Les faibles capacités régénératives intrinsèques du système nerveux central, après la survenue de lésions traumatiques ou l'apparition de maladies neuro-dégénératives, ont orienté les recherches vers des thérapies basées sur l'utilisation de cellules souches dans le but de régénérer le tissu cérébral. Cependant, des limitations éthiques et techniques associées aux cellules souches embryonnaires, fœtales ou neurales chez l'adulte restreignent leur utilisation en clinique humaine. À la recherche d'une source alternative, nous nous sommes intéressés à des cellules souches adultes peu connues, provenant du chorion d'un tissu nerveux périphérique en perpétuel renouvellement : les cellules souches de la lamina propria olfactive, localisée dans la cavité nasale. Ces cellules multipotentes ont été décrites comme un sous-type de cellules souches mésenchymateuses, présentant de fortes capacités prolifératives et neurogéniques. En utilisant un premier modèle murin d'amnésie induit par lésion excito-toxique des hippocampes, nous avons montré que des cellules souches olfactives humaines, greffées dans les zones lésées ou dans le liquide céphalo-rachidien, i) s'installent et adoptent un phénotype neuronal, ii) rétablissent la circulation d'informations au sein des réseaux neuronaux défectueux et iii) permettent une récupération des capacités d'apprentissage et de mémorisation. Suite à ces résultats très encourageants, le premier objectif de cette thèse a été de mieux faire connaître ces cellules souches adultes auprès de la communauté scientifique. / The brain displaying poor regenerative capacities, exogenous stem cell-based therapy has been proposed as an attractive strategy to regenerate cerebral tissue after acute injuries or neurodegenerative disorders. However, ethical and technical issues, associated with embryonic, fetal or adult neural stem cells, limit their use in human medicine. In search of alternative candidates, we focused our attention on adult stem cells, located in a peripheral nervous tissue: the nasal stem cells sited in the olfactory lamina propria. These multipotent stem cells have been characterized as a member of the mesenchymal stem cell superfamily, displaying strong proliferative and neurogenic properties. Recently, using a mouse model of amnesia induced by excito-toxic lesions of hippocampal neurons, we demonstrated that olfactory stem cells, grafted in lesioned areas or into the cerebrospinal fluid, i) migrate and differentiate into neuron-like cells, ii) contribute to the restoration of local neuronal networks and iii) promote recovery of learning and memory abilities. In line with these promising results, the first aim of the current thesis was to promote the use of these adult stem cells by the scientific community. For this purpose, we published an article and a book chapter in which we demonstrated that they are suitable for autologous cell therapy in humans. Using an audiovisual document, we showed that these cells i) can be safely obtained in humans, under local anesthesia, without any loss of smell and ii) are easily and quickly amplifiable in vitro.

Previous research on human judgment and decision making has demonstrated systematic and predictable biases of judgment in experimental settings. One example of this is the tendency to intuitively violate the conjunction rule - a simple rule of probability. This was well illustrated in the famous Linda-problem. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). According to the dual-process theory of reasoning, (Kahneman, 2011) reasoning fallacies such as the conjunction fallacy occurs when people fail to use analytic reasoning and instead overly rely on their intuition. The dual process theory proposes that cognitive processes underlying our intuitive impulses and our conscious reasoning constitutes two different modes in the mind –system 1 and system 2- and that the intuitive system 1 are not able to compute probabilities. Furthermore, it is assumed that processes that are labeled system 1 are fast whereas system 2 are thought to be slow. We tested these time course assumptions of dual process theory in a within-subject design by comparing response time latencies between conjunction fallacy judgments and accurate probability judgments. The results showed that inducing accurate responding did not result in delayed response latency. This indicates that making accurate probability judgments does not require more processing time which goes against what would be expected by the dual-process framework. / Tidigare forskning om mänskligt beslutsfattande och bedömningar har i experiment påvisat systematiska och förutsägbara bias. Ett exempel på detta är tendensen att intuitivt gå emot konjuktionsregeln- en enkel regel gällande sannolikhet. Detta illustrerades väl i det berömda Linda- problemet (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). Enligt två-systemsteorin (Kahneman, 2011) om problemlösning, uppstår bedömningsfel såsom konjuktionsfelet när människor inte använder sig av analytiskt tänkande och istället förlitar sig för mycket på sin intuition. Två-systemsteorin menar att de kognitiva processer som ligger till grund för våra intuitiva impulser och vårt medvetna resonerande utgör två olika aktörer i vårt tänkande- system 1 och system 2- och att det intuitiva system 1 inte kan beräkna sannolikheter. Processer som betecknas som tillhörande system 1 är enligt två-systemsteorin snabba medan system 2 föreställs vara ett långsamt system. I denna studie testades antagandet om tidsåtgång för de två systemen i en inomgruppsdesign genom att jämföra responstider mellan bedömningar där konjunktionsfelet begåtts och bedömningar där det inte begåtts. Resultaten visar att korrekta sannolikhetsbedömningar inte resulterar i långsammare responstider. Detta indikerar att det inte tycks vara mer tidskrävande att göra riktiga sannolikhetsbedömningar, vilket motsäger två-systemsteorins antagande om snabbt och långsamt processande.

In my diploma thesis "The Development of Urban Build-up Area and Urban Infrastructure in Benešov in the Years 1918 - 1939", I explore one chapter in the development of a small agricultural town during the era of the First Czechoslovak Republic. This thesis is a contribution to the history of Czech towns during the interwar period and its topic corresponds to the research project of the Institute of Economic and Social History at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, within the frame of which I worked on this thesis. The thesis was written mainly based on research of the resources in the State District Archives in Benešov (a branch office of the State Regional Archives in Prague) and of a wide range of relevant specialized literature. The introduction consists of a chapter offering a complex summary of the most important moments and changes in the development of Benešov during the examined period. Apart from the history of Benešov, it also shows the role of the town in the region and the relation of its development to other municipalities in the country. The focal point of the thesis lays in the extensive yet lucid chapters examining architectural development of the town (the essential moments, context, but also particular interesting buildings) and the development of its infrastructure...

Les smooth (ou universal) projective hash functions ont été introduites par Cramer et Shoup, à Eurocrypt'02, comme un outil pour construire des schémas de chiffrement efficaces et sûrs contre les attaques à chiffrés choisis. Depuis, elles ont trouvé de nombreuses applications, notamment pour la construction de schémas d'authentification par mot de passe, d'oblivious transfer, de signatures en blanc, et de preuves à divulgation nulle de connaissance. Elles peuvent êtres vues comme des preuves implicites d'appartenance à certains langages. Un problème important est de caractériser pour quels langages de telles fonctions existent.Dans cette thèse, nous avançons dans la résolution de ce problème en proposant la notion de diverse modules. Un diverse module est une représentation d'un langage, comme un sous-module d'un module plus grand, un module étant un espace vectoriel sur un anneau. À n'importe quel diverse module est associée une smooth projective hash function pour le même langage. Par ailleurs, presque toutes les smooth projective hash functions actuelles sont construites de cette manière.Mais les diverse modules sont aussi intéressants en eux-mêmes. Grâce à leur structure algébrique, nous montrons qu'ils peuvent facilement être combinés pour permettre de nouvelles applications, comme les preuves implicites à divulgation nulle de connaissance (une alternative légère aux preuves non-interactives à divulgation nulle de connaissance), ainsi que des preuves non-interactives à divulgation nulle de connaissance et one-time simulation-sound très efficaces pour les langages linéaires sur les groupes cycliques. / Smooth (or universal) projective hash functions were first introduced by Cramer and Shoup, at Eurocrypt'02, as a tool to construct efficient encryption schemes, indistinguishable under chosen-ciphertext attacks. Since then, they have found many other applications, including password-authenticated key exchange, oblivious transfer, blind signatures, and zero-knowledge arguments. They can be seen as implicit proofs of membership for certain languages. An important question is to characterize which languages they can handle.In this thesis, we make a step forward towards this goal, by introducing diverse modules. A diverse module is a representation of a language, as a submodule of a larger module, where a module is essentially a vector space over a ring. Any diverse module directly yields a smooth projective hash function for the corresponding language, and almost all the known smooth projective hash functions are constructed this way.Diverse modules are also valuable in their own right. Thanks to their algebraic structural properties, we show that they can be easily combined to provide new applications related to zero-knowledge notions, such as implicit zero-knowledge arguments (a lightweight alternative to non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments), and very efficient one-time simulation-sound (quasi-adaptive) non-interactive zero-knowledge arguments for linear languages over cyclic groups.

Theme of this diploma thesis is a newly buil building of prison in Moravské Budějovice. The buiding has four ground floors and is without cellar. The structural system of the building is made up of permanent formwork and system Porotherm. Ceiling construction is made up of reinforced hollow core slab. The building is covered with a flat roof.

This research focuses on agencification and quangocratisation (AQ) through a comparison of the experiences of South Korea and the UK. Although a number of studies of AQ have been produced recently, these reforms remain inadequately understood. Since AQ involves the structural disaggregation of administrative units from existing departments, executive agencies and quangos have distinct characteristics which are quite different from ordinary core departments. There are a number of factors which influence these changes; and this thesis explores nine existing theories which are available to explain these phenomena. Case studies are presented of Tate Modern in the UK and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), which are carefully analysed to examine the validity of those nine arguments. Although cultural agencies, which show some unique features, have become increasingly an essential part of the national economy, they have scarcely been researched from the viewpoint of public policy. This thesis endeavours to explore distinctive characteristics of this policy area; and moreover, it examines the diverse variables which have an impact on policy formation and its results through the process of comparison of arguments. The major tasks of this thesis are to investigate the applicability of the nine arguments and to weigh their merits. As a corollary of this comprehensiveness, it examines the whole public sectors of both countries, in order to show the broader picture and to understand the processes of changes and their backgrounds. More profoundly, similarities and differences between both countries are compared from both macro and micro perspectives. At the same time, the results of AQ are analysed through the comparison of outputs or outcomes before and after these changes, with a view to exploring whether their rationales are appropriate. Furthermore, it also examines the institutional constraints which influence not only the change of agencies but also their performances. Besides which, it seeks to find strategies for overcoming these constraints. This thesis adopts systematic and comprehensive approaches regarding basic concepts and data. It draws on theories of comparative research, the scope of the public sector, the classification and analysis of agencies and quangos, and theories underlying the detailed components of each argument and epistemological assumptions. Therefore, it suggests various aspects which enable us to broaden our understanding of the changes within the public sector; and to generate practical understanding to inform real world reform.