In the past ten years the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has become a phenomenon, which is nowadays considered to be one of the major future perspectives of an economy. For many economists and politicians, the FDI is perceived as a saving instrument, which should help solve problems such as structure, regional discrepancies and most importantly a high unemployment rate especially under the conditions of global economic and financial crisis. The inflow of the FDI to host economy brings many positive effects that cannot be substituted. In fact, it is considered as a positive externality that must be paid. In order to attract the FDI in a country, the investment incentives are proposed and current incentives are being rebuilt. But attracting FDI at all costs can also be counterproductive. The intended aim of this thesis is to analyze positive and negativ effects of the FDI.

The thesis focuses on the issue of individuals' preferences regarding the acquisition of a child during the business cycle expressed in unemployment rates for men and women. Fixed effects model involving robust estimates of standard deviations on a panel dataset tested for the period 1980-2012 confirmed the significance of the relationship between sex-specific unemployment rates and fertility rate of the United States of America. The results of the analysis show a negative relationship documenting pro-cyclical nature of the fertility. There is a less willingness of couples to conceive a child with the growth in unemployment. It does not show the prevalence of substitution effect of reducing opprtunity costs for women during the recession over the effect of reduction in income. Among other statistically significant variables that affect fertility belong the degree of attainment of university education, the poverty rate and abortion rate.

This thesis deals with design of a laser position detector. Different types of sensor are mentioned and compared at the beginning. Special attention is paid to quadrant sensor. Its pros and cons are discussed with designing methods. The sensor is simulated in Matlab to test its output response. Then the laboratory tests follow to meassure real response of the chip. Then follows the design of the detector based on measured and simulated data. In the conclusion of this thesis parameters of created device are evaluated.

Elektro-ultrazvuková spektroskopie je založena na interakci dvou signálů, elektrického střídavého signálu s frekvencí fE a ultrazvukového signálu s frekvencí fU. Ultrazvukový signál mění vzdálenost mezi vodivými zrny ve vzorku a tím mění jeho celkový elektrický odpor R. Změna odporu R je proměnná s frekvencí ultrazvukového signálu fU. Vzorek, který obsahuje mnoho defektů ve své struktuře, vykazuje vysokou změnu odporu R v porovnání se vzorkem bez defektů při stejné hodnotě ultrazvukového a elektrického signálu. V disertační práci je popsána elektro-ultrazvuková metoda na tlustovrstvých rezistorech, hořčíkových slitinách, monokrystalech Si a CdTe, varistorech a také jeden z prvních pokusů aplikace elektro-ultrazvukové spektroskopie na horninové vzorky a tak diagnostikovat jejich stav poškození. V našem případě byl proměřen vzorek žuly. Jelikož se jedná o nedestruktivní metodu testování, tak má tato metoda velmi perspektivní budoucnost. Tato metoda je citlivá na všechny defekty ve vzorku. Její výhodou je, že se měří velikost signálu ne frekvenci danou rozdílem nebo součtem budících frekvencí fE a fU a tím se dá dosáhnout vysoké citlivosti. V mém případě byl vždy měřen signál na rozdílové frekvenci fi = fE-fU.

The theoretical part deals with issues of dementia, memory, primacy effect, recency effect, and the Auditory-Verbal Learning Test. The empirical part consists of quantitative research. The research sample consists of patients with dementia who were tested for their performance in the Auditory-Verbal Learning Test in which I focused on the primacy and recency effects. The aim was to determine the differences between the primacy and recency effects among different groups of patients, as well as to detect the presence or absence of a primacy or recency effect in various populations. This study tries to describe a potential tool that focuses on how individuals with dementia remember new informations. This tool can serve to understand how people diagnosed with memory disorders of different etiology remember new infomation. Key words: Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, Auditory-Verbal Learning Test , primacy effect, recency effect

According to the "faster-X effect", X-linked genes and Z-linked genes evolve more quickly than autosomal genes. This theory is one of the currently intensively studied topics in evolutionary research. However, performing high quality tests is difficult because the results are influenced by several factors - the effective size of the population of the gonosome, sexual selection, the dependency of mutation rate and selection on sex, and the mechanism of dosage compensation. Conservation of genes and possible differences between rates of evolution of autosomes also play a role and not all studies take this fact into account. This study shows some of the difficulties of paired comparisons of dN/dS ratios traditionally used to test faster-X or faster-Z effects and introduces the basis of a new method of comparison of the rate of evolution (CREC) based on relative genetic distances between three species. The CREC method reduces the influence of conservation of genes on results and is more applicable for testing faster-X or faster Z effects in such species where two species without homologic gonosomes can be found for comparison. In means of the development of this method, the faster-Z effect was tested on a dataset of 9 autosomal and 13 Z-linked genes in the six-striped long-tailed lizard (Takydromus...

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...

1 Abstract The thesis titled Partisans perception of controversial topics in online news and influence of hostile media effect is dedicated to a modern phenomenon from the field of media effects and media audience research called hostile media effect. Its theory has been shaping since the mid 80s of the previous century and it is defined as a tendency of polarized partisans to perceive even-handed and balanced media coverage of a controversial topic as biased against their own opinion. With this effect, both polarized groups evaluate unbiased media content as more favorable towards the contrary point of view. Theoretical part includes the history of the phenomenon, its context within development of new digital media and social media, factors that influence its impact and how it affects cognitive processes, therefore why there is a tendency of such perceptions within polarized partisans. The last chapter of theory covers a summary of major studies and their findings. In the research part, I conducted a questionnaire inspired by an American study from 2012 that observes different perceptions of media coverage among partisans in the topic of mandatory children vaccination. This is the first research that confirmed a tendency of hostile media phenomenon on Slovak online population.

Professional respondents in research panels: comparing trained and fresh members of an online panel The diploma thesis deals with the topic of changes in responding of research panel members, which are caused by their previous experience with research process. Various manifestations of this phenomenon, often labelled as the "panel conditioning effect", are described and supported by corresponding empirical evidence. The observations of panel conditioning effect come from longitudinal panel design as well as online access panels. The author proposes logically structured differentiation of the effect. Based on this categorization, several hypotheses about the differences between trained and fresh members of an Internet panel are raised and tested in dedicated online research. The results reveal significant differences between recently-registered and long-term members of the panel, both in their response strategies and in demographic structure of the groups. Yet the overall outcome do not indicate, that interviewing trained respondents would necessarily lead to lower-quality data.

This study uses logistic regression to estimate the probability of choosing the brand-name drug despite the presence of cheaper generics given patient and drug characteristics in the Czech pharmaceutical market in the period 2009-2013. Results of the analysis may help guide policies to decrease pharmaceutical costs. In order to motivate people who are more likely to choose the original version of drug, policy makers may impose higher copayments and lower subsidies on the original drugs which they use. Additionally, two supplementary analyses were applied to sub-sectors of the pharmaceutical market: antihypertensive drugs and antibiotics. Fixed effects logistic regression is employed to test the robustness of the results.