NOVEL TRENDS IN CHEMISTRY, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION at the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice 2023

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Zuzana Orságová Králová (ed.)

The scientific book of abstracts is a summary of the contributions of teachers, scientists and other conference participants, which contain the original results of their scientific and research activities. Their work will be the subject of the next domestic conference „New Trends in Chemistry, Research and Education at Faculty of Science of P. J. Šafárik University in Košice 2020“. The conference is a space for dialogue between scientific academics on the one hand and professional staff and students on the other.

The contributions published in this volume can be divided according to content into the field of analytical, inorganic, physical, organic chemistry, biochemistry and didactics of chemistry. All contributions are interesting and can be used in further creative scientific and research work, in the process of education and in practical work.

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Jozef Kováčik

These "Exercise Manuals" present a concise overview of commonly used methodologies as well as progressive techniques, such as the use of liquid chromatography and fluorescence microscopy. Individual tasks were selected based on the research focus of the Department of Botany at the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, particularly in the context of "stress physiology."

Some tasks can also be utilized within the subject "Plant Ecology." Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) is typically used as a model plant for individual tasks due to its long-standing history of research at the Department of Botany and its ease of cultivation under laboratory conditions. The chapters also briefly discuss the significance of monitored parameters, principles of their determination, and metabolism (formation or degradation), aiming to indicate their mutual context.

This approach highlights that determining an individual parameter cannot provide a general explanation for the overall causes and impacts of observed changes; however, it can serve as a basis for testing hypotheses at the level of other parameters.

For deeper study of specific issues, there is an abundance of high-quality international monographs and review articles available.

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Daniela Kladeková

Working with this study text requires adequate knowledge of physical chemistry, physics, and biology, as navigating the presented material becomes challenging without this foundation. A solid grasp of mathematics is essential and aids in understanding colloidal chemistry problems. The textbook, structured into individual chapters, first addresses optical and molecular-kinetic properties after classifying and characterizing disperse systems.

This university-level textbook is primarily intended for students in chemical and ecological disciplines at the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. It does not aim to exhaustively cover every detail of the subject, as comprehensive treatments are already available in specialized monographs on colloid and macromolecular chemistry, as well as in foundational physical chemistry textbooks.

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Karel Saksl

Solving crystal structures is the royal discipline of X-ray crystallography. Its primary task, with the exception of defects, is to describe the atomic structure of the motif that, by its repetition, fills the volume of the entire crystal or crystalline phase. This task is nowadays more or less routine for single-crystal X-ray diffraction, which can locate hundreds to thousands of non-hydrogen atoms in large unit cells. However, in real practice, we often have material available only in powder form instead of single crystals. Solving the atomic structure from its X-ray diffraction data is non-trivial, mainly because the three-dimensional diffraction space of a single crystal is reduced to one dimension by measuring a large number of randomly oriented microcrystals (crystallites). Therefore, the solution itself requires, in addition to proper measurement methodology, the selection of suitable tools, procedures, and strategies that, through optimization, will lead to the solution and refinement of the given crystalline phase. The current limit of this method is approximately 100 non-hydrogen atoms in the asymmetric part of the unit cell, which, however, is sufficient for most inorganic materials.

The goal of these educational texts is to provide students in the second and third levels of university studies with specific guidance on solving crystal structures from powder X-ray diffraction data. These scripts build upon my first monograph and require practical knowledge of its content. Similar to my previous monograph, I offer solved examples without a deep theoretical introduction, demonstrating procedures and strategies leading to the correct solution of crystalline phases using the freely available GSAS-II program. The examples are arranged from simpler to more complex, and the reader will find many useful pieces of information in the literature references as well as in the comments below the line. Part of these scripts are data intended for your individual practice of the described procedures. 

Karel Sakls

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Rastislav Varga

The movement of domain walls in ferromagnetic materials is utilized in various magnetic devices for storing, processing, or transmitting signals and information. This mainly includes transformer cores, various sensors, memory devices (e.g., HDDs in PCs), as well as modern spintronic devices such as Racetrack memories, domain wall motion-based electronics, and so on.

This book is intended to serve as a textbook for advanced courses in the field of magnetic materials. It is primarily aimed at students interested in studying magnetic materials, as well as professionals from various fields who wish to understand the basics of domain structure and its changes. It is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter deals with a brief history of the study of domain structure in magnetic materials. The second chapter provides an introduction to the causes and manifestations of magnetic anisotropies. The third and fourth chapters are devoted to the causes of domain structure formation and domain walls. The fifth chapter discusses the structure of domain walls, their potential, and the critical field required for domain wall movement. The sixth chapter is dedicated to magnetization processes, one of which - domain wall movement - is discussed in detail in chapter 7. The eighth chapter contains a theoretical solution for domain wall movement. The final ninth chapter presents a modern method of domain wall movement induced by electric current.

The presented work assumes that the reader has at least basic knowledge in the field of magnetism. Otherwise, the author refers the reader to basic literature (e.g., [2.1 - 2.6]).

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Adriana Zeleňáková

One of the fundamental characteristics of the magnetic state of ferromagnetic materials is the existence of a domain structure. The university textbook "MAGNETIC DOMAINS: SPECIAL PHYSICAL PRACTICE 1" is intended primarily for students of the Master's programme in Physics of Condensed Matter FKLm and for the PhD programme in Progressive Materials PMd within the profile subject Special Practice 1 at the Institute of Physical Sciences of the Faculty of Sciences of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.  The textbook is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the basics of domain theory, including the history of domain observation and the specification of different types of energies in ferromagnetic body. The second chapter presents the relationship between domain structure and magnetisation processes in ferromagnetic materials The third chapter describes the different types of domain-wall interactions with the defect. The fourth chapter illustrates examples of domain structure in selected ferromagnetic body such as grain oriented and non-grain oriented electrical steels, amorphous and nanocrystalline ribbons. The fifth chapter summarises an overview of the different experimental methods used to visualise the domain structure and their advantages or disadvantages with respect to the structure of ferromagnetic materials. The last two chapters, the sixth and the seventh, are devoted to specific experimental tasks for observing the domain structure of a selected polycrystalline sample using the optical microscope Bitter powder method and the MFM (magnetic force microscopy) method. During the preparation of this undergraduate text, its individual parts were developed using the foreign language literature listed in the recommended references.

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Vladimír Zeleňák (ed.)

Proceedings of Abstracts of the Student Scientific Conference of the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

A characteristic feature of education at high-quality universities — among which the Faculty of Science at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (UPJŠ) in Košice proudly belongs — is the close connection between education and scientific research. Students gain knowledge in their field of study not only through theoretical coursework in individual disciplines, but also through active involvement in solving specific scientific tasks as part of research teams. This can occur during the development of final theses or through participation in the Student Research Assistant Program (ŠPVS), which was revitalized at the faculty in 2015.

The Student Scientific Conference (ŠVK) is one of the faculty’s traditional events, organized during the Faculty’s Science Days as part of Sciencefest. By its very nature, it fits seamlessly into the aforementioned framework of combining education with research, and it has long enjoyed great popularity and student interest. In 2016, the conference featured presentations by 125 students of the Faculty of Science at UPJŠ in Košice, across 16 thematic sections. This collection of abstracts provides an overview of the focus and goals of the student projects. We believe it will serve as inspiration for other potential participants of future conferences and will also be of interest to the broader public, offering additional insight into the faculty's activities.

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Martin Bačkor - Miriam Bačkorová

The proposed text focuses on the history of studying biology, medicine, and pharmacy as scientific disciplines from prehistoric times through antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern era. The text chronologically organizes the most significant figures in the history of biological scientific disciplines, outlines key characteristics of major historical discoveries, and reevaluates their significance from the perspective of 21st-century science.

The educational text is chronologically divided into the most significant periods of civilization development. The last two completed centuries—the 19th and 20th—are subdivided into major life science fields due to the unprecedented growth of biological disciplines and the resulting volume of acquired information.

Since it can sometimes be challenging in science to define what constitutes the past versus the present of a particular discipline, we have excluded significant biological discoveries from the early 21st century, which are typically regarded as the “present” of biology.

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Jana Šandrejová - Andrea Gajdošová (eds.)

The scientific book of abstracts from the conference „Novel Trends in Chemistry, Research and Education 2024“ is a summary of the contributions of conference participants, which contain the original results of their scientific and research activities. The contributions published in this volume are divided according to content into the fields of analytical, inorganic, organic, physical chemistry, biochemistry and didactics of chemistry.

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E-publication
Beáta Valkay ed.
Ivana Slepáková-Andrej Mock a kol.

The textbook EFFUSE – River Landscape, Volume 1: Scientific Education for Everybody, developed within the EFFUSE project, explores the importance of water for living organisms and the specific features of water in the Transcarpathian region. It addresses the issue of water pollution and presents bioindication as an effective method of environmental research. The publication explains how the ecological status of rivers and water quality can be assessed using aquatic plants, insects, fish, and amphibians. It also raises awareness about the microbial composition of water and offers guidance on protecting oneself from waterborne infections. Finally, it highlights the significance of environmental education and awareness in strengthening the relationship between humans and the natural environment.

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Michal Goga-Marko S. Sabovljević-Martin Bačkor-Dajana Kecsey-Deepti Routray

A comprehensive guide that introduces you to the fascinating diversity and systematics of lower plants. These practical lessons are designed to provide hands-on training, allowing students to engage directly with the interesting study of Cryptogams by observation, analysis, and identification and experimentation. Beginning with the overall idea of cryptogam in a field trip near by the vicinity of Botanical garden then followed by the basics of microscopy in, will help to gain essential skills in understanding the components and proper usage of a microscope, a fundamental tool in botanical studies.

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Gregor Bánó

Photonics is an application-oriented discipline at the interface of optics, opto-electronics and quantum optics. It includes classical optics extended by the description of physical phenomena and optical devices that rely on quantum (photon) nature of light.
The main objective of the Photonics course is to provide a comprehensive overview of essential optical and photonic phenomena routinely applied in experimental scientific research while working with various light sources (e.g. in the field of biophotonics). The first chapters are devoted to the description of light at different levels. The logical order of subsections in this part corresponds to the structure of the textbook: B. E. A. Saleh, M. C. Teich, Fundamentals of Photonics. The following chapters contain a description of laser operation and an overview of selected optical instruments and their applications.
The body text is complemented by practical notes on the use of theoretical knowledge during daily work in the laboratory. The course of Photonics requires a basic knowledge of mathematics, electromagnetism and optics, and thus it is recommended to students who previously passed through the courses of the Bachelor's program in Physics.

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Beáta Valkayed.
Ivana Slepáková-Lenka Maliničová a kol.

The EFFUSE Teacher's Guide is a practical educational material for primary and secondary school teachers who want to develop environmental awareness with their pupils through field-based learning. It is based on the concept of the EFFUSE project (‘Environment for the future by science education’), which aims to link science, research and education with environmental protection. The manual provides teachers with methodological support for planning and implementing outdoor activities aimed at observing and documenting organisms around the Laborec River and the Uh River. It contains instructions for working with real samples, basic biomonitoring procedures and offers the opportunity to participate in the creation of a virtual laboratory that mirrors the state of the local aquatic ecosystem. Through these activities, pupils will learn to understand the links between human activity and the state of the environment, while learning the basics of how scientists work in the fields of biology and ecology. The guide also motivates teachers to become agents of positive change, inspire the younger generation to be active and engage the community in conservation. It is a challenge and an opportunity to create a space for meaningful learning in line with current trends in environmental and digital education.

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Janka Vrláková - Stanislav Vokál

Atomic and nuclear physics are relatively young scientific disciplines forming the final part of the general physics course at the Faculty of Physics of the Jagiellonian University. Their aim is to explain the nature of the basic physical properties of atoms, atomic nucleus and elementary particles.

This is also the content of the lectures and exercises ‘General Physics IV’ in the 2nd year of the Bachelor's degree in Physics at the Faculty of Natural Sciences (PF) of the P.J. Šafárik University (UPJŠ) in Košice. They are followed by optional lectures ‘Nuclear Radiation in the Environment’, ‘Introduction to the Physics of the Microworld’ in the 3rd year of the Bachelor's degree of single-discipline study of physics, or teacher study of physics in combination with another subject, and ‘Subnuclear Physics’ in the 1st year of the Master's degree of teacher study of physics in combination with another subject.

In the aforementioned lectures, the latest experimental findings on the structure and behaviour of the microworld are presented by means of physical theories and their subsequent experimental verification in experiments.

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Juraj Ševc - Anna Alexovič Matiašová

Among students of single-discipline and interdisciplinary biology studies at faculties with a natural science focus, there often arises a problem in defining the scope of the curriculum when studying the subject of Human Anatomy. The presented study material aims to help students of non-medical scientific fields navigate the extensive anatomical terminology and to limit the amount of required anatomical terms to an optimum, so that alongside mastering Latin nomenclature, students still have sufficient capacity to memorize additional knowledge in the areas of systemic, comparative, developmental, and functional anatomy.

Emphasis on organizing individual anatomical terms into logical units simultaneously supports a hierarchical view of the architecture of the human body. Despite its seemingly self-serving nature, anatomical terminology thus becomes the framework upon which students build knowledge from more or less related scientific disciplines studying the human body and the processes occurring within it throughout their further studies. At the same time, alongside this ambition that goes beyond the scope of the anatomy discipline, the Anatomical Terms follow a long tradition of anatomical handbooks while respecting the valid Latin and Slovak anatomical nomenclature.

This script represents a practical supplement to university textbooks of Anatomy or Neuroanatomy and especially to anatomical atlases, but it certainly does not aim to replace them. Here you will find all the necessary terms gathered in one place, which you can always have at hand on your phone, e-reader, or laptop. The emphasis on organizing individual anatomical terms into logical units supports a hierarchical view of the architecture of the human body, and the inclusion of a brief introduction to each system is intended to encourage you to seek further, more detailed information about the structure and function of the given organ system.

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Lucia Andrezálová, Zdeňka Ďuračková,Mária Chomová,Vladimír Jakuš, Miriam Ježovičová, Jana Muchová, Zuzana Országhová,Ingrid Žitňanová

Chemistry and biochemistry at medical faculties are integral parts of basic theoretic knowledge of contemporary graduate. Educational book “Textbook of Medical Chemistry” is destined to students of study branches General Medicine and Dentistry for the course “Medical Chemistry”.

It is structured into 13 chapters concerning several topics: general and physical chemistry, organic chemistry, chemistry of natural substances (static biochemistry), enzymology and oxidative stress.

Individual chapters provide comprehensible explanation of the fundamentals of physico-chemical, chemical and biochemical relationships applying in living systems as well as the knowledge of the structure of biologically important molecules (simple molecules and macromolecules) related to their properties and biological function.

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