Course description

Physics is related to medical and, of course, veterinary science and practice in at least three aspects. Sufficient knowledge of certain areas of it helps to understand a number of basic physiological processes. Most traditional and modern diagnostic procedures and tools are based on targeted physical considerations. But there are more and more healing procedures that can be considered specifically physical ones. The subject with the comprehensive title of Biophysics provides concise knowledge of selected areas of physics that are directly related to medical and veterinary practice.

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Lectures theme

1.		Measurements, physical quatities, units, errors of a measurement, error propagation. Macro-transport processes: flow of fluids I. ideal fluids
2.		Flow of fluids II. viscous fluids, viscous drag force, flow in the circulatory system
3.		Micro-transport processes Diffusion, osmosis, transport across membranes, facilitated diffusion, active transport
4.		Sedimentation, ultracentrifugation. Physics and applications of light (electromagnetic waves): geometric optics, light reflection, light refraction, total reflection
5.		Refraction in planparallel slab, refraction on prism, dispersion of light, optical image formation, plane mirror, optical lenses, the ray tracing technique, thin lens equation, thick lenses
6.		The human eye, visual acuity, colour perception, optical defects in vision, the simple magnifier, the compound microscope, wave (or physical) optics, principle of superposition, interference
7.		Huygens-Fresnel principle, light diffraction, resolving power of optical devices, the Abbe criterion, special microscopes
8.		Matter waves, transmission and scanning electron microscopes, the photoelectric effect, light – matter interaction, scattering, absorption, light attenuation in matter
9.		Principle and properties of lasers. Production, properties and effects of X-rays, the X-ray spectra, attenuation of X-rays in matter
10.		Electric properties of living substances: passive and  active properties, the formation and properties of the  resting membrane potential, Nernst equations, Na-K pump, response to weak stimulus, the action potential and its propagation
11.		Measurement of the membrane potential. Body surface biopotentials: ECG, EEG, the cathode-ray oscilloscope,  high frequency heat generation (electric diathermy)
12.		Basics of nuclear physics and nuclear radiations: natural radioactivity, composition of a nucleus, isotopes, binding energy, radioactive decay law, half-time, radio- carbon dating, nuclear reactions, chain reactions, transmission of nuclear radiation through matter
13.		Dosimetric units, biological effects of ionising radiations, basic principles of radiation protection,  radiation detectors
14.		The radioactive tracer method and its applications. Modern imaging techniques in medicine: image formation using radiactive isotopes, thermography
15.		Ultrasound and its medical applications, Doppler effect, echoencefalography, X-ray tomography, positron emission tomography (PET), magnetis resonance imaging (MRI)

Practical lessons theme

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Evaluation description

The Biophysics course only consists of classroom lectures, there are no assessments or knowledge checks during the semester. The only condition for obtaining a signature is that the student registers for the course at the Secretariat for International Study-Programs (English) and fulfills the associated payment obligations

Exam information

The final exam at the end of the semester is an on-line test-sheet exam. Students previously registered for one of the specified dates can access the unipoll software operated by the Neptun system at the given time. The test sheet that appears contains 30 questions with 4 or 5 suggested answers, of which only one is usually correct, but there may be two. The examinee must mark all the answers deemed correct. The answer to the question is only correct and worth 1 point if the examinee has selected all the correct answers. So if there were two good answers for the given question, but the student marked only one, the value of the answer is zero. Students have 30 minutes to complete the sheet, the order of completion is not fixed, students can skip questions or return to previous questions during the time available.

If the number of correct answers is less than 15, the exam result is “elégtelen (1)”. For correct answers between 15 and 18, the result is “sufficient (2)”, between 19 and 22 “moderate (3)”, between 23 and 26 “good (4)” and for more than 27 correct answers, the result is “significant ( 5)”.

 

Recommended:

S. Damjanovich – J. Fidy – J. Szöllősi: Medical Biophysics, Medicina, Budapest, 2009, ISBN: 9789632262499 M. M. Sternheim and J. W. Kane: General Physics, Wiley, 1991, ISBN 0-471-53401-3