„Queer Venues“ in Brno

Brno, Czech Republic is amongst the most liberal of cities and yet, but few know that in Brno as early as during the interwar period there were unique spaces dedicated to sexual diversity, various gay and lesbian initiatives came into existence, and that the first post-war semi-official / semilegal Czech gay business was opened here. Also, Brno hosted the first big Czech “queer march”, and the most significant Czech queer film festival was born there. This article aims to examine whether and, if so how, this diversity is mirrored in Brno’s “queer venues”, which we have contextualized within the broader perspective of geographies of sexualities, using semi-structured interviews. Our goal was to understand the locally-specific forms of socio-spatial organization and how they influence local non-heterosexual people, including their effects on sexual orientation and/or sexual identities in everyday negotiations. Our main findings include the identification of the characteristic features of Brno “queer enterprises”, the elucidation of their relative spatial concentration, and the physical and visual unobtrusiveness associated with the degree of use of “queer symbolism”. Our findings clarify the specific homonormative, and to a certain extent heteronormative, settings of local queer venues, which in the context of gay commodification significantly influence not only the form and degree of acceptance of non-heterosexual people in Brno, but also their mutual relationships, the possibilities of self-realization and new forms of exclusion. Even though we cannot find a “gay neighbourhood” in Brno, we can speak of a “queer-friendly city”. Brno, Czech Republic is amongst the most liberal of cities and yet, but few know that in Brno as early as during the interwar period there were unique spaces dedicated to sexual diversity, various gay and lesbian initiatives came into existence, and that the first post-war semi-official / semilegal Czech gay business was opened here. Also, Brno hosted the first big Czech “queer march”, and the most significant Czech queer film festival was born there. This article aims to examine whether and, if so how, this diversity is mirrored in Brno’s “queer venues”, which we have contextualized within the broader perspective of geographies of sexualities, using semi-structured interviews. Our goal was to understand the locally-specific forms of socio-spatial organization and how they influence local non-heterosexual people, including their effects on sexual orientation and/or sexual identities in everyday negotiations. Our main findings include the identification of the characteristic features of Brno “queer enterprises”, the elucidation of their relative spatial concentration, and the physical and visual unobtrusiveness associated with the degree of use of “queer symbolism”. Our findings clarify the specific homonormative, and to a certain extent heteronormative, settings of local queer venues, which in the context of gay commodification significantly influence not only the form and degree of acceptance of non-heterosexual people in Brno, but also their mutual relationships, the possibilities of self-realization and new forms of exclusion. Even though we cannot find a “gay neighbourhood” in Brno, we can speak of a “queer-friendly city”

Geografie bariér

Title in English: Geography of barriers: Examples of good barrier-free implementations The book Geography of Barriers: Examples of Good Barrier-free Practice offers a collection of texts that are interested in making space, services, and information accessible. Thus, the collection is primarily about barriers, their nature, localization, and possible effects. Under barriers, most people imagine material barriers for wheelchair users in the form of steps or sidewalk curbs. Only a few would think that barriers can be represented by loosely placed rugs, unfit lighting, large glass surface, a doorbell without visual output, unwanted attention, frequent asking and offering help, lack of language knowledge, pity, etc. Thus, the book broadens awareness of what can be considered a barrier. The texts are divided into three parts – theoretical, methodic, and empirical – and their arrangement follows the logic of thematic focusing from the most general to the most concrete types of barriers. While the theoretical part places the policies of accessibility into the wider context of scientific disciplines and their development – such as disability studies, disability geography or service design, the methodic part discusses the introduction of accessibility policies in the city of Brno, describing how it tried to make its space, services, and information more accessible. Finally, the empirical part offers 18 examples of relatively good barrier-free implementations that have been recently realized in Brno. This division reflects an effort to target several groups of readers. The first part thus addresses mainly students interested in accessibility issues, the second, methodic part is intended for politicians and municipalities searching for inspiration to implement their own accessibility measures and policies. The last part stating concrete examples of good barrier-free implementations is aimed at general public, at people who like to think about a whole range of topics related to accessibility of space, services, and information

XXV. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách

Title in English: 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences: Conference proceedings The conference proceedings consists of papers presented at the 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences that was organized by Department of Regional Economics and Administration FEA MU. It contains 57 articles arranged by topic. The individual articles deal with e.g. socioeconomic disparities among regions, regional policy, territory attractiveness, tourism, or regional public administration

Model Checking and Reduction of Behavior Protocols

Behavior protocol is a formalism used for behavior specification of software components. In a regular-expression like syntax, admissible sequences of method invocations are specified abstracting from components' internal data. While it seems to be a reasonable level of abstraction for checking correctness of communication of the software components, it can be still quite difficult for a human to read and understand. This thesis aims to help the software designer to understand the behavior specification of components more easily. An approach to automatic verification of the general temporal properties stated in Linear Temporal Logic is presented along with two techniques for reduction of behavior protocols. Reduction with respect to composition prunes out those parts of the protocols that are not used in the particular composition and clarifies the actual role of each component. Reduction with respect to property removes the parts of the protocols that are irrelevant to the given property. The behavior protocols reduced in this manner should emphasize which part of the protocol makes the given property satisfied

Model Checking and Reduction of Behavior Protocols

Behavior protocol is a formalism used for behavior specification of software components. In a regular-expression like syntax, admissible sequences of method invocations are specified abstracting from components' internal data. While it seems to be a reasonable level of abstraction for checking correctness of communication of the software components, it can be still quite difficult for a human to read and understand. This thesis aims to help the software designer to understand the behavior specification of components more easily. An approach to automatic verification of the general temporal properties stated in Linear Temporal Logic is presented along with two techniques for reduction of behavior protocols. Reduction with respect to composition prunes out those parts of the protocols that are not used in the particular composition and vlarifies the actual role of each component. Reduction with respect to property removes the parts of the protocols that are irrelevant to the given property. The behavior protocols reduced in this manner should emphasize which part of the protocol makes the given property satisfied

Automated verification of software

Despite the research e ort being invested into the eld of automated veri cation of software, its adoption in industry is still rather slow. Several reasons for this hesitation may be identi ed. The thesis focuses on the following two (i) dificulty of assessment of di erent tools, and (ii) difficulty of tools usage and integration in the development process. To facilitate tool assessment, we provide a comprehensive overview of code model checking techniques with evaluation based on a common set of criteria. In addition, we contribute by an industrial case study on applicability of the BLAST model checker. Since also proper education is necessary for the ability of tool assessment, we include our experience report on preparation of two master-level formal method courses. By incorporating an easy to use speci cation language into the BLAST model checker, the thesis contributes to facilitating tools usage. In addition, we introduce the concept of unit checking, a combination of unit testing and code model checking, which helps integration of code model checking in the software development process

Automatická veri kace software

Despite the research e ort being invested into the eld of automated veri cation of software, its adoption in industry is still rather slow. Several reasons for this hesitation may be identi ed. The thesis focuses on the following two (i) dificulty of assessment of di erent tools, and (ii) difficulty of tools usage and integration in the development process. To facilitate tool assessment, we provide a comprehensive overview of code model checking techniques with evaluation based on a common set of criteria. In addition, we contribute by an industrial case study on applicability of the BLAST model checker. Since also proper education is necessary for the ability of tool assessment, we include our experience report on preparation of two master-level formal method courses. By incorporating an easy to use speci cation language into the BLAST model checker, the thesis contributes to facilitating tools usage. In addition, we introduce the concept of unit checking, a combination of unit testing and code model checking, which helps integration of code model checking in the software development process.Přes výzkumné usilí věnované automatické veri kaci software, její pronikání do softwarového průmyslu je stále spíše pomalé. Toto váhání mělo několik důvodů 1) složitost posouzení jednotlivých nástrojů, 2) složitost použití nástrojů a jejich integrace do vvývojového procesu. Pro usnadnění výběru jednotlivých nástrojů je součástí práce přehled technik založených na model checkingu kódu s porovnáním technik na základě jednotných kritérií. Navíc práce obsahuje průmyslovou případovou studii používající model checker BLAST. K posouzení vhodnosti nástrojů je potřeba i odpovovídajícího vzdělání, přikládáme tedy i své zkušenosti s přípravou dvou magisterských přednášek o formálních metodách. Integrací snadno použitelného speci kačního jazyka do model checkeru BLAST, přispíváme k usnadnění použití tohoto nástroje. Mimo to představujeme koncept unit checkingu, tedy kombinace unit testingu a model checkingu kódu. Unit checking pomáhá s integrací model checkingu kódu do vývojového procesu.Katedra distribuovaných a spolehlivých systémůDepartment of Distributed and Dependable SystemsFaculty of Mathematics and PhysicsMatematicko-fyzikální fakult

The impact of economic crisis on regions dominated by motor vehicles industry (the case of Vysočina Region)

The Czech economy has been significantly affected by the global economic crisis since the second half of 2008. The Czech economy is strongly dependant on the motor vehicles industry, the sector severely hit by the crisis. There are not only three major automobile companies in the Czech Republic (Škoda Auto Mladá Boleslav, TPCA Czech Kolín and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech Nošovice), but there are also many subcontractors. The Vysočina Region, the model territory used in this article, has several such major companies. This fact had quite a significant impact on the economic situation in the Vysočina Region during the crisis. The paper also examines individual anti-crisis measures adopted by the largest subcontractor to the motor vehicle industry in the region, Bosch Diesel s.r.o. Jihlava.This paper was elaborated under the students’ support project at the Faculty of Science, “Strengthening and Improving Students Creative Work in the Fields of Mathematics, Physics and Earth Science “(KVAS-MPG). The project is funded by Masaryk University and it is aimed at supporting student projects at MU (MUNI/A/1060/2009

Model Checking and Reduction of Behavior Protocols

Behavior protocol is a formalism used for behavior specification of software components. In a regular-expression like syntax, admissible sequences of method invocations are specified abstracting from components' internal data. While it seems to be a reasonable level of abstraction for checking correctness of communication of the software components, it can be still quite difficult for a human to read and understand. This thesis aims to help the software designer to understand the behavior specification of components more easily. An approach to automatic verification of the general temporal properties stated in Linear Temporal Logic is presented along with two techniques for reduction of behavior protocols. Reduction with respect to composition prunes out those parts of the protocols that are not used in the particular composition and clarifies the actual role of each component. Reduction with respect to property removes the parts of the protocols that are irrelevant to the given property. The behavior protocols reduced in this manner should emphasize which part of the protocol makes the given property satisfied