Exam 1 Terms

Question 1

Bioaccumulation

Answer 1

Progressive increase in the amount of a substance in an organism or part of an organism which occurs because the rate of intake exceeds the organism’s ability to remove the substance from the body

Question 2

Bioconcentration

Answer 2

Process leading to a higher concentration of a substance in an organism than in environmental media to which it is exposed

Question 3

Biomagnification

Answer 3

Sequence of processes in an ecosystem by which higher concentrations are attained in organisms at higher trophic levels (at higher levels in the food web); at its simplest, a process leading to a higher concentration of a substance in an organism than in its food

Question 4

Bioavailability

Answer 4

• The physical and/or biological state of a substance that renders it capable of being absorbed into the body.
• The degree of activity or amount of an administered drug or other substance that becomes available for activity in the target tissue.
• Extent of absorption of a substance by a living organism compared to a standard system

Question 5

Dose-response Relationships

Answer 5

Association between dose and the incidence of a defined biological effect in an exposed population usually expressed as percentage.

Question 6

Environmental Fate

Answer 6

Destiny of a chemical or biological pollutant after release into the natural environment

Question 7

Exposure

Answer 7

Concentration, amount or intensity of a particular physical or chemical agent or environmental agent that reaches the target population, organism, organ, tissue or cell, usually expressed in numerical terms of concentration, duration, and frequency (for chemical agents and micro-organisms) or intensity (for physical agents)

Question 8

Hydrocarbons

Answer 8

Toxic substances made out of hydrogen-carbon compounds

Question 9

Lipophility

Answer 9

Fat loving

Question 10

Hydrophility

Answer 10

Water loving

Question 11

Metabolism

Answer 11

Sum total of all physical and chemical processes that take place within an organism from uptake to elimination.

In a narrower sense, the physical and chemical changes that take place in a substance within an organism, including biotransformation to metabolites.

Question 12

Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP)

Answer 12

Organic chemical that is stable in the environment, is liable to long-range transport, may bio-accumulate in human and animal tissue, and may have significant impacts on human health and the environment.

Question 13

Additivity

Answer 13

Consequence which follows exposure to two or more physico-chemical agents which act jointly but do not interact: the total effect is the simple sum of the effects of separate exposures to the agents under the same conditions

Question 14

Antagonism

Answer 14

Combined effect of two or more factors which is smaller than the solitary effect of any one of those factors.

Question 15

Biocide

Answer 15

Substance intended to kill living organisms

Question 16

Bioactivation

Answer 16

Metabolic conversion of a xenobiotic to a more toxic derivative or one which has more of an effect on living organisms

Question 17

Dose

Answer 17

Total amount of a substance administered to, taken up, or absorbed by an organism, organ, or tissue

Question 18

Absorbed Dose

Answer 18

Actual amount of exposed dose crossing the absorption barrier through uptake processes

Question 19

Administered Dose

Answer 19

Amount presented at an absorption barrier and available for absorption

Question 20

Effective Dose

Answer 20

Amount of chemical available for interaction with an organ or cell

Question 21

Exposure Dose

Answer 21

Amount of toxic substance available at exchange boundaries of an organism

Question 22

Exposure Assessment

Answer 22

Process of measuring or estimating concentration (or intensity), duration and frequency of exposures to an agent present in the environment or, if estimating hypothetical exposures, that might arise from the release of a substance, or radionuclide, into the environment.

Question 23

Hazard Identification

Answer 23

Determination of substances of concern, their adverse effects, target populations, and conditions of exposure, taking into account toxicity data and knowledge of effects on human health, other organisms and their environment.

Question 24

LD50

Answer 24

An LD50 value is the amount of a solid or liquid material that it takes to kill 50% of test animals (e.g., mice or rats) in one dose

Question 25

Lindane

Answer 25

A pesticide that is used in some over-the-counter treatments for head lice

Question 26

PFC (Perfluorinated Compounds)

Answer 26

Perfluorinated chemicals are a diverse group of compounds resistant to heat, water, and oil. For decades, they have been used in hundreds of industrial applications and consumer products such as carpeting, apparels, upholstery, food paper wrappings, fire-fighting foams and metal plating. PFCs have been found at very low levels both in the environment and in the blood samples of the general U.S. population.

Question 27

Poison

Answer 27

Any substance that, when inhaled, ingested, absorbed, injected into, or developed within a body in relatively small amounts, may cause harm or death

Question 28

Potentiation

Answer 28

Dependent action in which a substance or physical agent at a concentration or dose that does not itself have an adverse effect but enhances the harm done by another substance or physical agent.

Question 29

Risk

Answer 29

Probability of adverse effects caused under specified circumstances by an agent in an organism, a population or an ecological system.

Question 30

Risk Assessment

Answer 30

Identification and quantification of the risk resulting from a specific use or occurrence of a chemical or physical agent, taking into account possible harmful effects on individuals or populations exposed to the agent in the amount and manner proposed and all the possible routes of exposure.

Question 31

Social Cost

Answer 31

Social costs include both the private costs and any other external costs to society arising from the production or consumption of a good or service. (FRB SFO)

Question 32

Superfund

Answer 32

Federal authority, established by the US Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980, to respond directly to releases or threatened releases (such as from landfills or waste disposal areas) of hazardous substances that may endanger health or welfare

Question 33

Synergism

Answer 33

Pharmacological or toxicological interaction in which the combined biological effect of exposure to two or more substances is greater than expected on the basis of the simple summation of the effects of each of the individual substances.

Question 34

Target

Answer 34

Any organism, organ, tissue, cell or cell constituent that is subject to the action of an agent.

Question 35

Threshold

Answer 35

Dose or exposure concentration below which a defined effect will not occur

Question 36

Toxic Substance

Answer 36

Material causing injury to living organisms as a result of physiochemical interactions

Question 37

Toxicology

Answer 37

Study of the adverse effects of external factors (e.g., chemicals) on an organism or a system

Question 38

Toxin

Answer 38

Poisonous substance produced by a biological organism such as a microbe, animal, plant or fungus.

Question 39

Unintended Consequences

Answer 39

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a particular action. The unintended outcomes may be positive or negative.

The law of unintended consequences suggests that an intervention in a complex system always creates unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.

Question 40

Xenobiotic

Answer 40

Any chemical not a natural component of the body of an organism