Ecology of Soil Animals

E-book

Mária Ganajová - Jozef Hanč - Ivana Sotáková - Petra Letošníková (eds.)

The International Conference on Research in Didactics of the Science – DidSci+ 2022, continues in the educational legacy of the successful series of the previous DidSci conferences held from 2004 in Krakow, Prague, Brno, or Trnava. The DidSci+ conferences present a platform for enduring international cooperation, focusing on the frontiers and current challenges in science education research. This special edition of DidSci conferences, celebrating its 10th anniversary, was held in Košice, at the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, from June 26 to 29, 2022. The careful double-blind review process has led to two major publications offering a comprehensive look at the latest advances in STEM and science subjects education. The first volume of selected papers is published as the IOP Conference Series proceedings, Vol. 3037 with open access at https://iopscience.iop.org/issue/1742-6596/3037/1, and is primarily devoted to STEM education, assessment, evaluation, feedback strategies, and teacher development. The second volume of selected papers, published by ŠafárikPress, focuses more on curriculum development, educational innovation, and digital technologies, primarily in chemistry and biology. Both publications are intended for a wide audience, including in-service and pre-service teachers of science subjects, university students in scientific disciplines, researchers in science education, professionals in pedagogical and methodological centers, curriculum developers, and textbook authors.

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E-book

Miroslav Repčák - Martin Bačkor - Peter Paľove-Balang - Silvia Gajdošová

The establishment of the Plant Physiology Laboratory at the Department of Botany, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in 1969 was associated with the name of Ing. Štefan Kocúrik, CSc. (1923–2006), who also prepared the first "Instructions for Exercises in Plant Physiology" (Košice 1972, 1976).

Since 1980, the manual by Associate Professor RNDr. Karol Erdelský, CSc., and Ing. Fridrich Frič, DrSc., titled "Practicum and Analytical Methods in Plant Physiology" (Bratislava 1980) has been used. With the increase in the number of students, it became relevant in 1991 to publish the "Instructions for Exercises in Plant Physiology" again to improve preparation and the efficient organization of practical work. Associate Professor RNDr. A. Košturiak, CSc., contributed significantly to the expansion of the introductory part of the instructions with his valuable advice, for which the authors are grateful. For the fourth edition, some tasks were updated and modernized, taking into account the possibilities of the renovated laboratory. The selection of tasks was adapted to the current scope of exercises for individual plant physiology subjects within the bachelor's and master's study programs in biology and ecology. These subjects include: Plant Physiology, Plant Metabolism, Mineral Nutrition of Plants, Plant Growth and Development, and Plant Ecology. Some tasks are also suitable for high school experiments.

The choice of topics was influenced by the research focus of our workplace on secondary metabolism, ecophysiology, and medicinal plants. The instructions generally adhere to the SI unit system, occasionally including other commonly used units.

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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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E-book

Božena Mihalíková - Ján Ohriska

This text is intended for first-year students in 76-12-8 ‘General Education Teaching’ in combinations with mathematics. It is based on the authors' lectures and their more than ten years of experience in teaching this subject at the Faculty of Education of the University of Applied Sciences. When writing it, the authors tried to take into account the specificity of mathematics teaching studies.

The present teaching text was not written due to the lack of textbooks on mathematical analysis. The reason for writing it was the authors' findings that the students do not have sufficient experience in working with specialized literature from secondary school, the difficulties for many of them (especially in the first semesters) are caused by even a slightly different interpretation, not rarely also by a change in labeling, which makes them miss the essence of the studied problem. The authors of the text did not set out to be original. Their aim was to make such a selection of topics as is necessary for a future teacher of mathematics and to choose such a method of interpretation which, in their opinion, is suitable for first-year students.

A good mastery of the curriculum (expansion of the mathematical apparatus and the related possibilities of applying other methods of proof as well as the acquisition of the necessary numerical skills) presupposes the use of other literary sources (textbooks, collections of problems) according to the teacher's recommendation.

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Danica Studenovská a kol. 

Táto zbierka úloh je určená poslucháčom Prírodovedeckej fakulty UPJŠ, ktorí sa v rámci predmetu Matematika I. zoznamujú s pojmami funkcie, limity, derivácie, integrálu a ich aplikáciami. Ide najmä o študentov nematematických odborov a učiteľských kombinácií, avšak táto zbierka je vhodná aj pre iných študentov a záujemcov o základy matematickej analýzy.

Autori

E-book

Mária Ganajová

The current teaching of chemistry has its specific problems. On one hand, due to the shift of the focus of chemistry curriculum towards theoretical content, the difficulty of chemistry material has increased, and in connection with this, students' interest in chemistry has decreased.

The lack of student interest in chemistry is mostly supported by the opinion that it is precisely chemistry that significantly contributes to the deterioration of environmental quality. On the other hand, we live in an era where we encounter chemical products practically everywhere. It is necessary to learn the basics of chemistry as well as possible, which makes the question of increasing interest in chemistry education and improving its effectiveness very relevant. State educational programs have been introduced into Slovak schools as a foundation for the creation of school educational programs. These emphasize not only acquiring a certain amount of knowledge but also the development and enhancement of key and specific competencies of students, preparing them for lifelong learning and their application in life.

Therefore, increasing attention is being paid to one of the fundamental didactic tools for raising student activity in teaching, and thus improving the effectiveness of chemistry education – learning tasks. From both theory and practice of chemistry teaching, we know that learning tasks, questions, examples, exercises, etc., are among the important components of every teaching lesson. Learning tasks are applied in all phases of teaching – in the motivational phase, the phase of acquiring knowledge, the phase of consolidating knowledge, and the phase of checking the acquired knowledge. It is therefore clear that every teacher will sooner or later find themselves in a situation where they will have to select learning tasks from textbooks, workbooks, collections of problems and examples, or create them themselves.

This scientific monograph is intended for educational specialists and chemistry teachers, aiming to familiarize them with examples of various types and forms of learning tasks and the basics of their creation in chemistry. It can also be helpful for them in preparing certification works focused on test creation and their statistical evaluation.

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Tatiana Kimáková

Táto vedecká monografia je komplexnou vedeckou prácou zameranou na prítomnosť a pôsobenie ortuti v životnom prostredí, ale aj na rizikové faktory zdravia, ktoré sú s ňou spojené. Monografia predstavuje charakteristiku ortuti v multidisciplinárnom zábere, prezentuje využitie v priemysle a v zdravotníctve, popisuje negatívne vplyvy ortuti v životnom prostredí, na zdravotný stav obyvateľstva. Zároveň prináša návrhy a odporúčania pre rizikové skupiny ľudí. Súčasťou monografie je komplexný výskum koncentrácie ortuti vo vzorkách komodít domácej i zahraničnej produkcie a vo vzorkách rastlín pomocou atómového absorpčného spektrometra AMA 254. Vedecká monografia je vhodná pre vedeckú komunitu, študentov medicínskych, veterinárnych, prírodovedných a poľnohospodárskych odborov ako aj pre študentov verejného zdravotníctva všetkých troch stupňov vysokoškolského štúdia. Monografia je učená aj pre všetkých záujemcov z radov informovanej verejnosti.

Autorka

E-book

Dušan Barabas a kol.

The presented text is the final product of work within the project "Tanuljunk egymástól!/Let’s Learn from Each Other!" The project emerged from long-standing contacts between the staff of the Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geography at the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, as a natural effort to expand mutual cooperation. The first step was collaboration within Interreg II projects, involving a broad range of institutions from both academic and non-academic environments. This initial attempt was unsuccessful due to administrative errors. Consequently, a project titled HUSK/0801/1.6.1/0003 "Tanuljunk egymástól!/Let’s Learn from Each Other!" was prepared and developed in agreement with the Hungarian side. It was approved and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund under the Hungary-Slovakia Cross-Border Cooperation Program 2007–2013.

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E-book

Ondrej Krídlo - Gabriel Semanišin

For computer scientists, the constant challenge is to seek efficient algorithms and various technical and implementation possibilities to improve the computational complexity of currently known algorithms. Partial solutions are offered by approaches such as grid-based methods and parallelization of computation. Quantum computers represent a significant but still unfulfilled promise. From a theoretical perspective, probabilistic and approximation approaches provide very effective solutions, and these are the methods we aim to explore in detail.

These electronic university textbooks serve as supplementary materials for the course Approximation and Probabilistic Algorithms. They were developed from the authors' materials and contributions by Prof. RNDr. Viliam Geffert, DrSc., whom the authors thank for providing the manuscript. Acknowledgments also extend to RNDr. Ján Katrenič, PhD., who prepared the first set of exercises for the course, and Žaneta Semanišinová, who reviewed large portions of the text and contributed suggestions for its improvement.

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Norbert Kopčo - Frederick Gallun - Beáta Tomoriová - Ľuboš Hládek(eds.)

Cognitive neuroscience is a fast developing scientific field which aims at uncovering the neural basis of human perception and cognition. To achieve this goal, cognitive neuroscience uses a variety of tools and approaches ranging from non-invasive brain imaging to psychophysics and neural modeling. Mastering such tools requires skills and knowledge from multiple scientific domains, including neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, and several computational fields.

Access on request via email: kogneuro (@) gmail.com

http://pcl.upjs.sk/workshopcd 

https://sites.google.com/site/kogneuro/

E-book

Miroslava Matiková Maľarová

The university textbook entitled: Host-guest and supramolecular chemistry provides basic information about this scientific field as well as the types of compounds that belong to it. It provides basic characteristics of non-bonded interactions as well as methods of characterization and classification for these compounds. It summarizes knowledge about various types of host-guest systems from the oldest such as Hofmann clathrates to inclusive compounds such as cyclodextrins and calixarenes. In addition to structural and synthetic information, which is supplemented with images, the textbook also addresses the possibilities of application or practical use of compounds. The conclusion of each chapter is supplemented with tasks for elaboration on a given topic.

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E-book

Mariana Budovská

The aim of writing the university textbook "Selected Heterocyclic Compounds" was to create a study aid for students of the Organic Chemistry program, which provides essential information in a clear format for the subject of Heterocyclic Compounds. In selecting the content of the textbook, the goal was to present basic information about the chemistry of the most significant heterocycles. Given that the summary of chemical knowledge about heterocycles is vast, it was not possible to include all heterocyclic compounds in the content.

The intention was for readers to orient themselves in the field of heterocyclic compounds. Separate chapters included in the content address the nomenclature of heterocycles, basic chemical properties of individual heterocycles, their synthesis and reactions, the occurrence of heterocycles in nature, and their practical applications (medications, dyes, pesticides, detergents, etc.).

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E-book

Michal Jaščur - Michal Hnatič

This textbook covers the fundamentals of phenomenological thermodynamics to the extent typically taught in standard theoretical physics courses at the undergraduate level in the Physics degree program. A slightly reduced scope is also taught in all interdisciplinary study programs combined with physics. In recent years, the time allocation for individual courses has been slightly reduced, which is reflected in our selection and coverage of topics.

Our primary aim was to provide a sufficiently solid explanation of the key concepts and laws of thermodynamics necessary for mastering further theoretical physics courses at the master's level (e.g., Statistical Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Quantum Theory of Solids, Quantum Theory of Magnetism, etc.). The book also presents the essential minimum knowledge required for the study of further applications of thermodynamics in biophysics, biology, chemistry, and engineering disciplines.

Understanding individual sections, as well as the text as a whole, requires a grasp of the basic concepts of thermodynamics at the level of a General Physics course and knowledge equivalent to a standard university mathematics course. Each topic is treated with the utmost emphasis on conceptual clarity and mathematical rigor.

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E-book

Janka Vrláková - Adela Kravčáková - Stanislav Vokál

The presented "Collection of Problems in Atomic and Nuclear Physics" is intended as a basic study material for lectures in General Physics IV in the second year of the bachelor's single-subject physics program and interdisciplinary studies combined with physics at the Faculty of Science of P. J. Šafárik University in Košice.

Its aim is to support independent student work and to deepen the acquired knowledge from the given physics course by solving selected problems. It is divided into three main parts: Atomic Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Experimental Methods of Nuclear Physics.

Each thematic chapter contains an overview of basic concepts, relations, and formulas necessary for better understanding of sample problems and for solving the attached set of unsolved problems.

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E-book

Mária Kožurková

These university textbooks are intended for first-year master's degree students at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of UPJŠ in Košice. The scope and content of the works included in these scripts are primarily based on time and spatial constraints, taking into account the material demands of the tasks.

The aim of these scripts is to teach students basic microbiological techniques and to show them the importance of microorganisms in everyday life and their crucial role in nature. The exercises are designed to enhance students' technical skills and teach them to work according to safety principles.

The text is divided into 13 parts. Each part begins with an introduction to the theory related to the practice topic. The appendix includes a proposal for the preparation of protocols for individual exercises.

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E-book

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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