This study is concerned with the role of contemporary Czech geographic and travel writing and its involvement with the creation and reproduction of spatialised identities and imaginative geographies as they relate to the 'developing world'. It employs the method of discourse analysis (mostly research tools taken from Critical Discourse Analysis) to examine the contents of articles from all issues of the magazines Koktejl and Lidé a Země for the year 2012. This is done in order to analyse the portrayals of such spaces within the context of imaginative geography and the post-development critique and bring attention to the kind of popular geopolitics that is being created. The main topics covered includes the construction of identity between the authors, readers and the objects of writing, the linear understanding of the flow of history and progress and the relationship between the writers and their objects (both places and people). The main findings of the research consist in the identification of the continued prevalence of the perception of linearity of history which constitutes the developing places as subjected to a universal historical process whith the European civilisation as the current endpoint of history. These places are therefore considered a legitimate domain of knowledge, appreciation...

Lesson preparation is an important part of teachers' profession, yet there has been little research focused on this topic recently. This work studied the preparation of geography lessons in Czechia with an emphasis on the use of internet sources. Based on the findings, criteria for an ideal geographic website for teachers were suggested. The data were collected in two ways: (1) on-line survey of ran- domly selected secondary school teachers (n=72), and (2) semi-structured interviews (n=6). The work indicated that lesson preparation greatly varies from teacher to teacher. In general, teachers do not change their lesson plans significantly, and thus the beginning of teachers' career is crucial for future teaching. Participating teachers spend on average about a quarter of their working time on lesson preparation and there is no apparent correlation between the time spend on lesson preparation and the teachers' age or the length of teachers' career. Furthermore, it was found that all participating teachers use internet resources during lesson preparation, particularly for search of updated infor- mation. The most visited websites are those offering maps and encyclopaedias (predominantly Wik- ipedia). The ideal geographical website should primarily offer ideas for teaching activities, as fully- prepared lessons...

The study of everyday life has become a new challenge in contemporary society. Over the last few decades there have been significant changes of temporal and spatial relationships, which now come in many different forms, some of which are relatively new phenomena (e.g. virtual relationships). The society differentiates also socially and culturally. People with different attitudes and values, habits and behaviours, people of different lifestyles meet at one place and encounter everyday lives of others. These facts demonstrate the importance of everyday life research. Everyday life is routine and self-evident for a man or group of people in a given space and time but otherwise it is variable and differentiated phenomenon. New issues arise in the context of contemporary changes that encourage the questioning the definitions of everyday life and also finding new methods of research. The thesis searches for the position of geography in the research of everyday life and thus contributes to the formation of a subdiscipline of geography that is not yet fully developed. Responding to approaches influenced by Time geography, which tend to reduce the daily lives of people on a path through time-space and create models of human behaviour, the thesis tries to "humanize" the path using concepts that reflect the...

High-growth firms in Czechia: geographical and sectoral specifics Abstract This theses focuses on high-growth firms in Czechia, defined as firms with a predetermined year-on-year increase in turnover between years 2012 and 2015. First part is about putting high-growth firms to the context of selected theories of regional development and it also discuss factors of the firm's growth. Further the high-growth firms are analyzed with an emphasis on spatial, sectoral and other specifics. A part focused on revealing specific factors of business growth uwing qualitative methods is also included. The analysis shows that high- growth firms in Czechia are concentrated to metropolitan areas, and whole one third of them are based in Prague. High growth firms are concentrated to the manufacturing and retail and wholesale sectors. The work has suggested that individual companies may have different growth factors and and there is no one specific strategy for a successful firm growth. Keywords: High-growth firms, gazelles, economic geography, small and medium-sized enterprises

This Master's thesis focuses on the spatial mobility of secondary school students and the way they spend their leisure time. Rychnov nad Kněžnou town and its surrounding is chosen for the empirical study. The topic of the thesis connects several disciplines especially geography, sociology and psychology in the theoretical part. Special attention is given to the Time Geography and the explanation of the concept of leisure time in the teen-agers's life. The research on the students from different types of secondary schools in Rychnov nad Kněžnou is the main part of the thesis where the method of questionnaire and diary is used. The objective of the survey is to explore daily activities of teen-agers in the time and space. Questions are focused especially on the way the respondents spend their leisure time. Stated activities are compared with the supply of leisure services in the region. The attention in the survey is also paid to the missing leisure services.

The ecosystem of the high northern latitudes is affected by the recently changing environmental conditions. The Arctic has undergone a significant climatic change over the last decades. The land coverage is changing and a phenological response to the warming is apparent. Remotely sensed data can assist the monitoring and quantification of these changes. The remote sensing of the Arctic was predominantly carried out by the usage of optical sensors but these encounter problems in the Arctic environment, e.g. the frequent cloud cover or the solar geometry. In contrast, the imaging of Synthetic Aperture Radar is not affected by the cloud cover and the acquisition of radar imagery is independent of the solar illumination. The objective of this work was to explore how polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) data of TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, Radarsat-2 and ALOS PALSAR and interferometric-derived digital elevation model data of the TanDEM-X Mission can contribute to collect meaningful information on the actual state of the Arctic Environment. The study was conducted for Canadian sites of the Mackenzie Delta Region and Banks Island and in situ reference data were available for the assessment. The up-to-date analysis of the PolSAR data made the application of the Non-Local Means filtering and of the decomposition of co-polarized data necessary. The Non-Local Means filter showed a high capability to preserve the image values, to keep the edges and to reduce the speckle. This supported not only the suitability for the interpretation but also for the classification. The classification accuracies of Non-Local Means filtered data were in average +10% higher compared to unfiltered images. The correlation of the co- and quad-polarized decomposition features was high for classes with distinct surface or double bounce scattering and a usage of the co-polarized data is beneficial for regions of natural land coverage and for low vegetation formations with little volume scattering. The evaluation further revealed that the X- and C-Band were most sensitive to the generalized land cover classes. It was found that the X-Band data were sensitive to low vegetation formations with low shrub density, the C-Band data were sensitive to the shrub density and the shrub dominated tundra. In contrast, the L-Band data were less sensitive to the land cover. Among the different dual-polarized data the HH/VV-polarized data were identified to be most meaningful for the characterization and classification, followed by the HH/HV-polarized and the VV/VH-polarized data. The quad-polarized data showed highest sensitivity to the land cover but differences to the co-polarized data were small. The accuracy assessment showed that spectral information was required for accurate land cover classification. The best results were obtained when spectral and radar information was combined. The benefit of including radar data in the classification was up to +15% accuracy and most significant for the classes wetland and sparse vegetated tundra. The best classifications were realized with quad-polarized C-Band and multispectral data and with co-polarized X-Band and multispectral data. The overall accuracy was up to 80% for unsupervised and up to 90% for supervised classifications. The results indicated that the shortwave co-polarized data show promise for the classification of tundra land cover since the polarimetric information is sensitive to low vegetation and the wetlands. Furthermore, co-polarized data provide a higher spatial resolution than the quad-polarized data. The analysis of the intermediate digital elevation model data of the TanDEM-X showed a high potential for the characterization of the surface morphology. The basic and relative topographic features were shown to be of high relevance for the quantification of the surface morphology and an area-wide application is feasible. In addition, these data were of value for the classification and delineation of landforms. Such classifications will assist the delineation of geomorphological units and have potential to identify locations of actual and future morphologic activity. / Die polaren Regionen der Erde zeigen eine hohe Sensitivität gegenüber dem aktuell stattfindenden klimatischen Wandel. Für den Raum der Arktis wurde eine signifikante Erwärmung der Landoberfläche beobachtet und zukünftige Prognosen zeigen einen positiven Trend der Temperaturentwicklung. Die Folgen für das System sind tiefgehend, zahlreich und zeigen sich bereits heute - beispielsweise in einer Zunahme der photosynthetischen Aktivität und einer Verstärkung der geomorphologischen Dynamik. Durch satellitengestützte Fernerkundungssysteme steht ein Instrumentarium bereit, welches in der Lage ist, solch großflächigen und aktuellen Änderungen der Landoberfläche nachzuzeichnen und zu quantifizieren. Insbesondere optische Systeme haben in den vergangen Jahren ihre hohe Anwendbarkeit für die kontinuierliche Beobachtung und Quantifizierung von Änderungen bewiesen, bzw. durch sie ist ein Erkennen der Änderungen erst ermöglicht worden. Der Nutzen von optischen Systemen für die Beobachtung der arktischen Landoberfläche wird dabei aber durch die häufige Beschattung durch Wolken und die Beleuchtungsgeometrie erschwert, bzw. unmöglich gemacht. Demgegenüber eröffnen bildgebende Radarsystem durch die aktive Sendung von elektromagnetischen Signalen die Möglichkeit kontinuierlich Daten über den Zustand der Oberfläche aufzuzeichnen, ohne von den atmosphärischen oder orbitalen Bedingungen abhängig zu sein. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war es den Nutzen und Mehrwert von polarimetrischen Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) Daten der Satelliten TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, Radarsat-2 und ALOS PALSAR für die Charakterisierung und Klassifikation der arktischen Landoberfläche zu identifizieren. Darüber hinaus war es ein Ziel das vorläufige interferometrische digitale Höhenmodel der TanDEM-X Mission für die Charakterisierung der Landoberflächen-Morphologie zu verwenden. Die Arbeiten erfolgten hauptsächlich an ausgewählten Testgebieten im Bereich des kanadischen Mackenzie Deltas und im Norden von Banks Islanld. Für diese Regionen standen in situ erhobene Referenzdaten zur Landbedeckung zur Verfügung. Mit Blick auf den aktuellen Stand der Forschung wurden die Radardaten mit einem entwickelten Non-Local-Means Verfahren gefiltert. Die co-polarisierten Daten wurde zudem mit einer neu entwickelten zwei Komponenten Dekomposition verarbeitet. Das entwickelte Filterverfahren zeigt eine hohe Anwendbarkeit für alle Radardaten. Der Ansatz war in der Lage die Kanten und Grauwerte im Bild zu erhalten, bei einer gleichzeitigen Reduktion der Varianz und des Speckle-Effekts. Dies verbesserte nicht nur die Bildinterpretation, sondern auch die Bildklassifikation und eine Erhöhung der Klassifikationsgüte von ca. +10% konnte durch die Filterung erreicht werden. Die Merkmale der Dekomposition von co-polarisierten Daten zeigten eine hohe Korrelation zu den entsprechenden Merkmalen der Dekomposition von voll-polarisierten Daten. Die Korrelation war besonders hoch für Landbedeckungstypen, welche eine double oder single bounce Rückstreuung hervorrufen. Eine Anwendung von co-polarisierten Daten ist somit besonders sinnvoll und aussagekräftig für Landbedeckungstypen, welche nur einen geringen Teil an Volumenstreuung bedingen. Die vergleichende Auswertung der PolSAR Daten zeigte, dass sowohl X- als auch C-Band Daten besonders sensitiv für die untersuchten Landbedeckungsklassen waren. Die X-Band Daten zeigten die höchste Sensitivität für niedrige Tundrengesellschaften. Die C-Band Daten zeigten eine höhere Sensitivität für mittelhohe Tundrengesellschaften und Gebüsch (shrub). Die L-Band Daten wiesen im Vergleich dazu die geringste Sensitivität für die Oberflächenbedeckung auf. Ein Vergleich von verschiedenen dual-polarisierten Daten zeigte, dass die Kanalkombination HH/VV die beste Differenzierung der Landbedeckungsklassen lieferte. Weniger deutlich war die Differenzierung mit den Kombinationen HH/HV und VV/VH. Insgesamt am besten waren jedoch die voll-polarisierten Daten geeignet, auch wenn die Verbesserung im Vergleich zu den co-polarisierten Daten nur gering war. Die Analyse der Klassifikationsgenauigkeiten bestätigte dieses Bild, machte jedoch deutlich, dass zu einer genauen Landbedeckungsklassifikation die Einbeziehung von multispektraler Information notwendig ist. Eine Nutzung von voll-polarisierten C-Band und multispektralen Daten erbrachte so eine mittlere Güte von ca. 80% für unüberwachte und von ca. 90% für überwachte Klassifikationsverfahren. Ähnlich hohe Werte wurden für die Kombination von co-polarisierten X-Band und multispektralen Daten erreicht. Im Vergleich zu Klassifikation die nur auf Grundlage von multispektralen Daten durchgeführt wurden, erbrachte die Einbeziehung der polarisierten Radardaten eine zusätzliche durchschnittliche Klassifikationsgüte von ca. +15%. Der Zugewinn und die Möglichkeit zur Differenzierung war vor allem für die Bedeckungstypen der Feuchtgebiete (wetlands) und der niedrigen Tundrengesellschaften festzustellen. Die Analyse der digitalen Höhenmodelle zeigte ein hohes Potential der TanDEM-X Daten für die Charakterisierung der topographischen Gegebenheiten. Die aus den Daten abgeleiteten absoluten und relativen topographischen Merkmale waren für eine morphometrische Quantifizierung der Landoberflächen-Morphologie geeignet. Zudem konnten diese Merkmale auch für eine initiale Klassifikation der Landformen genutzt werden. Die Daten zeigten somit ein hohes Potential für die Unterstützung der geomorphologischen Kartierung und für die Identifizierung der aktuellen und zukünftigen Dynamik der Landoberfläche.

David Frič FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS EFFECT ON VOTING IN THE KRÁLOVÉHRADECKÝ REGION Abstract This work deals with one of spatially contextual impacts on electoral behavior, namely the so- called friends and neighbours effect. It consists of influencing a voter's favor by the residence of a candidate around which the candidate usually gains more votes than an average for the whole constituency or more votes than would be expected by other criteria. The work verifies attendance and strength of this effect on the example of three kinds of elections in Královéhradecký Region. It analyzes friends and neighbours effect on voting in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, the Regional Council and the Senate. The results of potency of the effect are examined separately in each of these elections and then compares results of the analyzes of these elections to each other, thereby provides a unique comparative perspective of this phenomenon in the Czech electoral systems. The significance of the friends and neighbours effect is also compared among selected political actors. The main part of the analysis focuses on their electoral results in individual municipalities as well as in the whole region, with regard to differences in results of candidates' hometowns. To illustrate the significance of the friends and...

This diploma thesis describes possibilities and forms of multimedia presentation for education at the University or presentations at scientific conferences, using the example of research in the field of urban geography of České Budějovice and the agglomeration of České Budějovice. In the first part we focus on programs and program systems, which are used to create presentations. To these programs belongs for example PowerPoint and also technical equipment, which allows us to show complete presentations (projectors, dataprojectors, slide projectors, document cameras). In the second part of this work we gather and sort materials of urban geography research of České Budějovice and the agglomeration of České Budějovice to make a multimedia presentation. In the third part of this work we add a 262-slide presentation of this research, primarily intended for students of geography. In this work, the urban geography research of České Budějovice and the agglomeration of České Budějovice deals with the historical evolution of the city, the location of the city, the spatial structure of the city (genetic and concentric, functional, urban-morphological, social and demographic) and the agglomeration (also suburbanization), the infrastructure of this city and its agglomeration (traffic, technical and biotic) and in the end with selected aesthetic and compositional characteristics of the surroundings of České Budějovice.

The goal of this diploma work is the suggestion of multimedia didactic material about Africa for the second degree of basic schools. It includes not only the interactive textbook but also a methodical manual which contains commentaries about particular slides and solving the tasks from the textbook. The teaching text proceeds from current didactic documents, as well as from specialized literature and existing textbooks and workbooks for the second degree of basic schools which contain school work about Africa. The didactic analysis and evaluation of these books is also a part of this diploma work.

This diploma thesis is a summary of urban geographic and other observations about the city of Jihlava ? for example of specific location of the city, historical development, physical geographic and social geographic characteristics and above all space structure of the city. By analysis of social geographic charasteristics I focused on territorial administrative classification of the city, on information about inhabitants and areas of production, transport and services. The central point devotes to a few analyses. It is analysis of social geographic location of the city, analysis of space structure of the city and analysis of infrastructure of the city of Jihlava whereas the most important is the analysis of space structure of Jihlava city. This analysis consists of a few subsections ? for example genetic concentric spatial structure, functional spatial structure, urban morphologic spatial structure, demographic spatial structure and other which enable a new and very interesting view of the city of Jihlava. The whole work is supplemented by maps and charts which contribute to better understanding of the problems that are explored.