Objectives and competences
Student will be able:
• to assess the risk of different sources of radiation, particulate matter and energy as well as of different physical environmental factors on the public health, and to determine their safe limits, sources and methods of protection
• to predict methods for the detection of radiation, particulate matter and energy sources and to provide the diagnostic methods for deciding their possible deterministic physiological effects on public health
• to use the pharmacokinetic models for risk assessment of different toxic substances
• based on the model predictions to estimate basic risk assessment and necessary measures to contain the epidemic
Content (Syllabus outline)
• physical hazards on human and its health (noise. heat/cold, mechanical stress, electric current, electromagnetic radiation, ionizing radiation radioactivity, particulate matter) and their deterministic physiological effects,
• imaging, spectroscopic and other experimental methods related to public health,
• selected topics on pharmacokinetics,
• selected topics on modelling and analysis of epidemics spreading.
Learning and teaching methods
Lectures (auditory and e-lectures)
Tutorials
Individual and group work on the project
Intended learning outcomes - knowledge and understanding
On completion of this course the student will be able:
• to distinguish between various physical effects on humans and to describe their physical and physiological impacts on the body
• to link physical quantities with different experimental methods for their measurements and to explain the principles of their functioning
• to link selected physical impacts and their possible deterministic physiological effects with the diagnostic methods for their assessment
• to explain and evaluate how different input routes, pharmacokinetic parameters and doses of hazardous substances affect bioavailability and the time courses of its concentration in the body in terms of absorption, elimination, reaching the toxic threshold, maximal concentration etc.
• to explain and assess how various parameters specific to the type of virus, mode of infection, infectivity, levels of immunity, mortality, etc., such as reproductive number, virulence, number of contacts, share of vaccinated, quarantine, herd immunity, etc., affect the time course of the number of infected, healthy, recovered, etc. persons at the time of the epidemic
Readings
Obvezna/Mandatory (izbrana poglavja / selected topics):
J. Newman, Physics of the Life Sciences, Springer, New York, 2008.
K. Franklin, P. Muir, T. Scott and P. Yates, Introduction to biological physics for the health and life sciences Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2019.
Peter H. Wald, Gregg M. Stave (Eds.) Physical and biological hazards of the workplace, 2nd ed., Wiley & Sons, New York, 2002.
P. Davidovits, Physics in biology and medicine 3rd ed., London, Academic Press, 2008.
Priporočena /Recomended (izbrana poglavja / selected topics):
E. O. Voit, A first course in systems biology 2nd ed., Garland Science, New York, 2017.
Prerequisits
There are no specific prerequisites.
