Technical Jargon: Terms used, which you should know (Part 4)

Dear friends,this is the last & concluding part of the series of blogs on technical terms. I tried to represent before you many of terms but it is not possible to cover all the thousands of terms here. You may refer some of the links provided below to explore more terms & keep yourself updated with many more technical & scientific terms.

Salinity
The concentration of soluble minerals (mainly salts of the alkali metals or of magnesium) in water.Salt Rejection
In reverse osmosis, the ratio of salts removed (rejected) to the original salt concentration.Saturation Humidity
The air is saturated when the partial pressure of water vapor in the air at a given temperature equals the vapor pressure of water at the same temperature.

Saturation Index
The relation of calcium carbonate to the pH, alkalinity, and hardness of water to determine its scale-forming tendency.

Scale-up
To take a biopharmaceutical manufacturing process from the laboratory scale to a scale at which it is commercially feasible.

SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy)
Utilizes an electron beam to produce images over a very broad magnification range of 10X to 105X. The technique is somewhat limited by the conductivity of the material but works very well to inspect 316L stainless steel. Typical magnification levels for surface defect evaluation are from 100 to 4,000.

Sensible Heat (SH)
Heat that causes a change of temperature without causing a change of state.

Sensitizer
A chemical that causes a substantial proportion of exposed people or animals to develop an allergic reaction in normal tissue after repeated exposure to the chemical.

SIP (Steam In Place)
The introduction of steam to sanitize or sterilize a piece of equipment without relocating the equipmentSmoke Test
Visualization of airflow streams in a clean space using artificially generated smoke, such as Titanium smoke, CO2, or glycol fog.

Softener
Water treatment equipment that uses a sodium-based ion-exchange resin, principally to remove cations.

SOP (Standard Operating Procedures)
The description of necessary activities to respond to normal and abnormal situations in an operating system. The SOP may include a troubleshooting checklist, list of personnel to contact, etc. SOPs should also describe normal operation, maintenance, and cleaning of the system, and normal operating parameters. An SOP may be created for any system but an SOP must be created for each system requiring qualification.

Sparger
A device used to agitate, oxygenate, aerate, or add a chemical to a liquid by means of compressed air or gas entering through small holes in a pipe below the liquid surface.

Specific Humidity
Also known as Humidity Ratio, and Absolute Humidity, is the weight of water vapor in each pound of dry air expressed in grains of moisture per pound of dry air, or pounds of moisture per pound of dry air. (also see: Saturation Humidity) NOTE: 7,000 grains = 1.0 pound. Humidity of air mixtures is normally discussed in terms of grains of moisture per pound rather than the more common term of relative humidity because the grains of moisture in an air stream do not change when it is heated or cooled, unless condensation takes place.

Standard Dimensional Ratio (SDR)
The most commonly accepted means for providing a pipe wall thickness category and constant mechanical properties for many plastic materials. Used for solid, homogeneous pipe, the SDR is found by dividing the average outside diameter of a pipe by the wall thickness.

Statistical Process Control (SPC)
A process control method to demonstrate mathematically that a process or system is operating within the limitations established for the parameter(s) in question.

Tangential Flow Filtration
A separation method that transfers components of one system (stream) into another. The stream the product is being extracted from crosses the stream that the product is being transferred to, multiple times.

Theoretical Yield
The quantity that would be produced at any appropriate phase of manufacture, processing, or packing of a particular drug product, based upon the quantity of components to be used, in the absence of any loss or error in actual production.

Throughput Volume
The amount of solution passed through an exchange bed before the resin is exhausted.

Total Bacteria Count
An estimation of the total number of bacteria in a sample based usually on Standard Methods procedures for collecting, incubating, and counting colony-forming units (cfu).

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)The term used to describe inorganic ions in the water. Usually measured by electrical conductance of the water corrected to 25°C, and expressed as ppm (parts per million).

Total Organic Carbon (TOC)
A measure of the level of organic impurities in water by their carbon content that determines the operating life of activated carbon beds. This is one of the parameters used to determine the purity of Semiconductor Grade water. Feed water will have TOC measured in ppm (parts per million), and ultrapure water (UPW) will have TOC measured in ppb (parts per billion).

Total Solids
Total solids in water include both dissolved and suspended solids. Determined by weighing sample before and after evaporation. 

(TOP)
A collection of pertinent design, construction, vendor, and operational documentation. This collection of documentation is used for the qualification and process validation activity, as well as reference and single source information for the life of any particular system, process, or piece of equipment.

Ultra Low Penetration Air filters (ULPA)
Extended media dry filters in a rigid frame that have a minimum particle-collection efficiency of 99.999% for particles greater than or equal to 0.12µm in size. Most commonly used in microelectronics, few uses in pharmaceuticals.

Universal Precautions
Precautions taken when handling, storing, transporting, or shipping items or specimens containing, or contaminated with human blood and body fluids: all such materials are treated as infectious.

Utility Systems
Facility wide systems not tailored to a specific process and that do not have contact with the drug substance or potential drug substance.

Vacuum Degasification
The process of removing dissolved and entrained gases from the Reverse Osmosis (RO) product water by creating a vacuum in a tower through which this water flows. The degasifier may be located before the RO system but the majority of the time will be located after. The most prevalent gas present is Carbon Dioxide (CO2), which may have been generated during pH adjustment of the RO feed water. The anion exchange resin can remove CO2 but using the vacuum degasifier can reduce that load. The other gas of concern is Oxygen, which can also be removed by a vacuum degasifier.Validation
A documented program that provides a high degree of assurance that a specific process, method, or system will consistently produce a result meeting pre-determined acceptance criteria.

Validation Protocol (from ICH API)
A written plan stating how validation will be conducted and defining acceptance criteria. For example, the protocol for a manufacturing process identifies processing equipment, critical process parameters/operating ranges, product characteristics, sampling, and test data to be collected, number of validation runs, and acceptable test results.

Vapor Pressure
Dalton's Law for a mixture of perfect gases states that the mixture pressure is equal to the sum of the partial pressures of the constituents. The partial pressure of moisture is called vapor pressure, and is expressed as: Total Pressure (Pt) = Partial Pressure of Air (Pa) + Partial Pressure of Moisture (Pv)

Vascular Targeting Agents (VTAs)
Multifunctional agents that are home to the capillaries and vessels of solid tumors.

VEAs (Vasopermeation Enhancement Agents)
A new generation of drugs that increase the uptake of therapeutic agents to solid tumors.

Virucide
An agent that destroys or inactivates viruses.

Virulence
The disease-producing power of a microorganism.

Water Hammer
A tremendous force produced by rapid interruption of linear flow of a non-compressible fluid. Most commonly occurs when fast acting valves are closed in a high flow liquid system.

Waviness
The more widely spaced component of surface texture. Unless otherwise noted, waviness includes all irregularities whose spacing is greater than the roughness sampling length. Waviness may result from such factors as machine or work deflection, vibration, chatter, heat treatment or warping strains. Roughness may be considered as superimposed on a "wavy" surface.

Western Blot
A procedure in which a mixture of proteins is separated on a polyacrylamide gel and then transferred to a nylon membrane. The membrane may then be treated with reagents such as specific antibodies to locate a protein of interest.

WFI (Water For injection), U.S.P.
WFI is water purified by distillation or by reverse osmosis, it contains no added substance. WFI meets the purity requirements under Purified Water. Although not intended to be sterile, it meets a test for a limit of bacterial endotoxin. It must be produced, stored, and distributed under Sterile Water for Injection.Xenobiotics
Industrial chemicals that have a chemical structure not found in natural compounds that may resist degradation by microorganisms.

XPS(X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) or ESCA (Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis)
A surface-sensitive technique capable of detecting all elements with an atomic number greater than that of helium. ESCA provides data on the outermost several atomic layers of a material, and has a sensitivity in the order of 0.5 atomic percent. A primary advantage of ESCA is that it can both determine and quantify the chemical state of the elements detected (i.e. metallic state or oxide state).

A vast source of many terms are available online just have a look if you wish to have more details.

http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/medchem/ah.html 

http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/medchem/iz.html 

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drugsatfda/glossary.htm 

http://www.nuskin.com/corp/science/techterms.shtml 

http://www.onlymedics.co.uk/resources/pharmaceutical-terms.asp

http://www.medicalglossary.org/index.html

You can also download a dictionary from the following link

http://www.babylon.com/redirects/download.cgi?type=2203

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