Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury (AKI) are major public health problems. It is important to be able to identify those at high risk of adverse outcome, CKD progression and associated cardiovascular disease. The aim of the thesis was to study novel promising biomarkers, their relationship to kidney function, chronic inflammation and/or cardiovascular risk - placental growth factor (PlGF), pregnancy associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A), matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9), soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE), calcium binding protein S100A12 or extracellular newly identified RAGE binding protein (EN-RAGE), and high mobility group box protein-1 (HMGB-1) in patients with renal diseases including CKD, haemodialysis (HD), AKI patients, and healthy controls for comparison. First study revealed that PlGF is elevated in patients with decreased renal function. Second study demonstrated the association of MMP-2 and PAPP-A with proteinuria in patients with CKD. Moreover, serum MMP-2, MMP-9 and PAPP-A levels significantly differed in patients with various nephropathies. EN-RAGE levels are not elevated in patients with CKD, but are related to inflammatory status. PAPP-A, EN-RAGE and HMGB-1 levels are significantly elevated, but sRAGE and PlGF...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury (AKI) are major public health problems. It is important to be able to identify those at high risk of adverse outcome, CKD progression and associated cardiovascular disease. The aim of the thesis was to study novel promising biomarkers, their relationship to kidney function, chronic inflammation and/or cardiovascular risk - placental growth factor (PlGF), pregnancy associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A), matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9), soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE), calcium binding protein S100A12 or extracellular newly identified RAGE binding protein (EN-RAGE), and high mobility group box protein-1 (HMGB-1) in patients with renal diseases including CKD, haemodialysis (HD), AKI patients, and healthy controls for comparison. First study revealed that PlGF is elevated in patients with decreased renal function. Second study demonstrated the association of MMP-2 and PAPP-A with proteinuria in patients with CKD. Moreover, serum MMP-2, MMP-9 and PAPP-A levels significantly differed in patients with various nephropathies. EN-RAGE levels are not elevated in patients with CKD, but are related to inflammatory status. PAPP-A, EN-RAGE and HMGB-1 levels are significantly elevated, but sRAGE and PlGF...

Grafomotorické dovednosti (GA) představují skupinu psychomotorických procesů, které se zapojují během kreslení a psaní. GA jsou nutnou prerekvizitou pro zvládání základních školních schopností, konkrétně psaní. Děti v první a druhé třídě mohou mít potíže s prováděním jednoduchých grafomotorických úkolů (GD) a později ve třetí a čtvrté třídě také se samotným psaním (HD). Narušení procesů spojených se psaním je obecně nazýváno jako vývojová dysgrafie (DD). Prevalence DD v České republice se pohybuje kolem 3–5 %. V současné době je DD hodnocena subjektivně týmem psychologů a speciálních pedagogů. V praxi stále chybí objektivní měřicí nástroj, který by umožňoval hodnocení GD a HD. Z tohoto důvodu se tato disertační práce zabývá identifikováním symptomů spojených s grafomotorickou neobratností u dětí školního věku a vývojem nových parametrů, které je budou kvantifikovat. Byl vytvořen komplexní GA protokol (36 úloh), který představuje prostředí, ve kterém se mohou projevit různé symptomy spojené s GD a HD. K těmto symptomům bylo přiřazeno 76 kvantifikujících parametrů. Dále byla navrhnuta nová škála grafomotorických obtíží (GDRS) založena na automatizovaném zpracování online píma. Nakonec byla prezentována a otestována nová sada parametrizačních technik založených na Tunable Q Factor Wavelet Transform (TQWT). Parametry TQWT dokážou kvantifikovat grafomotorickou obratnost nebo nedostatečný projev v jemné motorice. GDRS přestavuje nový, moderní a objektivní měřící nástroj, který doposud chyběl jak v České republice, tak v zahraničí. Použití škály by pomohlo modernizovat jak diagnostiku DD, tak reedukační/remediační proces. Další výzkum by tento nástroj mohl adaptovat i do jiných jazyků. Navíc, tato metodologie může být použita a optimalizována pro diagnostiku dalších nemocí a poruch, které ovlivňují grafomotorické dovednosti, například pro autismus, poruchu pozornosti s hyperaktivitou (ADHD) nebo dyspraxii (DCD).

The master thesis is focused on the principle of ultrasonographs and their modes, and ways of denoising data obtained by ultrasonographs. This project will also concentrate on removing the speckle noise, because the speckle noise has the largest share of the noise in the measured data in ultrasonographs. The other main objective was to describe advanced methods of filtration, especially the modifications of the median filter, such as the modified hybrid median filter and modification of the anisotropic diffusion, namely generalizing Perona-Malik anisotropic diffusion using restricted dissimilarity functions. These two filters were tested on images with artificial noise and on data captured using the ultrasound system GE VingMed System FiVe. Also, the program for filtering and display filtered ultrasound data captured by GE VingMed System FiVe is described.

Nuclear power plants provide about 11 percent of the world's electricity production. For fission process is uranium fuels used with varying percentage of enrichment 235U for most of nuclear reactors. Uranium reserves are reducing and their mining cost increases. Therefore, the thorium fuel is discussed as revolution fuel for current and future nuclear power plants. This diploma thesis deals with possibility of thorium fuel utilization at various types of nuclear reactors with a focus on light water reactors. The practical part of the thesis is focused on simulation and calculations of various uranium dioxide and thorium dioxide layers at the fuel rods. Model of WWER 440 reactor was developed for the calculations with the addition of thorium fuel. The model simulates burning out of fuel for 5 years, with monitoring of fuel behavior and tracking changes of each material. The thesis tries to define the suitable ratio and parameters of layers combination of uranium and thorium fuel. For these ratios and parameters the thesis tries to give sufficient amount of computational analyzes.