This diploma thesis studies the issue of spatiotemporal mobility of pensioners in the environment of the city of České Budějovice and its hinterland. This research uses a combination of two methods. The first method is a questionnaire survey in witch each respondent received two questionnaires. Journeys made were recorded into the first questionnaire and characteristics of respondents and their households into the second one. The second method uses GPS loggers to collect spatial data on mobility of people. The theoretical part of this thesis deals with concepts of time geography, mobility specifics of pensioners, the issue of retirement age in the Czechia and the potential use of modern geoinformation technologies for mobility research. The methodology part presents methodological procedures for evaluating the obtained data, criteria for selection of respondents and the process of research. Followed by evaluation of actual results of surveys and their interpretation with regard to sub-goals of this thesis. The results are in many cases formed using a combination of data from both research methods. The main results, that relate to the specified individual goals and their consequent hypotheses, deal with the daily rhythms of the spatiotemporal mobility, evaluate the use of vehicles with regard to...

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is very useful in collecting data from individuals in hidden populations, where a sampling frame does not exist. It starts with researchers choosing initial respondents from a group which may be involved in taboo or illegal activities, after which they recruit other peers who belong to the same group. Analysis results in unbiased estimates of population proportions though with strong assumptions about the underlying social network and RDS recruitment process. These assumptions bear little resemblance to reality, and thus compromise the estimation of any means, population proportions or variances inferred from studies. The topology of the contact network, denoted by the number of links each person has, provides insight into the processes of infectious disease spread. The overall objective of the thesis is to identify the topology of an injection drug use network, and critically review the methods developed to produce estimates. The topology of people who inject drugs (PWID) collected by RDS in Ottawa, 2006 was compared with a Poisson distribution, an exponential distribution, a power-law distribution, and a lognormal distribution. The contact distribution was then evaluated against a small-world network characterized by high clustering and low average distances between individuals. Last a systematic review of the methods used to produce RDS mean and variance estimates was conducted. The Poisson distribution, a type of random distribution, was not an appropriate fit for PWID network. However, the PWID network can be classified as a small world network organised with many connections and short distances between people. Prevention of transmission in such networks should be focussed on the most active people (clustered individuals and hubs) as intervention with any others is less effective. The systematic review contained 32 articles which included the development and evaluation of 12 RDS mean and 6 variance estimators. Overall, the majority of estimators perform roughly the same, with the exception of RDSIEGO which outperformed the 6 other RDS mean estimators. The Tree bootstrap variance estimate does not rely on modelling RDS as a first order Markov (FOM) process, which seems to be the main limitation of the other existing estimators. The lack of FOM as an assumption and the flexible application of this variance estimator to any RDS point estimate make the Tree bootstrapping estimator a more efficient choice.

Requirements determination is a critical driver in a successful software development process. Despite decades of research prescribing various software development methodologies, intended to aid in achieving an eventual convergence between the user’s mental models and an informationally equivalent representation that is codified within an information system, we can still attribute many of the deficiencies in software development projects to the improper or ineffective execution of the requirements determination process. This study draws on the user resistance, software development, and psychology literature to discuss how perceived threats by potential users and key respondents can result in sub-optimization of a proposed information system via reduction in the quality of their responses during the requirements gathering phase. A laboratory experiment was carried out to explore the sources and effects of various threat perceptions and the effectiveness of techniques intended to detect and mitigate such perceptions of threat. The results confirm that perception of threat does lead to a degradation in response quality, with perceived adaptability fully mediating the relationship. The findings on whether interviewer reassurance has a moderating effect on the relationship between threat and perceived adaptability had interesting results, which are discussed.

The thesis deals with a Marketing survey of the public opinion on the use of the countryside in the South Moravian Region. Specifically, the public opinion on the current use of the following areas was surveyed: municipal and private green spaces, agricultural land, forestry, hunting, fishing, and nature protection. Due to the field of study of regional development and entrepreneurship, the study is conceived more in terms of marketing and regional development than agriculture. The theoretical part describes the South Moravian Region, its demography, economy, agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing, renewable resources, and other trends that occur in this region. The empirical part deals specifically with the research. It describes the data collection, analysis, evaluation, and the subsequent finding of relationships between the obtained data. Subsequently, recommendations and measures were given, especially for the South Moravian Region and the individual economic fields occurring in its territory.

Theses is divided in two parts. First part is theoretical. Second part is made by own research and describes results outgoing out of marketing research - by used questionaires.

Magister Legum - LLM (Mercantile and Labour Law) / The decision by countries to relax the common law doctrines of maintenance and champerty to accommodate Third Party Funding (TPF) in dispute resolution has sparked a worldwide debate. The controversial practice of funding disputes in exchange for a share of a successful outcome or settlement has left courts and administering institutions in a compromising position. South Africa joined the debate in 2004 after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) relaxed the application of the doctrines in favour of TPF. The SCA found that domestic courts have the necessary mechanisms to protect themselves against any repercussions of TPF without the assistance of the doctrines. The SCA limited their search to the abilities of the courts and did not consider the effect TPF could have on other dispute resolution processes such as arbitration. This study seeks to discover whether arbitration can protect itself against the repercussions of TPF. It further questions the possibility of adopting regulations to aid in the protection of arbitration should the current mechanisms be insufficient.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis presents research on the use of modified respondent driven sampling (mRDS) methodology to enhance identification and recruitment of key populations (KP) into an HIV prevention trial in Kisumu, western Kenya through a three phase mixed method study. The study was carried out in Kisumu, western Kenya within the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Research and Public Health Collaboration platform. The three phases included: 1. PHASE I: Identification and determination of categories of KPs and techniques of locating and motivating them to participate in HIV prevention trials.2. PHASE II: Design and Implementation of a mRDS methodology in recruiting Ks into HIV prevention trials.3. PHASE III: Evaluation of the mRDS in recruitment of KPs into an HIV incidence cohort study. Methods Phase I of the study included the conduct of in depth interviews which were used to identify different categories of persons considered to be KPs within Kisumu, identify strategies of locating the KPs and determine motivators and inhibitors of KPs participation in HIV prevention trials. Phase II on the other hand included the administration of a survey that had been refined in Phase I. The survey was used to design a mRDS methodology which was then implemented to recruit KPs into the survey. Phase III evaluated the success of the mRDS in recruiting KPs into an HIV prevention study by assessing the risk profiles for participants screened and enrolled into the Phase III study. Ethical approval for the study was sought from the ethics committee of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the US CDC and the University of the Western Cape.The study recruited 53 individuals into phase I and was able to 8 identify different categories of people considered to be KPs and the 4 salient strategies that could be used to recruit them into HIV prevention studies. The phase also identified 8 potential motivators and 9 potential inhibitors to participation in HIV prevention research. These categories and salient strategies were used in phase II to develop and pilot a mRDS methodology in recruiting 203 individuals into a survey. The survey was used as a validation tool for the risk levels of persons recruited by the mRDS using the variables of inconsistent condom use and having multiple partners. The validated mRDS was then applied in the recruitment of 1,292 participants in phase III of thestudy. These study participants had characteristics similar to those seen in similar studies and elucidated from phases I and II of the study. HIV seropositivity was used as the variable for validating risk levels of participants in this study and this was found to be higher that that seen in general population and comparable to that seen in other KPs groups in the region. Results: Overall the study was able to identify different categories of people considered to be at high riskof HIV acquisition. The groups identified included people who frequent bars (e.g. bar workers, drunkards, sex workers, businessmen), people who work in transportation (e.g. truck drivers, matatu drivers, motorcycle drivers, taxi drivers, bicycle taxi drivers), fishermen/fishmongers, MSM and hair salon workers. The study also identified using personal contact, link persons, peer mobilisers and leaders as strategies of identifying and locating KPs. The study used the mRDS successfully in recruiting participants with evaluation of inconsistent condom use and multiple sexual partnerships showing the participants to be of high risk behaviour. Of all the females in the study, only 3.3% were pregnant. The prevalence of Chlamydia was 2.9%, gonorrhoea was 5.0%, syphilis was 0.4% and HSV-2 was 46.0%. Those who tested positive for HIV were 26.2% with 42.3% of the HIV positive participants having CD4 counts of between 250 – 500 cells/ml. Recommendations and Conclusion:The mRDS was successful in recruiting KPs in an HIV prevention trial. Majority of the participants reported inconsistent condom use and having multiple sex partners. In addition to MSM, SW and transport industry workers, fisherfolk, discordant couples, widowers, street youth, car washers and police also form part of KPs groups. The HIV prevalence was higher amongst these groups compared to general population with discordant couples having the highest HIV prevalence. The study recommends that mRDS should be used to identify and recruit KPs as it not only allows for faster recruitment of KPs, it also reduces the expense and complexity associated with coupon management in the standard RDS.

According to the DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), one of the core deficits in autism is in the impairment of social interaction. Some have suggested that underlying these deficits is the reality that individuals with autism do not find social stimuli to be as reinforcing as other types of stimuli (Dawson, 2008). An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be caused by a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral or ineffective stimuli, including tokens (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968), facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and praise (Dozier et al., 2012). The current study aimed to use operant and respondent procedures to condition social stimuli that were empirically shown to not be reinforcing prior to conditioning. Further, this study aimed to compare the two procedures in their effectiveness to condition social stimuli to function as reinforcers, and in their maintenance of effects over time. Using a multiple-baseline, multi-element design, one social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Finally, the study sought to determine if conditioning social stimuli to function as reinforcers had any effect on the social functioning of young children with autism. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (Sd procedure). Results of a social communication assessment (ESCS, Mundy et al., 2003) before and after conditioning demonstrate gains in all areas of social communication, particularly in the areas of initiating and responding to joint attention.

Master´s thesis deals with the issue of segment “students” and its demand in the selected stores Maloobchodní sítě BRNĚNKA, spol. s r.o. To ensure that proposed solutions to best serve company itself, is an analysis of the current situation and customer satisfactions and needs analysis, made in the form of marketing research. It contains suggestions, to help increase demand in this segment and that serve to keep competitiveness stores.

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