the second, in the context of strategic interaction in game theory. We show that the quantum model corresponds to both the psychological intuition and many empirically known anomalies such as the order effect, disjunction effect, or context effect. In this work, we derive a specific model of strategic interaction between two players, and we test it in the experimental Prisoner's Dilemma game. The model is based on the rational choice theory, which is nevertheless re-defined when it is shown how the strategic choice is changed if the quantum probability (C*-algebra) is used as the underlying theory instead of classical probability (σ-algebra). The results obtained support the quantum model and showed a different representation of the game among various groups of players. The quantum model of...