Biology of cryptogams (Practical lessons)

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Monika Balogová - Viktória Vargová - Kristián Gulyás - Natália Pipová - Dalibor Uhrovič -Marcel Uhrin

A peer-reviewed publication dealing with the biology and ecology of the European green toad, bringing new findings through scientific research on the roosting ecology, spatial activity and dispersal of this protected species in urban environments. The subject matter of this publication is highly topical, as amphibians represent the most threatened vertebrate group in the world. This work is suitable not only for university students interested in batrachology, amphibian ecology, and vertebrate zoology, but also for conservation workers, municipalities, and specialists directly involved in the reconstruction of urban areas with green toads. Last but not least, this publication is suitable for enthusiasts with an interest in nature and its conservation.

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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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Jozef Strečka- Katarína Karl’ová (eds.)

Zborník obsahuje program a abstrakty workshopu s názvom: 1st Workshop on Perspective Electron Spin Systems for Future Quantum Technologies, ktorý sa bude konať 28.-29. júna 2022 v Košiciach. Workshop je organizovaný Prírodovedeckou fakultou Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach a Ústavom experimentálnej fyziky Slovenskej akadémie vied v Košiciach s finančnou podporou Agentúry na podporu výskumu a vývoja. Ústrednými témami konferencie budú súčasné problémy kvantovej fyziky - kvantovej teórie magnetizmu spinových a elektrónových štruktúr, exotických kvantových spinových stavov, kvantového previazania, kvantových fázových prechodov, topologického kvantového počítania a kvantového spracovania informácie. Účastníci workshopu budú prezentovať originálne pôvodné výsledky svojho výskumu, ktoré môžu zásadným spôsobom ovplyvniť vývoj budúcich kvantových technológií.   

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E-publication

Beáta Valkay ed.
Ivana Slepáková-Lenka Maliničová a kol.

The publication EFFUSE – Educational Materials for the Public was developed within the EFFUSE project and focuses on current environmental issues of river landscapes. It emphasizes the importance of water as an irreplaceable resource and the need to protect it. Special attention is given to bioindicators – organisms whose presence or absence reflects the state of the environment. Monitoring bioindicators makes it possible to detect ecosystem changes before serious damage occurs. The publication highlights that biodiversity is essential for ecosystem stability and health. As such, it serves as a valuable educational resource for the public, raising environmental awareness and encouraging active involvement in nature conservation.

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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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Veronika Niščáková - Ivana Šišoláková (eds.)

Abstracts of the 5th Intemational Conference Nanomaterials: Fundamentals and Applications (NF A) 2021 is the contributions summary of the conference participants. The conference will feature four invited lectures and ten registered lectures. This conference is a tool for creating a dialogue between experts in the field of nanomaterials, their use and overall application in various fields.

Papers in the proceedings are thematically divided into 6 areas. All contributions are highly professional and interesting and can contribute to further creative scientific work.

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Daniel Klein

Statistics is defined as a scientific discipline based on learning from data and on finding, controlling, and presenting uncertainty. In these university textbooks we present the history of statistics, basic concepts of statistical modeling, measurement of dependencies, regression models, analysis of variance. We describe simple sorting, multiple comparisons, assumptions of the ANOVA model, Kruskal-Wallis test.

University textbooks are suitable for students of mathematics and computer science at the first and second level of universities. Study materials are also suitable for students of non-informatics disciplines with a view to improving their knowledge and practical experience in the fields of informatics and provide an opportunity for students to apply in IT companies in solving practical tasks.

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Tomáš Samuely

Today, scanning probe microscopes are standard tools in materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. Thousands of these microscopes are in operation worldwide and are at least as common and popular as scanning electron microscopes.

Despite the vast number of newer scanning probe microscopy techniques, classical STM remains a significant and irreplaceable method, widely used, for example, in solid-state research. In this text, we will focus on both traditional and innovative STM techniques that are available and utilized in the laboratories of the Center for Low Temperature Physics in Košice.

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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/

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Katarína Štrofeková

Cell Biophysics II is the one semester comprehensive course textbook for PhD students. It encompasses basic principles and mechanisms underlying cell physiology and biophysics with aims:

• General knowledge of the principles of cellular function, including membrane, cytoplasmic and nuclear roles in normal and abnormal conditions.
• In-depth understanding of the mechanisms underlying the cell functions at the molecular and subcellular level.
• Awareness of cell pathologies that lead to specific disease symptoms and phenotypes.
• The ability to apply learned principles to solve new problems (analysis & synthesis).

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Jana Špaková Raschmanová - Zuzana Kudličková - Kvetoslava Stanková

Organic chemistry plays a key role in our lives, from the pharmaceutical industry to the production of plastics and food additives. Additionally, it is essential in biochemistry, as it deals with the basic building blocks of living organisms, such as carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. One of the best ways to teach organic chemistry and increase students' interest in the subject is through conducting school experiments. This study material presents a collection of visually striking practical experiments in organic chemistry that will help students better understand the chemical processes and techniques used in the field. This electronic study material is supplemented with visual material, allowing students to verify the results of experiments and better understand the individual procedures. At the end of each section, there are questions to help assess the acquired knowledge and encourage deeper understanding of the experiments conducted.

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Vladimír Zeleňák(ed.)

The proceedings contain abstracts of contributions from participants of the Student Scientific Conference of the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, which took place on April 22, 2015.

The Student Scientific Conference (SSC) enjoys long-term popularity among the faculty's students and teachers, and we are pleased that this was no different this year, with 128 contributions submitted to the SSC.

The contributions were organized into 19 sections, additionally complemented by an open programming competition and the final of the IHRA contest. For many students, presenting at the SSC is one of the first opportunities to gain experience in presenting their results before a professional audience. Considering the number of submitted contributions, along with the members of the expert juries from the faculty's teaching staff and the audience who came to support their classmates' presentations, the SSC is an event where a large part of the student and academic community of the faculty meets at one place and time. Many abstracts presented in this proceedings were developed as part of students' work on partial tasks that are components of research projects at the departments of the Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University.

The abstracts represent, in a way, an overview of research topics at the individual workplaces of the faculty. The SSC proceedings thus serve as a useful tool that students and faculty teachers can use to present the faculty externally to partners, employers, and potential collaborators. Partners from practice have shown interest in cooperating in organizing the SSC for a long time. Since 2005, the association of IT companies has awarded a Prize for the Most Original Work and a Prize for the Work with the Best Prospects for Practical Application.

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Katarína Cechlárová (ed.)

In 2018, the Student Scientific Conference was held on April 18, 2018, in 16 sections covering biology and ecology, chemistry, physics, geography, mathematics, computer science, and their subject didactics. There were 110 registered contributions from bachelor's and master's students. Additionally, eight high school students participated outside of the competition; these students already visit our alma mater at a young age, work in our laboratories, and prepare for further studies under the guidance of our enthusiastic teachers. The day also included a programming competition and the IHRA competition in three categories, where students from PF UPJŠ competed alongside pupils from elementary and secondary schools.

The abstracts of the Student Scientific Conference contributions convincingly demonstrate that PF UPJŠ students study their field not only theoretically but also actively engage in solving partial scientific problems that are part of the research goals at PF UPJŠ institutes. This collection provides an overview of scientific activity at the faculty, which we believe will be interesting for the broader public as well.

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Michal Jaščur -Michal Hnatič

In the textbook, the processes belonging to an area of  nonequilibrium physics, which make the basis for the study and analysis of compex phenomena  of statistical mechanics, are described. The Boltzmann equation for distribution function is derived and on this basis the hydrodynamic equations are constructed.  Stochastic processes are described separately and Fokker-Planck equation for density probability  is derived. Textbook is intended for the students of second year of master study at Faculty of Science of P. J. Šafarik University.   

Autors

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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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Martin Bačkor - Silvia Mihaličová (eds.)

Proceedings of the 11th Conference of Doctoral Students in Experimental Plant Biology and the 13th Conference on Experimental Plant Biology, Košice, September 9–13, 2013

13th Conference of Experimental Plant Biology (Sections)

1. Cell Biology and Cytology: Michal Martinka
2. Developmental Biology and Morphogenesis: Alexander Lux
3. “Omics” – Genomics, Transcriptomics, and Proteomics: Boris Vyskot
4. Hormonal Regulation of Plant Growth and Development: Jana Albrechtová
5. Photosynthesis, Assimilate Production, and Transport: Jiří Šantrůček
6. GMOs and Plant Biotechnology: Eva Čellárová
7. Biophysical Signals and Optical Properties of Plants: Jan Nauš Stress
8. Physiology: Ľudmila Slováková
9. Plant Interactions with Organisms: Martin Bačkor
10. Water and Mineral Nutrition of Plants: Miroslav Repčák
11. Productive Biology of Plants and Agriculture: Václav Hejnák
12. Ecological Plant Biology and Global Climate Change: Michal Marek

11th Days of Doctoral Students in Experimental Plant Biology (Sections)

1. Molecular & Cell Genetics: Viktor Žárský
2. Developmental Biology: Alexander Lux
3. Biochemistry & Physiology: Jiří Šantrůček
4. Systematics & Evolution: Jana Albrechtová
5. Ecophysiology: Jana Albrechtová

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