A large number of cytokines are expressed in the feet and hands joints of patients with Rheumatoid arthritis. It is necessary to study the new cytokines which may help in prognosis and diagnosis of this autoimmune disease. Omentin1 and Interleukin 20 are the new cytokines and their expressions may have a role in the expression of proinflammatory cytokines; IL-1, IL-6 and TNF, in different cell tissues such as synovial fibroblasts, chondrocytes, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and, sera. It is conceivable that these biomarkers may be used in biological therapies.

Title: Selected Aspects of Private Enforcement of Competition Law The purpose of the study is to analyse and compare selected provisions and legislative proposals regarding to the rules of evidence and locus standi as they are codified in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and in Czech Rules of Civil Procedure as well as selected aspects of Private Enforcement of Competition Law in UK. It should be stressed the fact that the rules of evidence and locus standi are seen through a prism of antitrust claims for damages. The study is composed of six chapters, each of them dealing with different aspect of Private Enforcement of Competition Law. Chapter One is introductory and defines basic terminology used in the study. Chapter Two focuses on legal basis for antitrust claims for damages. Chapter Three consists of three parts. Part One focuses on locus standi issue in US Law. Part Two is an analysis of proposals of EU Commission as well as relevant judgements of Court of Justice of European Union. Partial conclusions are drawn in Part Three. Chapter Four consists of three parts. Part One investigates the principles of rules of evidence as they are codified in Czech Law. Part Two discusses the American attitude to rules of evidence. Partial conclusions are drawn in Part Three. Chapter Five consists also of...

Resumé: This thesis titled "Damages in Investment Disputes" deals with analysis of various types of damages in investment arbitrations. To approximate this theme author tries to use the case study methot for various terms of international investment law. The aim of this thesis was to try to summarize theoretical definition of damages, using its various types and reasons of their origin. Described is contractual basis, from which damages arise in causal nexus, but also particular instrumets of investment arbitration and its jurisdictional practice. Thesis is divided (without counting the introduction and conclusion) into three chapters, which are further divided into sub-chapters, possibly into additional parts. First chapter is an excursion into common theory of international investment law with focus on damages. It encloses though theoretical basis, but also individual contractual recourse. The theory basics is suplemented with evaluation of basic terms, like investment and damages in international investment arbitration. Its component is also definition of investment from jurisdictional practice (Salini test). Second chapter is focused on definition of damages and its various types. Starting point to this is also definition of mostly used methods to determine amount of damages. As basics is used fair and...

The purpose of my thesis is to analyse the state of private enforcement of competition law in the European Union and the Czech Republic by taking into consideration the proposals set forth in the Green and White Paper on damages actions for breach of EC antitrust rules issued by the European Commission which were inspired by the U.S. system of private enforcement of antitrust law. Further on, the possible impact of the implementation of such proposals into Czech law will be assessed and experience of Member states will be considered. The dynamic development of this area of law and the never ending political and legal debate on the possibilities of private enforcement in Europe was the reason for why I have chosen to write my thesis on this topic. The thesis is composed of eight chapters, each of them dealing with different aspects of private enforcement of competition law. Chapter One is introductory and is divided into three parts. Part one tackles the difference between public and private enforcement. Part two deals with the evolution of the concept of damages claims and introduces the most relevant decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The third part identifies the problems occurring with damages claims. Chapter Two examines the question of applicable law. Chapter Three...

Life and health represent the most precious values of each human being. Unlawful encroachment upon these values, which can occur in the health care service, is connected with civil liability. Monetary compensation for immaterial damage has been a neglected legal institute for a long time under Czech law. It is divided into two systems now, a protection of personal rights and reimbursement of the damage. This legal area is not easily understandable to legal professionals, let alone to lay men. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the up to date state of assessment of immaterial damage and to evaluate its pros and cons. It deals with the types of infridgement of personal rights which can occur in the health care service, and subsequently, it describes the systems under which the immaterial damage is reimbursed. Concurrently, I focus on the way of determination of the monetary compensation of the immaterial damage, the amount of monetary compensation actually awarded under Czech law and I evaluate adequacy of such compensation. This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One provides theoretical grounds for the rest of the text, a specification of essential terms and definitions which shall be used in the text later. Chapter Two deals with one of the systems of compensation for immaterial...

Duty of Care in Czech and German Civil Law Abstract The thesis deals with the importance of duties to prevent damages (duties of care) in Czech civil law. It focuses on detailed analysis of a few provisions of the Czech Civil Code. The main attention is focused on s. 415 of the Civil Code (Act No. 40/1964 Coll, the Civil Code, as amended; "OZ") establishing "the general duty of care". Findings about duties of care in the Civil Code are compared to a system of duties of care in German law of delict and additionally discussed using tools of economic analysis of law. The paper results in recommending changes in wording and interpretation of the duties of care and their comparison with the wording established by Act No. 89/2012 Coll., Civil Code ("NOZ"), effective from 1 January 2014. Chapter One examines development of interpretation of main provisions of OZ establishing duties of care. It briefly analyzes basic aspects of law of delict of OZ. It makes use of these findings in order to describe a position of duties of care in law of delict and limits of their interpretation. The main imperfections of their interpretation are illustrated on a couple of judicial decisions. Chapter Two briefly describes the system of law of delict under the German Civil Code ("BGB"). The chapter explores criteria of application...

The purpose of this theses is to analyze whether a contractual limitation of liability for damage resp. compensation for damage is acceptable in the Czech law, what are the limits of limitation and what they should be. The main focus is given on the issue of the prior limitation. The thesis is composed of an introduction, ten chapters and a conclusion. First four chapters cover the background information and terminology needed for the remaining part of the work, such as liability for damage, its division, prerequisites and scope. The many ways of limitation and basic prevailing principals of limitation are given in chapter five. Chapters six, seven and eight deal with the very possibility of compensation for damage limitation in three spheres that are: contemporary civil and commercial law and the united civil law under the law No. 89/2012, so called The New Civil Code. Chapter nine provides a short view into the German regulation before there are given the conclusions on possible practical regulation in Czech law in chapter ten. The chapter six dealing with contemporary commercial law summarizes the development of the issue and deals with the restrictions in this matter. In the chapter seven the importance and meaning of Section 574 of the Civil Code is deeply analyzed and conclusion made that the...

The injured party and his/her protection in criminal proceedings The presented thesis deals with the protection of an injured party in criminal proceedings as a whole, in particular with regard to his/her position as a party in the criminal proceedings, and to his/her procedural rights in accordance with the Rules of Criminal Procedure. The aim of this thesis is complex analysis of the position of an injured party in the Czech legal order with focus on differentiation of the concept an injured party (as the party of criminal process) and the concept a victim of an offence, as a person whose rights were violated in certain manner. The thesis is composed of five main chapters, each of them dealing with different aspect of the injured party involvement in criminal procedure. The first chapter contains thorough analysis of the concept an injured party, as is defined in the provision of Section 43 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure. At the same time, there is incorporated the analysis of limitation or exclusion of participation of an injured in criminal proceedings. Thereafter, the conclusion of this chapter is dedicated to the mentioned differentiation of the concepts an injured and a victim, in particular in the light of the new law on victims of crime. In the second chapter the author addresses...

Dans nos sociétés modernes, la presbyacousie, perte de l'audition liée au vieillissement, prend une place de plus en plus importante. Outre le vieillissement de la population, la prévalence de la presbyacousie est accentuée par l'exposition à des bruits toujours plus forts (concerts, baladeurs, environnement de travail, ...) et la prise de médicaments ototoxiques (cisplatine, aminoglycosides, ...). À ce jour, le lien entre l'endommagement de l'ADN, le stress oxydant et l'inflammation avec l'apparition précoce de certaines maladies liées au vieillissement (Alzheimer, démence, Parkinson, …) a été démontré. Cependant, il n'existe aucune donnée concernant le rôle des dommages de l'ADN dans la dégénérescence des cellules cochléaires et trop peu d'études témoignent de l'existence d'un stress oxydant dans la presbyacousie.Le premier objet de ce travail a donc été d'élucider le rôle des dommages de l'ADN dans la dégénérescence des cellules cochléaires. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé des approches de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire pour identifier des voies de signalisation associées aux lésions de l'ADN dans des explants cochléaires issus de souris âgées de 3 jours traités au cisplatine (CDDP). Cet antinéoplasique tire sa cytotoxicité de sa capacité à causer directement des dommages dans l'ADN et est connu pour ses effets nocifs sur l'audition en induisant la dégénérescence des cellules cochléaires. Enfin, nous avons étudié l'implication de p53, un des effecteurs clés de signalisation des dommages de l'ADN, in vivo en traitant avec le CDDP des souris dont le gène codant pour ce facteur de transcription a été invalidé. Nos résultats montrent que le CDDP induit des cassures double brin dans l'ADN des cellules ciliées qui sont à l'origine de l'activation de la voie ATM/DNA¬PK-Chk2-p53, de la formation de foyers βH2AX et 53BP1 et, in fine, de la mort de ces cellules par apoptose. Les cellules ciliées internes, plus résistantes au CDDP que les cellules ciliées externes, présentent une signalisation moins intense et un nombre inférieur de cassures double brin, un phénomène qui pourrait expliquer leur plus faible sensibilité. Nous avons également montré que l'absence de p53 in vivo prévient les pertes d'audition et la dégénérescence des cellules ciliées externes après injection intrapéritonéale de CDDP. Le second objectif a porté sur l'étude des effets délétères du vieillissement sur l'audition et les mécanismes moléculaires associés à cette pathologie. Pour ce faire, nous avons choisi les souris SAMP8 (senescence accelerated mice prone 8), un modèle bien établi de sénescence précoce et des maladies liées au vieillissement. Nous avons combiné des approches fonctionnelles, morphologiques, moléculaires et cellulaires pour phénotyper ces souris et identifier l'origine de l'atteinte de leur audition au cours du vieillissement. L'étude des souris SAMP8 nous a permis de montrer qu'elles sont un excellent modèle de presbyacousie mixte (atteinte de la strie vasculaire, de l'organe de Corti et du ganglion spiral), résumant la pathologie humaine. La dégénérescence des structures cochléaires que nous avons observée chez ces souris provient d'une profonde dysfonction mitochondriale, de l'augmentation du stress oxydant et des processus inflammatoires, d'un stress autophagique et de l'endommagement de l'ADN. Les mécanismes moléculaires aboutissant à la perte des cellules cochléaires constituent autant de cibles thérapeutiques à explorer dans l'avenir afin de tenter de prévenir les troubles de l'audition imputables à l'exposition au bruit ou aux médicaments ototoxiques et au vieillissement. / Our modern society is confronted with a dramatic increase in the number of patients suffering from presbycusis or age related hearing loss. Besides aging, presbycusis prevalence increases with exposition to loud noise (concerts, Walkman, work environment …) and ototoxic drugs (cisplatin, aminoglycosides …). It was reported that the early onset of some aging related diseases (Alzheimer, dementia, Parkinson …) are linked mechanistically to DNA damage, oxidative stress and inflammation. However, the role of DNA damages in cochlear cells degeneration is totally unknown and only few studies have investigated the implication of oxidative stress in presbycusis.The first goal of this study consisted in clarifying the role of DNA damage in cochlear cell degeneration. For this purpose, we used molecular and cellular biology approaches to identify the activation of DNA damage response pathways in cisplatin (CDDP) treated 3 days postnatal mouse cochlear explants in culture. Indeed, the cytotoxicity of CDDP arises from its capacity to directly damage DNA. It is also well known that one of the major dose limiting side effects of CDDP is its ototoxicity. Finally, we investigated the role of p53, a key effector of the DNA damage response pathway, in vivo by treating p53 knockout mice with CDDP. Our results show that CDDP induces double strand breaks leading to the activation of ATM-/DNA PK¬ Chk2 p53 pathway, βH2AX and 53BP1 foci formation and, in fine, apoptotic cell death. Inner hair cells, which are more resistant to CDDP treatment than outer hair cells, show a less intense signaling and fewer double strand breaks. This phenomenon could explain their weaker sensitivity to CDDP treatment. In vivo, p53 deletion prevents hearing loss and outer hair cells degeneration induced bay intraperitoneal injection of CDDP.The second goal consisted in studying the deleterious effects of aging on hearing and the molecular mechanisms involved in this pathology. Here, we studied the mechanism of presbycusis using the senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) which is a useful model to probe the effects of aging on biological processes. Based on complementary approaches combining functional, morphological, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, we found that the SAMP8 strain displays premature hearing loss and cochlear degeneration recapitulating the processes observed in human presbycusis (i.e. strial, sensory and neural degeneration). The molecular mechanisms associated with premature presbycusis in SAMP8 mice involve oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation, autophagic stress and DNA damages. Molecular mechanisms leading to cochlear cells loss represent therapeutic targets of interest to explore in the future in order to prevent hearing impairments due to loud sound or ototoxic drugs exposure and due to aging.

Non-contractual liability of the EU Abstract The aim of this thesis is to systemize the history of EU non-contractual liability; to analyse in detail the current concept of non-contractual liability of the EU, including procedural and substantive law aspects; to present a brief comparative analysis of selected national legal systems and their role in the regarding the general principles common to the laws of the Member States (and vice versa to reflect on the influence of EU non-contractual liability and its' possible role in the europeanization of administrative law); to contextualise non-contractual liability of the EU (with regard to constitutional, international and national aspects) and to consider compensation for damages caused by the EU as a tool for (un)effective judicial protection of individuals. Research methods are content analysis and comparison. This thesis is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is introductory and defines the subject of research, the methods used and terminology. The second chapter deals with an analysis of the current state of professional debate on non-contractual liability of the EU. The main part of the thesis focuses on the identification of problems connected to non-contractual liability of the EU and contextualization of those problems. In that regard...