Študentská vedecká konferencia PF UPJŠ 2018

E-book

Milan Žukovič

This textbook is intended for master's degree students and is a follow-up to the Computational Physics I course studied at the bachelor's level. The content of the textbook Computational Physics II focuses on stochastic methods of solving physical problems, mainly on Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of many-particle systems.

The focus on this computationally intensive approach is motivated by the gradual increase in the computing capacities of ordinary computers as well as the introduction of high-performance computing clusters. This has led to significant progress in the development of new simulation techniques, thanks to which MC simulations have found application in various areas of research and application practice. Considering the main research focus of the department, this text is particularly devoted to the presentation of basic and more advanced MC simulation techniques applied to a simple Ising spin model in order to investigate its magnetic, thermodynamic and critical properties.

The next part is devoted to MC simulations of random processes. It focuses on the simplest but also the most basic random walk process and demonstrates its applications in financial analysis and the solution of a quantum system described by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The last part is dedicated to the basics of molecular dynamics, applied to simulating the classical movement of atoms in a given force field. By mastering the problems addressed in this course, students will obtain a potential tool for working out of their diploma theses, or a methodology useful for their further scientific and research practice in the field of investigating of complex systems.

The lectured topic is subsequently exercised in the form of preparing projects implemented in the freely distributable software Octave, which is easy on the user's programming skills and which students have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with in the previous study.

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E-book

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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E-book

Daniela Kladeková

This university text is intended for students of chemical and ecological sciences at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the P. J. Šafárik University in Košice and is intended to serve as a tool for experimental exercises in colloid chemistry. Colloid chemistry is an important part of the theoretical basis of the chemical sciences and belongs to the newer interdisciplinary fields of natural sciences.

It combines knowledge from physical chemistry, physics and biology, while also drawing on a solid knowledge of mathematics and other scientific disciplines. Experiments are often essential in understanding the problems of colloid chemistry, modelling ideas about the phenomena and laws involved in the discipline. This is why active participation in experimental exercises is so important and essential to mastering the material in colloid chemistry.

In selecting the tasks for these scripts, it was also necessary to respect the considerable limitations imposed by the possibilities of the laboratory instrumentation and material equipment of our department. Despite this limitation, however, they can illustrate to students the basic theoretical physicochemical principles of colloid dispersion systems and, importantly, their understanding can contribute to the understanding of some of the more important peculiarities of colloidal phenomena.

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Ľubomír Kováč

Učebný text „Zoogeografia“ objasňuje základné princípy a historický vývoj rozšírenia živočíchov na Zemi, a ďalej analyzuje faktory, ktoré ho ovplyvňujú. Vďaka moderným vedeckým metódam a technikám výskumu je zoogeografia veľmi dynamicky sa rozvíjajúcou disciplínou. Z geologických etáp je podrobnejšie spracovaná problematika paleoklimatických cyklov kvartéru, holocénu a vývoja postglaciálnej klímy, ktoré zohrali významnú úlohu pri dynamike vývoja živočíšnych areálov. Areálová analýza charakterizuje a triedi areály živočíchov a ich dynamiku v nadväznosti na speciáciu. Podrobne je spracovaná problematika zoogeografických oblastí s dôrazom na palearktickú oblasť. Časť zameraná na dynamickú zoogeografiu rieši najmä problematiku refúgií a reliktov v súvislosti s vývojom pleistocénnej paleoklímy. Text stručnou formou sumarizuje základné antropogénne faktory, ktoré v recentnej dobe drastickým spôsobom limitujú rozšírenie živočíchov v rýchlo ubúdajúcom prírodnom prostredí na Zemi. Text ďalej prehľadným spôsobom charakterizuje biogeografiu Karpát a faunu územia Slovenska. Záverečná časť prezentuje fylogeografiu ako modernú vednú disciplínu zameranú na rekonštrukciu migračných ciest v postglaciáli, ktorá je podložená analýzou molekulárnych markerov populácií živočíchov v širšom geografickom kontexte. 

Autor

Igor Hudec - Ľubomír Kováč 

The study course provides the basic knowledge on the fundamental parameters, relationships and processes in ecological sciences. Brief content: ecological factors and relations to environment (air, water, soil); influence of ecological factors upon organisms (morphological adaptations, behavioural responses); populations and communities (external and internal parameters of populations, population dynamics); ecosystems (impact assessment) and biomes (basic features and human impact); cycles (hydrologic, gaseous, sedimentation) of basic elements on Earth.  

Authors

E-book

Pavol Mártonfi

The university textbook deals with the latest knowledge from the systematics of vascular plants in a clear manner. Vascular plants arose in the Silurian period in the Paleozoic, when the first primitive plants moved from water to dry land, which required evolutionary progress in the morphological and anatomical structure of these plants. During about 420 million years of the existence of vascular plants, several of their main groups have evolved: the spore vascular plants, including the lycopods (branch Lycopodiophyta) and group of ferns and related plants (branch Monilophyta), and the seed plants, including gymnosperms (branch Gymnospermae) and angiosperms ( Angiospermae), which currently dominate among plants. The textbook provides a brief but comprehensive overview of the main groups, orders and families of plants with their description, distribution, main representatives, while also addressing the useful properties of selected species. The work is complemented by an overview of the system of plants by Cronquist, Tachtadžjan, APG and an overview of the families of the Slovak flora, as well as a taxonomic index.

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E-book

Ľubomír Šnajder - Ján Guniš

The publication lists interim results of qualitative educational research focused on the development and evaluation of programming tasks being carried out by authors since 2005 in the frame of programming competition PALMA junior.

The publication consists of three chapters: Computer science competitions in Slovakia, Tasks in computer science education, Selected problems of PALMA junior competition. The first chapter provides an overview of computer science competitions for a primary and secondary schools in Slovakia. The second chapter described the issue of learning tasks - their components, focus, formulation types, and development system of tasks. The third chapter contains the assignments and commented author solutions of selected problems represented focus of PALMA junior competition – programming, algorithms and mathematics.

For each problem is mentioned analysis of pupils’ solutions aimed to ways of thinking, typical misconceptions, sets of preparatory and extended problems. The publication is addressed to computer science teacher trainers, authors of programming competitions problems, and computer science teachers.  

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E-book

Vladimír Zeleňák (ed.)

The proceedings contain contributions from participants of the Student Scientific Conference of the Faculty of Science at UPJŠ in Košice, which took place on April 24, 2014.

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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-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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E-book

Erik Čižmár

Textbook Automation of Laboratory Experiments in LabVIEW environment is devoted to the basics of graphical programming and shows the way how to communicate with measuring equipment and Arduino development boards in LabVIEW. The basic concepts of creating a virtual instrument and its interactive user environment are introduced. Three physical tasks are presented, the practical implementation of which takes place with the use appropriate instrumentation and LabVIEW. Practical tasks are dedicated to measuring the transmission characteristics of a low-pass RC filter, measuring the natural resonant frequency of a quartz tuning fork using the heterodyne pulse method, and mapping the magnetic field of a permanent magnet using Arduino.

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E-publication

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

The publication EFFUSE – River Landscape, Volume 2: Guidelines for Experts, developed within the EFFUSE project, is intended for professionals in the field of environmental sciences. It provides recommendations for research in river landscapes and highlights their importance for understanding ecological processes. The text presents bioindicators as a key tool for assessing landscape health and biodiversity conservation. A dedicated section explains why studying river landscapes as natural laboratories is essential. The publication also includes a practical manual for the Olympus DSX-1000 High End Model microscope, expanding opportunities in scientific education and research. In this way, it combines theoretical guidelines with modern technologies that enhance environmental knowledge.

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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

Michal Hnatič - Tomáš Lučivjanský

This textbook is primarily intended for first-year master's degree students at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, especially those in the nuclear physics, subnuclear physics, and theoretical physics programs. For many years, these lectures were taught by one of the authors at this university, and naturally, over time, there arose an effort to provide these lectures to students in printed form.

In this textbook, we will focus mainly on classical field theory, its quantization based on the operator approach, and the introduction of interactions. Descriptions based on functional integration, Feynman diagram techniques, and more advanced parts will be covered in a subsequent volume of the textbook. In this context, we want to emphasize that in many modern quantum field theory textbooks, the operator approach is used to a lesser extent and is replaced by the approach using (functional) path integrals.

This is probably due to time considerations, as the functional approach leads much faster to practical calculations. On the other hand, we believe that the operator approach is better from a pedagogical point of view. It is much closer to the traditional quantum mechanics course, which is often based on the Schrödinger or Heisenberg formalism. Therefore, students can much more easily follow the flow of ideas that led to the construction of quantum field theory and its fundamental concepts.

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 Matúš Harminc 

Tento učebný text je určený poslucháčom medziodborového štúdia v kombináciách s matematikou, jednoodborového štúdia matematiky ako aj rozširujúceho štúdia matematiky. Je za-meraný na kvadratické kongruencie a niektoré diofantovské rovnice.

Autor

E-book

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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