Relation of Pleurocapsa cuprea Hansgirg to the genus Hildenbrandia (Rhodophyta)

Pleurocapsa cuprea has been originally described as a relatively common freshwater cyanobacteial species with specific habitat preferences. Due to the striking resemblance of some diagnostic features to the red algal genus Hildenbrandia, morphological, molecular as well as pigment analyses have been done to either confirm or disprove the relationship of Pleurocapsa cuprea to the Cyanobacteria

Democratic People's Republic of Korea in International Politics

Předkládaná disertační práce analyzuje severokorejskou zahraniční politiku mezi léty 1994 a 2015 s využitím konceptuálního rámce teorie rolí, který pro studium severokorejské zahraniční politiky dosud nebyl dosud využit. Mým cílem je lépe porozumět tomu, jak Severní Korea vnímá své funkce či role v mezinárodním prostředí a jak toto ovlivňuje její interakce s dalšími aktéry. Poté, co s využitím obsahové analýzy severokorejských zahraničně-politických textů identifikuji role, které KLDR vyslovuje, zaměřím se na další zkoumání korelace mezi těmito rolemi a severokorejskou zahraniční politikou. Mým cílem je zejména identifikace těch situací či momentů, kdy se objevují zásadní změny ve význačnosti rolí (role saliency), kdy KLDR začne upřednostňovat jednu roli nad druhou či kdy zaniknou staré role a na jejich místě se objeví nové. Poté, co identifikuji tyto situace či momenty, uvedu je do souvislosti jak se změnami severokorejské zahraniční politiky, tak s jejími interakcemi s významnými druhými (significant others). Tvrdím, že odhalení vzorců interakcí KLDR s významnými druhými prostřednictvím analýzy rolí může potenciálně poskytnout jisté vodítko pro vyjednávání s KLDR. S ohledem na vytyčené cíle byl text této disertace rozdělen na čtyři hlavní kapitoly. První dvě přitom prezentují mé teoretické a metodologické zázemí, poslední dvě pak tvoří empirické jádro této práce. V první kapitole se vypořádávám s teoretickým a konceptuálním rámcem teorie rolí a rovněž zde přistupuji k operacionalizaci ústředních konceptů. Zvláštní pozornost je přitom kladena na problematiku změny rolí a způsobů, jakými k ní může docházet. Protože tato oblast zatím nebyla na teoretické úrovni zcela rozpracována, přistupuji k vlastnímu alternativnímu uchopení způsobů změn rolí, které jsou lépe aplikovatelné na případovou studii KLDR s využitím stávajících poznatků v této sféře. V druhé kapitole pak představuji metodu sémantické obsahové analýzy, která tvoří odrazový můstek pro další postup mého výzkumu. Rovněž zde předkládám a kriticky zhodnocuji severokorejskou anglicky psanou mediální sféru a pečlivě přitom vysvětluji, proč jsem pro svoji analýzu zvolila noviny The Pyongyang Times a časopis Korea Today. Ve třetí kapitole pak popisuji a definuji role, které jsem identifikovala, zaměřuji se na vývoj význačnosti rolí a taktéž jednotlivé role vztahuji ke konkrétní skupině významných druhých. Nakonec pak přistupuji ke čtvrté kapitole, kde jsou změny, ke kterým došlo ve vývoji sad rolí i jednotlivých rolí, uvedeny do kontextu severokorejských interakcí s významnými druhými. Celou práci pak uzavírám zjištěním, že proces změny rolí je velice komplexní a problematický. V případě KLDR je tento proces navíc dále komplikován velmi nevyrovnanými a nekonzistentními interakcemi s jejím nejvýznamnějším významným druhým, tedy Spojenými státy, které při nejlepším inklinovaly k opatrné politice angažmá, ke kombinaci hrozeb s humanitární pomocí, sankcí s vyjednáváním. Ačkoliv by bylo příliš jednoduché obviňovat pouze Spojené státy z toho, čím se KLDR v dnešní době stala (v interakci jsou totiž vždy přítomni jak ego, tak alter), je třeba si také uvědomit, že neustálé obviňování severokorejského režimu z toho, že je příliš izolovaný v situaci, kdy je KLDR přinejmenším částečně do této izolace tlačena, je iracionální.NeobhájenoIn this dissertation thesis, I analyse North Korean foreign policy between 1994 and 2015 using conceptual and theoretic framework of the role theory which has not been comprehensively used for North Korean case yet. My goal is to better understand how the North Korea perceives the part it plays (or should play) in the international politics and how its interaction with other actors impacts that. After I identify the roles North Korea speaks out using content analysis of North Korean foreign political statements and texts, I examine the correlation between these roles and actual foreign policy of the DPRK. In particular, I aim to identify the situations where significant changes in the role saliency occur, where the DPRK either starts to emphasize some role over another, or where the old roles are refused and new roles show up. After I do so, I contextualize these role shifts with the shifts in actual North Korean foreign policy and with North Korean interaction with its significant others. I aim to do so as I argue that the revelation of these aspects can potentially help to facilitate the communication with the DPRK. With regard to my goals, the text was divided into four main chapters. First two of them constitute theoretic and methodological part and remaining two form empirical part of this dissertation. In particular, in Chapter 1, I deal with theoretical background (i.e. the role theory) and with operationalization of key concepts. The special attention is paid on role change and its modes as it is essential for this thesis. The issue of role change has not been elaborated on the theoretical level in satisfactory way yet and thus, I provide an alternative grasping of this phenomenon as it better suits the purposes of this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I outline the method of semantical content analysis which constitutes the stepping stone enabling the subsequent course of my investigation. I also introduce and evaluate North Korean English-written media landscape in order to thoroughly explain why I selected The Pyongyang Times and Korea Today for my analysis. In Chapter 3, I describe the roles I identified, depict the development of their saliency and link them to particular group of significant others. Finally, I proceed with Chapter 4 where the changes that occurred in the major roles are put into context with North Korean interactions with significant others. After examining the developments of all the major roles constituting the core of North Korean role sets across the researched period, I conclude that the role change is complex process and in North Korean case, it was further problematized by highly unbalanced and inconsistent interactions with its main significant other, the United States which tended to incline to vigilant engagement characterized by contradictory tendencies (at the best), by combining the threats with aid, sanctions with negotiations. Although it would be oversimplified to accuse the U.S. only of what the DPRK became today (there is always both ego and alter who enter the interaction), the omnipresent accusations of North Korean regime of being isolationist in the situation where the DPRK is at least partially pushed into the isolation by its main foes are irrational

A taxonomy of the genus \kur{Stigeoclonium} in the Czech Republic

The genus Stigeoclonium is taxonomically very problematic. The relationships between species of this genus are very little known. There are only a few studies that deal with only morphological revision of the genus Stigeoclonium. Hovewer, up to now no phylogenetic analysis of this genus exists. This study summarizes the knowledge about the genus Stigeoclonim in the Czech Republic and shows the first phylogenetic analysis of this genus

Molecular phylogeny and taxonomic revision of chaetophoralean algae (Chlorophyta)

Since the human inclination to estimate and trace natural diversity, usable species definitions as well as taxonomical systems are required. As a consequence, the first proposed classification schemes assigned the filamentous and parenchymatous taxa to the green algal order Chaetophorales sensu Wille. The introduction of ultrastructural and molecular methods provided novel insight into algal evolution and generated taxonomic revisions based on phylogenetic inference. However, until now, the number of molecular phylogenetic studies focusing on the Chaetophorales s.s. is surprisingly low. To enhance knowledge about phylogenetic relationships among taxa within the order, the nuclear?encoded SSU rDNA sequences from 30 strains covering all three chaetophoralean families have been investigated. All revealed monophyletic groupings were further screened for molecular non-homoplasious synapomorphies within the Viridiplantae. To address the question of the correspondence between morphological characters traditionally used for taxonomical delimitation of the Chaetophorales and the tree topology favored by molecular data, the list of morphological/ ultrastructural/ecological characters was elaborated and further analyzed. In addition, to obtain a close-up view into the evolution of Compensatory Base Changes (CBCs) of the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) which is currently often used to delimit putative biological species, 86 newly obtained/published sequences of ITS2 for five families of the order Ulvales were analyzed. Furthermore, a detailed comparative study of all ITS2 substitutions has been done. Subsequently all revealed CBCs and hemi- CBCs have been mapped upon the ITS2 phylogenetic tree topology. Finally, CBCs/hCBCs taxonomic inference in the Ulvales has been discussed

A close-up view on ITS2 evolution and speciation - a case study in the Ulvophyceae (Chlorophyta, Viridiplantae)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The second Internal Transcriber Spacer (ITS2) is a fast evolving part of the nuclear-encoded rRNA operon located between the 5.8S and 28S rRNA genes. Based on crossing experiments it has been proposed that even a single Compensatory Base Change (CBC) in helices 2 and 3 of the ITS2 indicates sexual incompatibility and thus separates biological species. Taxa without any CBC in these ITS2 regions were designated as a 'CBC clade'. However, in depth comparative analyses of ITS2 secondary structures, ITS2 phylogeny, the origin of CBCs, and their relationship to biological species have rarely been performed. To gain 'close-up' insights into ITS2 evolution, (1) 86 sequences of ITS2 including secondary structures have been investigated in the green algal order Ulvales (Chlorophyta, Viridiplantae), (2) after recording all existing substitutions, CBCs and hemi-CBCs (hCBCs) were mapped upon the ITS2 phylogeny, rather than merely comparing ITS2 characters among pairs of taxa, and (3) the relation between CBCs, hCBCs, CBC clades, and the taxonomic level of organisms was investigated in detail.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>High sequence and length conservation allowed the generation of an ITS2 consensus secondary structure, and introduction of a novel numbering system of ITS2 nucleotides and base pairs. Alignments and analyses were based on this structural information, leading to the following results: (1) in the Ulvales, the presence of a CBC is not linked to any particular taxonomic level, (2) most CBC 'clades' sensu Coleman are paraphyletic, and should rather be termed CBC grades. (3) the phenetic approach of pairwise comparison of sequences can be misleading, and thus, CBCs/hCBCs must be investigated in their evolutionary context, including homoplasy events (4) CBCs and hCBCs in ITS2 helices evolved independently, and we found no evidence for a CBC that originated via a two-fold hCBC substitution.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our case study revealed several discrepancies between ITS2 evolution in the Ulvales and generally accepted assumptions underlying ITS2 evolution as e.g. the CBC clade concept. Therefore, we developed a suite of methods providing a critical 'close-up' view into ITS2 evolution by directly tracing the evolutionary history of individual positions, and we caution against a non-critical use of the ITS2 CBC clade concept for species delimitation.</p