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Adam Smith is known as the founder of economics, especially for his concept of the division of labour and the metaphor of the invisible hand of the market. However, Smith was not an economist but a philosopher of ethics. In addition to his most famous work, The Wealth of Nations, he is the author of the equally important, but much less well-known, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he explores the themes of cooperation, social harmony, and the natural order. Smith's view of man, society, and the world was significantly influenced by Stoic philosophy. At the same time, he adopts much of David Hume's philosophy, especially his Newtonian understanding of the world. In this thesis, I explore these and other influences on Smith's philosophy and, indirectly, on his economic thought.

Eusocial species of African mole-rats live in groups cooperating on multiple tasks and employing division of labour. In captivity, individuals of the same group were found to differ in cooperative contribution as well as in preference for a particular task which is usually interpretted either as temporal polyethism or existence of behavioural castes. Studies describing these phenomenons based on observations of captive colonies suffer from methodological problems and their results are often contradictory, whereas studies on free-ranging mole-rats are few and limited by small sample sizes. In my thesis I review available literature on polyethism, division of labour and related penomenons in African mole-rats. Its general aim is to provide theoretical background for future laboratory experiments.

Clonal plants may be able to cope with spatial heterogeneity due to the physiological integration of ramets. Previous studies demonstrated that benefits of clonal integration increase with patch contrast between individual ramets. However, the same magnitude of contrast may be perceived differently in rich and poor environments. According to the theoretical work of Caraco and Kelly (1991), I expected these benefits to be the greatest in overall poor conditions and high between-patch contrast. To test this hypothesis, I conducted experiments with pairs of ramets of a stoloniferous grass, Agrostis stolonifera, grown in variously nutrient rich conditions. The experiment with pairs of ramet of similar developmental age showed only very weak effect of integration on growth of ramets, although integration significantly improved survival of ramets and also affected root-shoot ratio of ramets. Nevertheless, there were considerable benefits of integration in the experiment with developmentally older mother ramets and their daughter ramets. Contrary to the predictions, the benefits of integration were bigger in rich conditions and they decreased with increasing between-patch contrast. In addition, effect of integration on root-shoot ratio of ramets was opposite to the expected specialization for acquisition...

Clonal plants may be able to cope with spatial and temporal heterogeneity due to the physiological integration of ramets. To begin with, I discuss basic characteristics of clonal plants and then I provide a review of theoretical and empirical work dealing with the advantages and disadvantages of clonal growth in heterogenous conditions. Three main traits - translocation of resources, division of labour and foraging - are examined in terms of their contribution to the success of clonal plants. Despite a large amount of attention which this topic has received in the past few decades, a number of issues still remain unclear.

Soldier caste is the oldest altruistic caste in termites, highly specialized for defensive tasks. Therefore, a number of adaptations in anatomy and behaviour can be observed in soldier, lacking in other termite castes. The aim of this study was to verify the hypothesis that in disturbed groups the soldiers will prefer to stand by and defend the reproductives, the most valuable individuals. Therefore, I studied in two species of the genus Prorhinotermes (P. simplex and P. canalifrons) the ability of soldiers to discriminate neotenic reproductives and provide them with defence. In agreement with the initial hypothesis, the soldiers of both species prooved to be able of an instantaneous recognition of reproductives and remained close to them. In P. simplex, the neotenic female was the most attractive individual, while in P. canalifrons, neotenics of both sexes were equally attractive. The observed preference of reproductives appears to occur only with a certain age of the reproductives in incipient colonies, along with their sexual maturation. Caste specificity of cuticular lipids supports the presumption that the caste recognition is based on olphactoric cues in the cuticle of reproductives.

The aim of Bachelor's Thesis is to express and virtually acount for the importance of proffesion financial advisor and these results compare to the common opinion of this problems. For this purpose the teoretical part is especially devote to theory of division of labour and utility theory. Practical part is devote to public research about financial advisory, it is use in practice and basic knowledge concerning financial advising. The end of Thesis is trying to explain the mainly bad perception of financial advisory in Czech republic by historical development of this branch and other indicators, allthough it is the higly recognized branch in West Europe. At the same time the author is trying to foresee the future progress of financial advisory in Czech republic by introducing few basic assumptions.