Tématem diplomové práce je zhodnocení vývoje reálné a nominální konvergence ČR k EU a zkoumání připravenosti České republiky na přijetí eura. Práce se zabývá teoretickými koncepty konvergence, jako je zákon jedné ceny, teorie parity kupní síly či Balassa - Samuelsonův model. Shrnuje, která kritéria se k hodnocení procesu konvergence používají, a blíže analyzuje, jak Česká republika plní maastrichtská konvergenční kritéria. V závěru práce jsou shrnuty aktuální problémy hospodářské politiky ČR, které jsou překážkou přijetí společné měny eura. Práce se mimo jiné zabývá otázkou, v jakém časovém horizontu je možné přijetí eura očekávat.

The goal of this diploma thesis is to assess purchasing power parity (PPP) under the conditions of transition process. The thesis provides a survey of the purchasing power parity theory and concentrates on the relative version. It outlines main causes of possible deviations and modifications of the model. In the empirical part four transition economies are tested for the PPP theory: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The diploma thesis concludes with analysis of the role of the exchange rate under conditions of a small open economy. The overall analysis is implemented within the context of real and nominal convergence towards European Union and future accession to the European Monetary Union.

Au cours de ce travail de doctorat, nous avons d'abord étudié un aspect fondamental de la chiralité au niveau moléculaire visant à observer des différences d'énergie entre deux énantiomères provenant d'effets de violation de la parité (PV). Nous avons en particulier examiné les complexes oxorhénium chiraux dont les deux énantiomères présentent théoriquement des énergies d'absorption infrarouge différentes. Leur propriétés chiroptiques, en particulier leur dichroïsme circulaire vibrationnel (VCD), ont été examinées. D'autres complexes métalliques chiraux comme des complexes de platine portant un carbone asymétrique fluoré ont été préparés. Par ailleurs, nous avons étudié la chiralité hélicoïdale provenant de la fusion en ortho de plusieurs cycles aromatiques. Ainsi, des hélicènes portant des fonctionnalités bi-pyridines ont été synthétisés et ont montré des propriétés photophysiques et chiroptiques intéressantes. La présence d'unité chélatantes de type N^N’ ou N-C nous a permis d'étudier l'influence de la coordination de divers métaux de transition (Re(I) et Pt(II)) sur les propriétés et de concevoir de nouveaux commutateurs chiroptiques acido-basiques. / In this PhD work, we first investigated a fundamental aspect of chirality at the molecular level aiming to determine the parity violation (PV) energy difference between two enantiomers. We focused on chiral oxorhenium complexes for which the two corresponding enantiomers show theoretically different infrared absorption energies. Their chiroptical properties and especially their vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) were examined. Other chiral metal complexes such as platinum complexes bearing an asymmetric fluorinated carbon have also been prepared. Furthermore, we have investigated the helical chirality derived from the skew shape of ortho-fused aromatic ring. Indeed, helicenes bearing 2,2’-bipyridine functionalities were synthesized and they showed interesting photophysical and chiroptical properties. The presence of N^N’ or N-C chelating moieties enabled us to study the coordination effect of different transition metals (Re(I) and Pt(II)) on their properties and to conceive new acid-base triggered chiroptical switches.

The United States (U.S.) Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) conducted a series of rotary-wing flight tests for the sole purpose of checking out Telemetry data link instrumentation. Four flights were conducted at YPG in February 2016 that built upon an earlier test flight conducted in June 2015. The most recent iteration of testing examined the benefits of frequency diversity on aircraft and the spatial diversity of receiving sites using existing hardware at YPG. Quantitative analysis from those flight results will be presented and include discussion on how results will affect future mission operations at YPG.

The thesis investigates different exchange rate models and their forecasting performance. The work takes previous literature overview and summarize their findings. Despite the significant amount of papers which were done on the topic of exchange rate forecast, basically none of them cannot find an appropriate model which would outperform a forecast of a simple random walk in every horizon or for any currency pair. However, there are some positive findings in specific cases (e.g. for specific pair or for specific time horizon). The study provides up-to-date analysis of four exchange rates (USD/CZK, USD/ILS, USD/GBP and USD/EUR) for the period of time from January 2000 to August 2013 and analyse forecasting performance of seven exchange rate models (uncovered interest rate parity model, purchasing power parity model, monetary model, monetary model with error correction, Taylor rule model, hidden Markov model and ESTAR model). Although, the results are in advantage of Taylor rule model, especially for the exchange rate of USD/CZK, I cannot prove that the forecasting performance is significantly better than the random walk model. Except of the overall analysis, the work suppose instabilities in the time. Stock and Watson (2003) found that the forecast predictability is not stable over time. As a consequence, the econometric model can give us better forecast than random walk process at some period of time, however at other period, the forecasting ability can be worse than random walk. Based on Fluctuation test of Giacomini and Rossi (2010a) every model is analysed how the out-of-sample forecast ability changes over time.

Primary objective of this thesis was to analyse the relationship between exchange rate and interest rate within borders of a small open economy. Different theoretical approaches often present us with various, sometimes even opposing conclusions when it comes to the matter of direction and intensity of the causal influence between these two variables. From author's point of view it is important to perceive the interaction between exchange rate and interest rate as a dynamic process rather than a static relationship. The empirical analysis was conducted on monthly time series (2000-2012) of three selected small open economies -- Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. Graphical analysis, linear regression, vector autoregression and cointegration analysis were selected as suitable tools for meeting the objective of this thesis. Models themselves presented us with interesting conclusions, for example a proof of the international Fisher effect, exchange rate causally affecting the interest rate (interest rate differential) in case of spot rates against euro. Another curious phenomena was the inflow of foreign debt capital, which, as it seems, was actually pulling the exchange rate down rather than pushing it up due to rising indebtedness of the economy.

Cette thèse examine certaines questions quantitatives dans le cadre de deux modèles stochastiques différents. Il est divisé en deux parties : la première partie examine une nouvelle classe de jeux stochastiques avec une fonction de paiement particulière que nous appelons « de priorité ». Cette classe de jeux contient comme sous-classes propre les jeux de parité, largement étudiés en informatique, et les jeux de limsup et liminf, étudiés dans la théorie des jeux. La deuxième partie de la thèse examine certaines questions naturelles mais complexes sur les distributions, étudiées dans le cadre plus simple des chaînes de Markov à espace d'états fini. Dans la première partie, nous examinons les jeux à somme nulle à deux joueurs en se centrant sur la fonction de paiement de priorité. Cette fonction de paiement génère le gain utilisé dans les jeux de parité. Nous considérons à la fois les jeux de priorité stochastiques à tour de rôle et les jeux de priorité simultanés. Notre approche des jeux de priorité est basée sur le concept du point fixe le plus proche (« nearest fixed point ») des applications monotones non expansives et étend l'approche mu-calcul aux jeux de priorité.La deuxième partie de la thèse concerne les questions de population. De manière simplifiée, nous examinons comment une distribution de probabilité sur les états évolue dans le temps. Plus précisément, nous sommes intéressés par des questions comme la suivante : à partir d'une distribution initiale, la population peut-elle atteindre à un moment donné une distribution avec une probabilité dépassant un seuil donné dans l'état visé? Il s'avère que ce type de questions est beaucoup plus difficile à gérer que les questions concernant les trajectoires individuelles : on ne connaît pas, pour le modèle des chaînes de Markov, si les questions de population soient décidables. Nous étudions les restrictions des chaînes de Markov assurant la décision des questions de population. / This thesis examines some quantitative questions in the framework of two different stochastic models. It is divided into two parts: the first part examines a new class of stochastic games with priority payoff. This class of games contains as proper subclasses the parity games extensively studied in computer science, and limsup and liminf games studied in game theory. The second part of the thesis examines some natural but involved questions about distributions, studied in the simple framework of finite state Markov chain.In the first part, we examine two-player zero-sum games focusing on a particular payoff function that we call the priority payoff. This payoff function generalizes the payoff used in parity games. We consider both turn-based stochastic priority games and concurrent priority games. Our approach to priority games is based on the concept of the nearest fixed point of monotone nonexpansive mappings and extends the mu-calculus approach to priority games.The second part of the thesis deals with population questions. Roughly speaking, we examine how a probability distribution over states evolves in time. More specifically, we are interested in questions like the following one: from an initial distribution, can the population reach at some moment a distribution with a probability mass exceeding a given threshold in state Goal? It turns out that this type of questions is much more difficult to handle than the questions concerning individual trajectories: it is not known for the simple model of Markov chains whether population questions are decidable. We study restrictions of Markov chains ensuring decidability of population questions.

This thesis deals with biting midges of the genus Culicoides, which are tiny nematoceran insects belonging to the Diptera, and their parasites. Biting midges partake in transmissions of several parasitical organisms of various groups. Most notably, they are the vectors of several pathogenic viruses which might have a serious impact on livestock. However, the thesis deals with detection of parasites belonging to Trypanosomatids and Filarioids related to two independent biting midges collections - from the Czech Republic and from the Central African region. Apart from testing biting midges, there were carried out the tests on the occurrence of the same group of parasites within ruminant hoofed games in the Czech Republic. Our goal was to find out whether the same parasites occur with biting midges and their hosts (hoofed games) and whether biting midges could play a role as vectors. Biting midges are relatively overlooked group of haematophagous insects. Until recently, they had not been paid much attention, which changed with the spread of Bluetongue virus over Europe. This stimulated a widespread monitoring of biting midges in several European countries, including the Czech Republic. This helped to gain a large amount of data about the occurrence of biting midges near livestock. Nevertheless, there is no...

Intresset för delningsekonomi, en affärsmodell baserad på delning av resurser, har ökat i samhället de senaste åren. Denna presenteras ofta som hållbar i jämförelse med traditionellt ägandeskap. Däremot väljer vissa delningsekonomiföretag att inte använda hållbarhet i sin marknadsföringsstrategi. Det saknas forskning på vad det är som påverkar deras beslut att marknadsföra sig som hållbara. Syftet med uppsatsen är därför att öka förståelsen för vad hållbarhet som marknadsföringsstrategi innebär för delningsekonomiföretag och varför de väljer att marknadsföra sig som hållbara eller inte. Detta görs med hjälp av teorier som beskriver hur företag positionerar och differentierar sig genom marknadsföring. Studien visar att företagen inte marknadsför hållbarhet i större utsträckning. Intervjupersonerna anger att företagen är naturligt hållbara till följd av verksamhetens karaktär men att de är sparsamma med användning av hållbarhet i sin marknadsföring. Detta beror dels på av att de upplever att konsumenter redan är medvetna om delningsföretagens hållbara fördelar, dels på grund av de höga kraven som finns på att upprätthålla trovärdighet i marknadsföring av hållbarhet. Även svårigheter att mäta hur kunderna uppfattar hållbarhet i marknadsföring kan urskiljas, vilket skulle kunna bero på begreppets komplexitet.

Purpose – Leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs) have become increasingly popular since their introduction in 2006. In recent years, options on leveraged ETFs have been promoted as a means of enhancing returns and reducing risk. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interchangeability of S&P 500 ETF options with leveraged S&P 500 ETF options and to what extent these options allow investors to manage their risk exposure. Design/methodology/approach – With increasing liquidity for these fund’s options, simple option strategies such as covered calls and protective puts can be implemented. This study derives call-call and put-put parity between options on the underlying index and the associated leveraged ETFs. The paper examines comparative measures of return and risk on the underlying indices, along with covered call and protective put positions. Findings – Using the formulations derived, this study shows options on non-leveraged ETFs or on the underlying index can be substituted for leveraged ETF options. Empirical results suggest substituting options on leveraged ETFs with options on the underlying index or index ETF give comparable results, but can differ as the realized leverage ratio over time differs from projected values. Originality/value – This study is the first to the authors’ knowledge that investigates option strategies on leveraged and inverse ETFs of equity indices. It is also the first to derive call-call and put-put parity relations between options on ETFs and related leveraged and inverse ETFs. The results contribute to securities issuance, investment strategies, and option parity relations.