Lexikon

1272/2008 regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:353:0001:1355:EN:PDF

directive 1999/45/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 31 May 1999, concerning the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1999:200:0001:0068:EN:PDF

directive on classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances. Commission Directive 2001/59/EC of 6 August 2001 adapting to technical progress for the 28th time Council Directive 67/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances: OJEC L225, 21.8.2001, pp. 1–333.

The danger symbols are defined in Annex II of the directive. A consolidated list with translations into other EU languages can be found in Directive 2001/59/EC.

The standard phrases are defined in Annexes III and IV of the Directive. Annex III defines phrases relating to the Nature of special risks attributed to dangerous substances and preparations, often referred to as R-phrases. Annex IV defines phrases relating to Safety advice concerning dangerous substances and preparations, often referred to as S-phrases.

The appropriate standard phrases must appear on the packaging and label of the product and on its MSDS (Material Safety data Sheet). Annex I specifies the standard phrases to be used for substances that are listed there: these are obligatory.

The lists of standard phrases were last updated in 2001, and Directive 2001/59/EC provides a consolidated list in all EU languages. In general, the label on the packaging of a dangerous substance or preparation must clearly indicate the following items:

• the name of the substance; for substances listed in Annex I, the name indicated must be one of those listed in the Annex (many substances appear in the Annex under different synonyms): otherwise, the name should be "internationally recognized"
• the name, full address and telephone number of the person or company which has placed the substance on the market (manufacturer, importer or distributor);
• the danger symbols, if any;
• the standard phrases, if any; (certain exemptions are permitted)
• the EINECS number or equivalent;
• for substances listed in Annex I, the words EC label.

On 20 January 2009 the new (EC) 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures entered into force. It aligns existing EU legislation to the United Nations Globally Harmonised System (GHS).

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001L0059:EN:NOT and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangerous_Substances_Directive_%2867/548/EEC%29#cite_note-2001-59-EC-6

Council Directive 67/548/EEC of 27 June 1967 on the approximation of laws, regulation and administrative provision relatingto the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances.

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31967L0548:EN:HTML

nonliving. The abiotic part of the environment includes atmospheric gases, waters, rocks and minerals, nonliving part of soils and sediments, dead organic matter and humus in soil and sediment, dissolved inorganic and organic compounds in waters, atc. Light and temperature are also environmental factors classified as "nonliving".

the class of pesticides used to kill mites and ticks. Another name is miticide.

one of the most important organic anhydrides, used to manufacture pain-relieving pharmaceuticals (aspirin, paracetamol), modified starches, emulsifiers, liquid crystal polymers, dyestuffs and cellulose acetate, a major ingredient in photographic films and textiles.

the lowering of soil and water pH due to acid precipitation and deposition usually through precipitation; this process disrupts ecosystem nutrient flows and may kill freshwater fish and plants dependent on more neutral or alkaline conditions See also acid rain

see as soil acidification

called also ACR, the ratio of acute and chronic toxicty: knowing ACR the level ot concentration of a toxicant's acute toxicity can be converted into chronic toxicity.

a rapidly progressing cancer in which a large number of abnormal white blood cells - called lymphoblasts - are present in the blood and in the bone marrow. Also called acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). It is frequent in childhood. Main causes mey be mutaganic agents or chemical substances.

acute oral toxicity refers to those adverse effects occurring following oral administration of a single dose of a substance, or multiple doses given within 24 hours.

acute systemic toxicity testing is the estimation of the human hazard potential of a substance by determining its systemic toxicity in a test system (currently animals) following an acute exposure. Its assessment has traditionally been based on the median lethal dose (LD50) value - an estimate of the dose of a test substance that kills 50% of the test animals. For a substance to have systemic toxic effects it must be absorbed by the body and distributed by the circulation to sites in the body where it exerts toxic effects. The liver may transform a circulating drug or chemical to another form (biotransformation), and this new metabolite may be the one causing the observed toxicity.

Acute systemic toxicity is assessed following oral, dermal, and/or inhalation exposure(s) - depending upon the anticipated routes of human exposure to the substance. The Globally Harmonized System (GHS), which is scheduled for implementation in 2008, defines acute toxicity as "those adverse effects occurring following oral or dermal administration of a single dose of a substance, or multiple doses given within 24 hours, or an inhalation exposure of 4 hours"

Sources:
UNECE, 2004, p. 109.
http://www.alttox.org/ttrc/toxicity-tests/acute/

short term toxicity. The adverse effects of chemical substances which result either from a single exposure or from multiple exposures in a short space of time.
In animal testings "acute" is the toxicity, when the adverse effects occurs within 14 days of the administration of the substance. In ecotoxicity testings acute toxicity is defined as a period of time shorter, than the generation time of the testorganism. The endpoints used for the quantitative characterisation of acute toxicity are: EC₅₀, LC₅₀ or ED₅₀ and LD₅₀ values.

Acute toxicity is distinguished from chronic toxicity, which describes the adverse health effects from repeated exposures, often at lower levels, to a substance over a longer time period months or years.

acute toxicity concerns the adverse effects, which may result from a single exposure or multiple exposures within 24 hours to a substance in toxicity tests. Exposure relates to the oral, dermal or inhalation routes. Assessment of the acute toxic potential of a chemical is necessary to determine the adverse health effects that might occur following accidental or deliberate short-term exposure: the types of toxic effects, their time of onset, duration and severity, the dose-response relationships, and the sex differences in response. The investigated damages can be clinical signs of toxicity, abnormal body weight changes, and/or pathological changes in organs and tissues, which in some cases may result in death.

Source: REACH

adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat. This process takes place over many generations, and is one of the basic phenomena of biology.

The term adaptation may also refer to a feature which is especially important for an organism's survival. Such adaptations are produced in a variable population by the better suited forms reproducing more successfully, that is, by natural selection.

Microorganism, due to their short generation time may succesfully be adapted to new environmental conditions, such as temperature, salinity, nutrient supply, toxic contaminants, etc.

The genom of the microorganisms is very versatile: their adaptive genes, which can be swithched on, when necessary, the frequent mutations and the horizontal gene-transfer between the members of the population and the whole microbial community makes the soil microbes flexible and possible to adapt to the utilisation of new substrates (also soil contaminants) and to become resistant to toxic chemical substances. In the soil biofilms, where microorganism are living strongly realted to each-other, special forms of horizontal gene transfer may exist, and the genes necessary fir survival can be dispersed in the community with the help of mobile genetical elements, such as plasmids, jumping genes, phages, etc.

The adaptive behaviour of the soil microorganisms makes possible to eliminate soil contaminants and prevent Earth from continuously increasing contaminant-concentrations in soils.

aerobic conditions or processes are those, which require oxigen. In environmental and biological systems biologically available oxigen can be derived from the atmospher in the form of atmospheric air, from the water in the form of water-dissolved oxigen for aquatic-ecosystem, or in the form of soil-air for the soil living organisms. If the oxigen is not enough or not available, the conditions are anoxic. If no oxigen is present at all, we speak about anaerobic conditions.

The biological activity in the presence of oxigen is called: aerobiosis, under anaerobic conditions: anaerobiosis.

acoustic noise caused by turbulent airflow over the surface of a body.

air toxicology measures indoor and outdoor air quality and compares to quality criteria.

aliphatic compounds are acyclic or cyclic, non-aromatic carbon compounds.

In aliphatic compounds, carbon atoms can be joined together in straight chains, branched chains, or non-aromatic rings (in which case they are called alicyclic). Aliphatic compounds can be saturated, joined by single bonds (alkanes), or unsaturated, with double bonds (alkenes) or triple bonds (alkynes). Besides hydrogen, other elements can be bound to the carbon chain, the most common being oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and chlorine.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliphatic_compound

alpha-ketoglutaric acid bounds ammonia (in the form of α-ketoglutarate) produced by de-amination of glutamate. It plays important role in the Krebs-cycle, in the synthesis of amino-acid glutamine, in the ammonia-cycle. It is co-substrate for some oxigenase enzymes.

It is used as dietary supplement, mainly for body builders.

ASTM International is one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world-a trusted source for technical standards for materials, products, systems, and services. Known for their high technical quality and market relevancy, ASTM International standards have an important role in the information infrastructure that guides design, manufacturing and trade in the global economy.

Source: http://www.astm.org/

anaerobic is a technical word which means without air. Air is generally used to mean atmospheric oxygen. Anaerobic is the opposite aerobic.

In the environmnetal technologies the absence of atmospheric oxygen is indicated as anoxic; and anaerobic is used to indicate the absence of a common electron acceptor such as nitrate, sulfate or oxygen.

antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance evolves via natural selection acting upon random mutation, but it can also be engineered by applying an evolutionary stress on a population. Once such a gene is generated, bacteria can then transfer the genetic information in a horizontal fashion (between individuals) by plasmid exchange.

If a bacterium carries several resistance genes, it is called multiresistant.

Antibiotic resistance can also be introduced artificially into a microorganism through transformation protocols. This can aid in implanting artificial genes into the microorganism. If the resistance gene is linked with the gene to be implanted, the antibiotic can be used to kill off organisms that lack the new gene.

an antibiotic (from the Ancient Greek: anti = "against", and bios = "life") is a substance or compound that kills or inhibits the growth of bacteria or other microorganisms. It is based on a natural phenomenon, antibiosis, which means antagonistic association between an organism and the metabolic substances produced by another. Formerly only the microbes-made substances were called "antibiotics", but today all man-made, synthetic or semisynthetic compounds are called "antibiotic", which are prodused and used for the inhibition or killing microbes. We distinguish between antibacterial, antifungal, antiprozoal etc. Antibiotics, depending on the target of the antibiotic agent. Antibiotics belong to the broader group of antimicrobial compounds, used to treat infections in humans and animals caused by microorganisms, to treat food or fodder to prevent fauling and infections through nutrition, etc.

microorganisms easily get resistant to antibiotics, due to a special mechanism, where the gene responsible for the antibiotic resistence moves from one organism to the other in form of mobile genetic elements, causing rapid transformation of a sensitive bacterial populations (e.g. in human body) into a resistent one.

See also antibiotic resistance

chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen.

The most common chemotherapy agents act by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of most cancer cells. This means that chemotherapy also harms cells that divide rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles. This results in the most common side-effects of chemotherapy: myelosuppression (decreased production of blood cells, hence also immunosuppression), mucositis (inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract), and alopecia (hair loss).

Newer anticancer drugs act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells; this is termed targeted therapy and, in the technical sense, is not chemotherapy.

The types of antineoplastic agents are the following:

1 Alkylating agents

1.1 Nitrogen mustard analogues

1.2 Alkyl sulfonates

1.3 Ethylene imines

1.4 Nitrosoureas

1.5 Epoxides

1.6 Other alkylating agents

2 Antimetabolites

2.1 Folic acid analogues

2.2 Purine analogues

2.3 Pyrimidine analogues

3 Plant alkaloids and other natural products

3.1 Vinca alkaloids and analogues

3.2 Podophyllotoxin derivatives

3.3 Colchicine derivatives

3.4 Taxanes

3.5 Other plant alkaloids and natural products

4 Cytotoxic antibiotics and related substances

4.1 Actinomycines

4.2 Anthracyclines and related substances

4.3 Other cytotoxic antibiotics

5 Other antineoplastic agents

5.1 Platinum compounds

5.2 Methylhydrazines

5.3 Monoclonal antibodies

5.4 Sensitizers used in photodynamic/radiation therapy

5.5 Protein kinase inhibitors

5.6 Other antineoplastic agents

5.7 L01XY Combinations of antineoplastic agents

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATC_code_L01

approved dosimetric service: a body responsible for the calibration, reading or interpretation of individual monitoring devices, or for the measurement of radioactivity in the human body or in biological samples, or for assessment of doses, whose capacity to act in this respect is recognized by the competent authorities.

Source: Council Directive 96/29 EURATOM, http://ec.europa.eu/energy/nuclear/radioprotection/doc/legislation/9629_en.pdf

aquatic toxicology is based on the response of aquatic ecosystem, both marine and freshwater. Aquatic ecosystem may investigate the whole ecosyste, the diversity of species in a certain ecosystem and compares it to the healthy state of the same ecosystem. According to an other concept toxicology applies toxicity tests on some selected memberes of the aquatic ecosystem and from these results extrapolates on the total ecosystem. The burden of failures is very high in both cases.

the simplest part of mathematics. Arithmetic means addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (called operations). They are the foundation for all higher mathematics.

elemental arsenic occurs in two solid modifications: yellow, and grey or metallic, with specific gravities of 1.97, and 5.73, respectively. The element is a steel grey, very brittle, crystalline, semimetallic metalloid solid. It tarnishes in air, and when heated rapidly oxidises to arsenous oxide which has a garlic odour.

Arsenic does not often form in its elemental state and is far more common in sulfides and sulfosalts such as arsenopyrite, orpiment, realgar, lollingite and tennantite. Due to the abundance of these arsenic bearing ores and the rarity of native arsenic, it is not an important ore of itself. Native arsenic is found in silver ore veins and is processed along with the silver ore and is therefore is a minor source of arsenic.

Native arsenic is usually found to have a trigonal symmetry but a very rare orthorhombic arsenic is known from Saxony, Germany and is named arsenolamprite. The two minerals are called polymorphs many shapes because they have the same chemistry, As, but different structures.

Arsenic toxicity occurs when a person is exposed to arsenic. Arsenic is a naturally occurring element in the earth crust.

There are two primary forms of arsenic:

• Inorganic arsenic—arsenic combined with oxygen, chlorine, or sulfur; found in the environment
• Organic arsenic—arsenic combined with carbon and hydrogen; found in animals and plants.

Inorganic arsenic is usually more harmful than organic arsenic.

Arsenic occurs naturally in soil and minerals, and may enter the air, water, and soil.

In Hungary there are areas where background concentration of Arsenic is rather high 10 mg/kg in soil and 10 μg/lit in water and as consequence poses risk on human health.

Arsenic toxicity may occur when a person is exposed to toxic amounts of arsenic due to

• Breathing air containing arsenic
• Eating food contaminated with arsenic
• Drinking water contaminated with arsenic
• Living in areas with high natural levels of arsenic
• Working in a job that involves arsenic

a body of surface water created by human activity.

the REACH Regulation sets up a system under which the use of substances with properties of very high concern and their placing on the market can be made subject to an authorisation requirement. Such substances are included in Annex XIV of the Regulation, and may not be placed on the market or used without an authorisation.This authorisation requirement ensures that risks from the use of such substances are either adequately controlled or outweighed by socio-economic benefits. An analysis of alternative substances or technologies will be a fundamental component of the authorisation process. Source: REACH Glossary

Bactericides are substances that kill bacteria. Bactericides are either disinfectants, antiseptics or antibiotics. Bactericides are widely used in human and animal therapy, in agriculture plant pesticides and in different industries for killing harmful bacteria.

bacterostatic agent or shotly bacteriostat is a biological or chemical agent that stops bacteria from reproducing, while not necessarily harming them otherwise.

Depending on their application, bacteriostatic antibiotics, disinfectants, antiseptics and preservatives can be distinguished. Upon removal of the bacteriostat, the bacteria usually start to grow again. This is in contrast to bactericides, which kill bacteria.