Wolfgang Langhans: Catalogue data in Spring Semester 2020 |
| Name | Prof. em. Dr. Wolfgang Langhans |
| Address | Dep. Gesundheitswiss. und Technol. ETH Zürich, SLA C 3 Schorenstrasse 16 8603 Schwerzenbach SWITZERLAND |
| Telephone | +41 44 655 74 20 |
| Fax | +41 44 655 72 06 |
| wolfgang-langhans@ethz.ch | |
| Department | Health Sciences and Technology |
| Relationship | Professor emeritus |
| Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 752-6302-00L | Physiology of Eating  | 3 credits | 2V | W. Langhans | |
| Abstract | Introduction to the basic knowledge necessary for an understanding of the physiology and pathology of hunger, satiety, and body weight control, how this knowledge is generated, and how it helps improve nutritional advice for healthy people as well as nutritional guidelines for patients. | ||||
| Learning objective | This course requires basic knowledge in physiology and is designed to build on course HE03 “Selected Topics in Physiology Related to Nutrition.” The course covers psychological and physiological determinants of food selection and amount eaten. The aim is to introduce the students to (a) the basic knowledge necessary for an understanding of the physiology and pathology of hunger, satiety, and body weight control, (b) how new scientific knowledge in this area is generated, (c) how this basic knowledge helps improve nutritional advice for healthy people as well as nutritional guidelines for patients. Major topics are: Basic scientific concepts for the physiological study of eating in animals and humans; the psychopharmacology of reward; endocrine and metabolic controls of eating; the neural control of eating; psychological aspects of eating; eating behavior and energy balance; exercise, eating and body weight; popular diets and their evaluation; epidemiology, clinical features and the treatment of psychiatric eating disorders; epidemiology, clinical features and the treatment of obesity, including related aspects of non-insulin dependent diabetes; mechanisms of cachexia and anorexia during illness; exogenous factors that influence eating, including pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, coffee, etc. | ||||
| Lecture notes | Handouts will be provided | ||||
| Literature | Literature will be discussed in class | ||||
| 766-6304-00L | Theory and Practice of Nutritional Science | 2 credits | 2G | W. Langhans | |
| Abstract | Introduction to intellectual and practical ABCs of biomedical science, including (1) measurement & quantification; 2) experimental design; (3) descriptive & analytic statistics; (4) computerized data analysis, graphing, & literature searches; (5) data interpretation, hypothesis testing; (6) writing and publishing scientific papers, preparing oral & poster presentations. | ||||
| Learning objective | Each scientific specialty has its own particular theoretical and factual content and its own vocabulary. These vary so much that scientists even in closely related fields often have difficulty communicating with each other. Despite this, almost all science is based on very similar underlying concepts and practices. The goal of this class is to introduce this basic “toolbox” to beginning nutritional scientists. The class is organized into several modules of varying length, each of which will include both didactic presentations and practice exercises to be completed by the students. The modules include: (1) quantification: operationalism; measurement theory; measurement scales, continuous and discrete variables and their distributions; mathematical probability; (2) experimental design: types of control groups and their interpretations in clinical and basic research; exploration or discovery science vs. verification or hypothesis testing; construction and testing of scientific hypotheses; (3) statistics: choice and execution of descriptive and analytic statistics of sample data; data transformations; choice of parametric and nonparametric tests; the basics of some tests (binomial; chi2, binomial, ranks tests, t-tests, ANOVA); sampling errors; statistical significance and power; a priori and post-hoc tests, especially after ANOVA; (4) computerization: introduction to appropriate computer programs for statistical analysis, for graphical displays of data, and for searching the scientific literature; (5) scientific logic: Interpretation of data in relation to hypotheses, control groups, and statistical test outcomes; uses of positive vs. negative data; role of replication; the concept of causality in science; inductive and deductive logic; 6) expressing quantitative outcomes in words; comparisons of data to previous publications; composition of written summaries and critiques of information in scientific publications; identifying strengths and weaknesses of existing data; appropriate citation of previous authors, including rules for using their thoughts and words, (7) writing and publishing scientific papers; peer review and publication process; preparation of oral and poster presentations. | ||||
| Lecture notes | Scripts will be distributed in class. | ||||
| Literature | PDQ Statistics, 3rd Ed. (GR Norman & DL Streiner; BC Decker Press, hamilton On CA, 2003) | ||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | The course is in English. | ||||