This Master Thesis is focused on analysis of media response to editions Fresh and Raketa of publishing house Labyrint in the context of history of publishing practice in the Czech Republic in the nineties. It also discusses contemporary literature for children and youth. Thesis studies critical media response to three particular books from studied editions Tajemství oblázkové hory by Bára Dočkalová, Robinson by Petr Sís and Plyš by Michal Hvorecký. Novel Plyš by Michal Hvorecký was covered the most in the media. The smallest number of articles was published about Tajemství oblázkové hory by Bára Dočkalová. Even though it was nominated for Magnesia Litera Award, it did not win the price in the end. The closing part focuses on a unique project by publishing house Labyrint, a magazine for children called Raketa. Media attention is focused on creators of magazine, either it is the owner of publishing house Labyrint Joachim Dvořák or its chief editors Johana Švejdíková and Radana Litošová. Critical reflection is rare, there are mostly short notes recommending buying the magazine or describing a new issue. There is a broad spectrum of media chosen for this analysis, from news media to cultural and literary periodical such as Tvar, Host, A2 and catalog Nejlepší knihy dětem.

El-Nasr och Moura (2015) beskriver olika tekniker för hur TV-spel kan vägleda spelaren. Tekniken samlingsbara föremål som indikerar väg beskrivs som objekt som implementeras på ett sådant sätt att de leder spelaren till en belöning eller ett mål. Problemområdet för det aktuella arbetet fokuseras i följande frågeställning: Hur påverkar en spelares grad av spelvana dess inställning till olika grader av vägledning – av sorten samlingsbara föremål som visar väg – i TV-spel? För att få svar på denna fråga utvecklas en artefakt, bestående av 3 banor skapade i Super Mario Maker (2015). Banorna innehåller olika hög grad av vägledning. En studie utvecklas och utförs på 13 deltagare, där de får spela igenom de tre banorna och svara på en intervju. Resultaten tyder på att ovana spelare mer konsekvent föredrar mycket vägledning i spel. Till sist diskuteras potentiella felkällor, och arbetets framtida potential. / El-Nasr and Moura (2015) describe different techniques with which video games lead the player. The technique collectible items indicating paths is described as objects being implemented in such a way that they lead the player to a reward or a goal. The research problem for the thesis at hand is outlined with the following research question: How does a player’s level of experience with games affect their opinions regarding different degrees of wayfinding – specifically when it comes to collectible items indicating paths – in video games? To answer this question, a prototype is developed, consisting of 3 levels created using Super Mario Maker (2015). The levels contain wayfinding elements to different extents. A study is developed and then conducted with 13 participants, in which they play the three levels and after which participate in an interview. The results suggest that inexperienced players more consistently prefer a high degree of wayfinding in games. Lastly, potential flaws and errors are discussed, as is the future of the study.

Tidigare studier om effekten av olika färgtemperaturer har gett motstridiga resultat. Denna studie undersökte hur spelare uppfattar olika färgtemperaturer i en virtuell 3D labyrint med syfte att hjälpa spelutvecklare förstå hur färgtemperaturen på ljussättningen kan användas för att förbättra spelupplevelsen. Metoden bygger på tidigare studier och innehåller förbättringar baserat på deras diskussioner. En artefakt med tre olika färgtemperaturer har skapats och data har samlats in genom enkäter och intervjuer från deltagare. Resultaten i denna studie indikerade att varma färgtemperaturer var svårare att koncentrera sig i och upplevdes som mer aggressiv, medan kall färgtemperatur var enklare att koncentrera sig i och upplevdes som lugn och mystisk. Framtida studier kan undersöka effekterna av färgtemperatur i mer komplexa spelmiljöer, olika genrer och fler olika färgtemperaturer för bredare kunskaper inom ämnet.

The thesis aims to investigate the relationship Comenius to Scripture and how to work with him when he wrote his work The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.

Jan Amos Komenský is a great figure of the Czech nation. However, despite his fame, he is a much more significant thinker than he is generally regarded to be. Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart has no equivalent in its time or in older Czech literature. Even if Komenský wrote nothing else, this book would guarantee him a prominent place in Czech literature. In Labyrinth, Komenský shows himself as a great believer who exactly uncovers human pride, uncovers imaginary and untrue independence of man and shows exactly and aptly the futility and true face of many human endeavours. Labyrinth is a merciless criticism of man. It is never nihilistic, though {--} it is always based on a deep and realistic sense of purpose, a deep feeling for the ethical. That is why Komenský{\crq}s irony {--} which is the essential accord of Labyrinth {--} is irony of sadness. Some of Komenský{\crq}s ideas are close and understandable to us; however, some are much more distant. It remains a question if what seems to us to be old, outdated or naive in Komenský, is a basis without which it is not possible to understand well and realize what we are no longer willing to identify with. Is the ``critic of rationalism{\crqq} and great believer in Komenský, so distant to us, his most important basis that gives viability and future to his own ideas as well as to all human endeavours? This work briefly describes the ideas and storyline of Komenský{\crq}s Labyrinth. Each chapter of this thesis attempts to find what is most important in the mass of text of Labyrinth and thus to briefly point out the significance of each part of the book. Sometimes exact quotations are used which should show the real sense of Komenský{\crq}s ideas in a better way. Quotations from the Bible which could be a base of Komenský{\crq}s ideas are matched to individual chapters. The attempt is to find those ideas of Komenský which could be used and could be useful in our society. On the basis of an elaboration on the book, this work attempts to point out the importance of real belief and keeping to its rules for the life of a man and a society as a whole.

Projektet utgår ifrån en frågeställning om hur skolbyggnaden i sig kan stimulera till lärande och nyfikenhet. Det finns flera sätt som detta kan utföras på, men det här projektet fokuserar på hur detta kan utföras genom utformning av rumsligheter. Inspirationen kommer huvudsakligen ifrån spelmiljödesign och från arkitekten Herman Hertzberger och hans bok "Space and Learning". Byggnaden består av ett program för en mellan- och högstadieskola, som är distribuerat på ett sätt som gör det utmanande att orientera sig. Rummen är utplacerade som kuber med helt eller delvis massiva väggar. De binds samman av en glasfasad, och mellanrummet som skapas blir en yta av öppen aktivitet och där intressanta rumsligheter skapas.  En annan metod för att stimulera och väcka nyfikenhet är att skapa siktlinjer. De är horisontella: genom glaspartier i väggarna, och vertikala: genom öppningar i bjälklaget.  Tanken är att eleverna allt eftersom de utforskar och lär känna sin skola också lär sig hitta, inte bara till sina klassrum eller toaletterna, utan också till spännande vrår och rumsligheter som skapas i mellanrummen. Det blir en kontrast mellan rummen; där aktiviteten är styrd av lärare och läroplanen, och ytorna i mellan där aktiviteten inte är styrd utan skapas av eleverna själva. / This project is grounded in a question about how a school building in itself can stimulate learning and curiousity. There are many ways of which this can be executed, but this project focuses on spatial design. Inspiration comes mostly from environmental design in games and from the architect Herman Hertzberger and his book "Space and Learning". The building consists of a program for middle school and junior high school, and is distributed in a way that makes orientation intentionally hard. The rooms are placed as cubes with massive or partly massive walls. They are connected by a glass facade, and the space between becomes place for interesting spatialities.  Another method for creating stimulation and curiousity is sightlines. They are horizontal: in the shape of glass walls, and vertical: by openings in the floor structure. The idea is that the students, by exploring and getting to know their school, also learns to find not only their classrooms or lavatories, but also those nooks and crannies that is formed in the in between space. There becomes a contrast between the rooms: where the activities are ruled by teachers and the curriculum, and the in between spaces: where the activity is free and formed by the students themselves.

The slide presentation format is extensively used in classrooms and serves as the mainstream presentation tool in the educational context, providing a format to organize information into slides for presentation. There are many benefits to the slide presentation format. However several studies have also been dedicated to measuring the effect of the slide format on learning, which has resulted in mixed results. To investigate this problem, this study investigates how gamification combined with virtual environments can create a new format that can be compared and measured against the slide presentation format. Thus, a novel 3D maze format was developed. The developed 3D maze format was evaluated against the slide presentation format in an experiment with 21 participants, using the image memorization score (number of correctly remembered images from the experiment) as the variable for comparison. The results from the experiment showed that the slide presentation format resulted in a slightly higher image memorization score compared to the novel 3D maze format. However, one-third of the participants preferred the new format over the traditional slide presentation format despite it being completely new. / Bildpresentationer används flitigt i klassrummen och är standard för presentationsverktyg i utbildningssammanhang och tillhandahåller ett format för att organisera information i bilder för presentation. Det finns många fördelar med bild-presentationsformatet. Men flera studier har också ägnats åt att mäta effekten av bild-formatet på inlärning, med blandade resultat. Denna studie undersöker hur spelifiering i kombination med virtuella miljöer kan skapa ett nytt format som kan jämföras med bild-presentationsformatet. Därför utvecklades ett nytt 3D-labyrintformat. Det utvecklade 3D-labyrintformatet utvärderades mot bild-presentationsformatet i ett experiment med 21 deltagare, med hjälp av bildminnespoängen (antal korrekt ihågkomna bilder från experimentet) som jämförelsevariabel. Resultaten från experimentet visade att slide-presentationsformatet resulterade i en något högre bildminnespoäng jämfört med det nya 3D-labyrintformatet. En tredjedel av deltagarna föredrog däremot det nya formatet framför det traditionella slide-presentationsformatet trots att det var nytt.

The Phd thesis titled Boundaries of the labyrinth and subtitled Literary space in the Italian postmodern novels strives for specification and closer definition of the genre of post-modern novel through the analysis of literary space. Formally, the thesis is divided into three parts. The first part aims to provide a theoretical introduction into the problems of three areas related to the given topic, namely the definition of postmodernity and postmodernism, the genre of the novel itself and last but not least the study of space in literature. The content of the second part is the actual literary and scientific analysis of the selected novels (Città invisibili and Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore by Italo Calvino, Notturno indiano by Antonio Tabucchi, Comici spaventati guerrieri by Stefano Benni and Oceano mare and City by Alessandro Baricco) which follows three basic and most frequent spacial topoi occurring in these novels, namely the topos of the city, the house-hotel and the road. The third and final section sums up the observed aspects and characteristics and strives to use them as a basis for determining a certain and generalizing spacial and temporal principle which would facilitate at least a partial characterization of the postmodern novel as an independent genre.

Laberinto is a type of book-form game, invented by Andrea Ghisi, and first printed in 1607. A second version was printed in 1616 and includes all the characters of the so-called tarocchi of Mantegna, with the addition of a new series of ten cards (following the logic of composition of the tarocchi). Another two versions of Laberinto (printed in 1607 and 1610) contain none of the Mantegna tarocchi characters. The rules of the game are based on the art of mathematical combinations. The aim of the game is to move through a visual labyrinth and discover which figure the opponent has in mind. The focus of this work will be on the 1616 version; my intention is to describe the problematic of the repetition of the original game concept a century and a half later, examining the conditions under which players used the allegorical field of the so-called Mantegna Tarocchi, and under which the cosmological meaning was secularized and the new series of ten cards added.

My dissertation thesis seeks to explore some specific social aspects of the dialogue between traditional Chinese art and thinking and Czech art scene after the February1948, when the Communist party took power in former Czechoslovakia. I am mainly interested in the problematic of inspiration from traditional Chinese calligraphy and Daoist philosophy on Czech painting, visual poetry and literature in the 1950s and 1960s. I will argue that the appropriation of selected Chinese philosophical and artistic themes helped Czech artists, working under the communist repression, to express their innermost human emotions in relation to home, culture, freedom, and one's artistic and human destiny. The communist regime meant to many artists the end of their official artistic career. Life in seclusion outside the main political and social streams became for some of them an opportunity to display pent-up feelings of affinity with the life stories of the ancient Daoist thinkers. In this context, focus is primarily placed on an analysis of several distinctive visual and literary works by Czech leading artists of the period, especially on the selected works by the visual artists Emil Filla, Jiří Kolář, Vladimír Boudník, Jan Kotík or Zdeněk Sklenář and the novelist Bohumil Hrabal (1914 - 1997) and his world famous...