Purpose: The purpose of the article is to compare a degree of beta-convergence between V4 countries and EU28 at national and NUTS 2 level. Methodology/Approach: We will make this comparison separately for each indicator (gross domestic product at current market prices, unemployment rate and disposable income of households.). To evaluate beta-convergence differences at national and regional level, we will compare the data for the V4 countries and for Germany and Austria. To show convergence, we approximated the GDP growth trend in individual countries, using a trend line for three different time periods. Findings: Our results point to persistent disparities between regions. They have confirmed that the cohesion policy in the regions of the V4 countries should promote innovations and investments into less developed and predominantly agricultural regions, complete the necessary backbone infrastructure and develop a high-quality regional education. At regional level, the implementation of high value-added programs may be hampered by institutional factors and a lack of capacity to make the necessary infrastructure or human capital investments. Our analysis showed that differences in regional performance are also accompanied by significant differences in investigated indicators. Research Limitation/Implication: Limitations of the paper are at first missing data for Poland to the year 2013. Second limit of the article are data from regions, because data are related to the palce of residence of its branch. Originality/Value of paper: Paper is full original,also a data analysis does not copy any other articles neither article in a journal nor paper on conference.

This article deals with the deployment of an Internet of Things (IoT) technology within the energy industry (energy distribution) in the Czech Republic. The first part of the article is devoted to an assessment of the perspectives for developing IoT applications and implementing them within the economy, and then examines how the principles of multi-criteria decision-making are used to select IoT technologies for deployment in the energy industry. The selection of technology is also followed by the selection of the specific application with the highest potential benefit for the company using such a method to select the technology. The selection solution is demonstrated and further discussed from the technological and financial standpoints and illustrated via the example of choosing among two alternatives for a real-world application, very high voltage (VHV) frosting (in electric power transmission engineering, which is usually considered as any voltage between 52,000 and 300,000 V). The application solution is analyzed by how it relates to the direct vs indirect measurement of glaze ice. The result of this technical and financial analysis was that the direct glaze ice measurement variant is clearly the more advantageous one. The direct-measurement variant has a three-year payoff period, compared to six years for indirect measurement. Further, the benefits from the direct-measurement variant are 2.25 times larger than the other variant, and the five-year net profit value amounts to a profit for the direct-measurement variant while it results in a financial loss for the indirect-measurement variant. The recommended variant is to measure the icing of VHV lines directly.

This article analyzes inequality in the remuneration of ICT professionals in the Czech Republic during its evolution from 2000 to 2014. Data are analyzed by means of linear regression and the method of least squares for the entire period 2000–2014, and two periods 2000–2008 and 2009–2014, where we analyze de facto trends that emerged in the wages of ICT professionals after the economic crisis. We explore the evolution of wages and hence inequality between men and women from four perspectives: profession (ICT specialist – CZ ISCO 25 a ICT Technician CZ ISCO 35), education (secondary with maturita, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree), sphere of activity (wage sphere and salary sphere) and age (categories under 30 years, 30–50 years, and over 50 years). We find out that the trends in the equalization of wages between men and women are positive – a gradual equalization is taking place. What, however, we cannot regard as positive is the pace of equalization. The process is very slow and protracted. Another positive finding in terms of ICT professionals is the fact that the average amount of wage difference between men and women is approximately 17%, which is lower than in the entire Czech economy.

This article describes and discusses research into the perspectives for deploying the IoT (Internet of Things) within the Czech energy industry. Our conclusions are based on empirical research performed among 50 energy-industry experts in 2016 and 2017. This was two-stage research in which we held interviews with these experts in order to select the set of the most acceptable IoT technologies for deployment in the energy industry, and then used the TOPSIS method to select the most suitable technologies among them for deployment in the Czech environment. For use in determining the most suitable technologies, we also defined—with the help of the mentioned experts—individual selection parameters and weightings for them, enabling us to apply the TOPSIS method to the selected set of technologies. Our result was the selection of the SIGFOX IoT technology.