CITES-listed Wildlife Trade of the Czech Republic

Wildlife trade involves many animal and plant species and their products. CITES (Convention on International Trafe in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) aims on protecting endangered plants and animals from being overharvested for the purposes of international trade through system of regulations, permits and monitoring. CITES Trade Database is a tool dedicated for the evidence of international trade of endangered wildlife species. We used records from the CITES Trade Database to conduct the analysis of the legal wildlife trade in the Czech Republic in the period 2008-2018. A total amount of 12,615 shipment records were extracted from CITES Trade Database. Amongst most imported taxons belong mammals (mostly genuses Ursus and Panthera) and reptiles (primarily genuses Varanus and Triocerus), while most exported taxons are birds (prevailing genuses Platycercus, Polytelis and Falco) and mammals (especially genus Lemur). While the export records showed an increasing trend, the imports were culminating around the average level of 642.3 records per year and lowest amount in the last year of the period. We emphasise smuggling of snowdrops and tigers and their products, which were reported to be seized, but with lack of records in legal trade.

Does Energy Dependence Threaten the State Economy?

The combination of the need to adjust the energy mix in favor of the environment and the demands on energy consumption and at the same time on the economic growth of states leads to an increase in energy dependence. The high level of energy dependence is often cited as a potential threat to the economic growth of the state. The aim of the paper is to find out whether there is a correlation between macroeconomic indicators and the degree of energy dependence. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient, we examine the strength of the relationship between GDP, trade balance, inflation, unemployment and the degree of energy dependence on the example of the states of the European Union in the period 2005 2018. The results of the research show that the relationship between the degree of energy dependence and macroeconomic indicators for the European Union is completely individual and the strength and direction of correlation varies from country to country. Combining the degree of energy dependence in general with the direct threat to economic growth therefore proves to be misleading and it is necessary to always deal with a specific state in this matter and take into account other factors that could affect the relationship under study. These conclusions represent the beginning of a paradigm shift that energy dependence threatens the state economy, and therefore more emphasis can be placed on other aspects, such as the environmental ones, when adopting new energy strategies.

Internal System of Quality Management in the Context of Ensuring the Quality of Preparation of Managers for Future Practice

In the presented paper, the authors deal with the internal system of quality management as a future practice at universities. They introduce the internal system of quality Management, the study programme graduate profile, as well as activities and methods related to ensuring the quality of study programmes, i.e. to preparation of managers for their future practice. The authors focus on the process of internal audits, evaluation of university study programmes (including the evaluation of university courses based on study results, classroom observations, feedback from students, feedback from employers, evaluation of feedback from graduates and their success; evaluation of scientific research work in the particular field of science), risk analysis, system of quality management practice from the discussed field, too.

Mystery Shopping a Tool for Sales Processes Evaluation in the Hospitality Facilities

Mystery shopping can be characterized as a marketing method used for anonymous and objective evaluation of the quality of provided services. The method helps the owner of the company, where the mystery shopping is applied, to gain better images of processes in the company, information about employee behavior towards customers, quality of provided services, environment, atmosphere, etc. It is realized by mystery shoppers who give the owner the information about used services gained by secret purchases. The aim of the paper is to examine the use of the mystery shopping method as a tool for evaluating the sales process in hospitality facilities. We research the use of mystery shopping from two points of view. On one hand, based on the structured interviews with managers of mystery shopping agencies and, on the other hand, based on structured interviews with managers of hospitality facilities that use mystery shopping method. All researched companies agreed on the statement that mystery shopping is very good primary impulse for changes in the company but ction devoted work of the management and all its employees is necessary.

How to Make Phoenix to Arise from the Ashes: Brand Loyalty as a Prospective Pillar of Branding in Tourism after Crisis COVID-19

Current global situation has radically examined the applicability of many managerial patterns which have been created so far. The reason is that crisis COVID-19 has changed not only established frameworks of managerial practice but also functional frameworks of consumer behaviour. There is no guaranty of occurring forecasted scenarios of market development. Black swan has flown also over the brands which have been traditionally perceived as valuable. So, the aim of this paper is to discuss brand loyalty as a prospective pillar of brand value resuscitation in tourism and to identify relevant brand value sources significant to brands characterised by loyalty. On the case study of Slovak consumer perception of brand value sources, it is possible to verify so far formulated postulates and modified theories, which take into account relevance of national psychographic specifics. Primary data used in the presented study were obtained by our own survey carried out on the sample of 2,000 respondents. The given data were statistically evaluated by the factor analysis supported by implementation of KMO Test, Barlett's test of sphericity and calculation of Cronbach's Alpha for relevant brand loyalty sources in tourism. By providing this statistical evaluation of the results, it has been possible to identify relevant brand value sources which are suitable to modify methodological apparatus of brand value building and management.

Financial and Informational Social Support for the Residents of the Ceske Budejovice Region

Social support is a highly discussed topic not only abroad but also in Czech literature. The entry focuses on the topic of social support experienced by selected residents of esults of the conducted survey that included 700 respondents in total. The objective of our entry is to describe the subjective assessments of different dimensions of social support of selected residents. The questionnaire focused on three areas of social support: financial (instrumental) support, daily activities support, and information support. The results describe significant relations between these areas of social support and other selected questions. A statistically significant relation was however detected between financial support and sex, in which women receive help more frequently than men. Financial support is more often demanded by persons younger than 30. Older persons were more likely to receive such help. There was however discovered a statistically significant relation for socio-economic status and subjective assessment of quality of interpersonal relations.

Importance of Advertising Media Attributes in the Context of Long-Term Brand Building in Slovakia

The aim of this paper is to understand which attributes Slovak marketers consider to be the most important and consequently which media they perceive to meet those requirements best. The first part of the analysis represents the answer to the supporting research question: What do Slovak marketers consider to be the most important attributes of the advertising medium in delivering a brand building campaign. The relative importance of attributes was evaluated using MaxDiff analysis where respondents were asked to trade off the most and least important attributes in 9 different combinations of 4 attributes at the time. The responses were analysed using a simple count-based approach, which is concerned with an overall number of -term brand building when the respondent was forced to make a choice between attributes. The purpose of this article is to help Slovak marketers become aware of their current perception of advertising media and whether this perception needs to be re-evaluated in order to prevent potential negative long-term consequences of incorrect media decisions as experienced in other countries. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the current state of the Slovak advertising industry in terms of ability to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising media to grow brand in a long-term by identifying the most important attributes Slovak marketers consider when choosing media for a brand campaign.

Procedural Errors in the Evidentiary Process and Their Impact on Criminal Proceedings in the Slovak Republic

The lawful procedure in evidentiary process is a conditio sine qua non of the admissibility of evidence. In other words, it is a necessary condition for the admission of evidence in criminal proceedings. The violation of this condition leads to procedural errors leading to the unlawfulness of the evidence, as a result of which the accused may be acquitted. For this reason, it's the aim of this article, not only to define the procedural errors, whose incidence is particularly noticeable in providing evidence by law enforcement authorities involved in criminal proceedings, but also to analyse their impact on the outcome of the criminal proceedings, i.e. the decision about the guilt and punishment of the accused and on the basis of a specific example, to point out shortcomings which would be appropriate to prevent de lege ferenda. The presented article provides, on the one hand, a brief insight into the basic terminology related to the mentioned topic, explains the content and purpose of the legislation and on, the other hand, acquires more practical view, based on an analysis of selected example of procedural error in evidentiary process.

Evaluation of Performance of MLP Neural Networks and RBF Neural Networks in Adjusting Time Series of the Development of the Trade Balance between the USA and the PRC

Artificial neural networks are widely used for predicting values, for solving possible future problems and are able to provide various solutions in problem estimation, regression or optimisation. They are useful for predicting time series too. The aim of the paper is to analyse and evaluate the performance of multilayer neural networks (hereinafter referred to as "MLP") and neural networks of radial basis function (hereinafter referred to as "RBF) in adjusting time series on the example of the trade balance between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Regression was performed using neural structures. We generated multilayer perceptron networks and neural networks of radial basis function and we generated two sets of artificial neural networks. Time was the continuous independent variable. We determined the trade balance of the USA and the PRC as a dependent variable. We can state that due to the great simplification of reality, it is not possible to predict the emergence of extraordinary situations and their impact on the trade balance of the USA and the PRC. We can state that when an adjusted time series is derived from a single variable, time, RBFs perform better than MLPs. In order to make the prediction more accurate and its calculation easier, it seems appropriate to use RBF networks, which brings a relatively high degree of accuracy.

Human Rights, Freedoms and the Limits of Their Limitation in a Time of Pandemic

There can be no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on all countries and regions all over the world, as well as on all aspects of human life. In a crisis situation of such a type, not only human health is endangered, but also civil and democratic rights are restr executive or legislative power, which may restrict human rights excessively or by sures, the interference with human rights may be suppressed. Although both international law and national legal systems allow restriction of these rights to certain extent with the aim to protect public health, many regimes abuse the pandemic to obscure their systematic restrictions going beyond the frame of the current situation. The aim of the presented article is to provide a factual view of the current situation in our territory, which in our opinion is not legally and socially sustainable in the long time. We will legally substantiate our views and express them as we see fit, based on the principles of democratic establishment of our society.