Table 2.
Glossary of aquaphotomics terms.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Water Mirror Approach (Tsenkova, 2008b, 2009) | Aquaphotomics spectral analysis is often called “water mirror approach” because of the indirect manner of acquiring information about solute composition or surroundings of the aqueous system, namely by measuring the changes in absorbance at water absorbance bands in the spectrum of the aqueous system (Tsenkova, 2009). |
| WAMACS - Water Matrix Absorbance Coordinates (Tsenkova, 2009) | The WAMACS are spectral ranges, where specific water absorbance bands related to specific water molecular conformations (water species, water molecular structures) are found with the highest probability (Tsenkova, 2009). For the first overtone of water (1300-1600nm), 12 WAMACs (labeled Ci, i = 1, 12) have been experimentally discovered (each 6-20nm width) and they have been confirmed by overtone calculations of already reported water bands in the infrared range (Tsenkova, 2009). |
| WABS – Water Absorbance Bands (Tsenkova, 2009) | Studies in the infrared range have identified the absorbance bands of numerous water species (Buijs and Choppin, 1963; Fornés and Chaussidon, 1978; Doster et al., 1986; Maeda et al., 1995; Sartor et al., 1995; Luck, 1998; Czarnik-Matusewicz et al., 1999; Heiman and Licht, 1999; Murayama et al., 2000; Segtnan et al., 2001; Chandler, 2002; Cupane et al., 2002; Šašić et al., 2002; Robertson et al., 2003). When their overtones are calculated, it is confirmed that together with already known bands, these bands occur within the whole Vis-NIR range (Tsenkova, 2005). So far, the spectral database of water absorbance bands has more than 500 bands in the area of the first, second and third overtones of water (Tsenkova, 2009; Tsenkova et al., 2015). The systematization of already identified and discovery of new water absorbance bands related to specific water species structures is one of the ongoing aquaphotomics endeavors. |
| Activated water bands | When a certain perturbation of interest is shown to produce the changes at specific water absorbance bands, and when this is determined consistently and repeatedly throughout the aquaphotomics analysis, these water absorbance bands are considered “activated” by the respective perturbation. |
| WASP–Water Absorbance Spectral Pattern (Tsenkova, 2009) | The combination of the activated water bands caused by a certain perturbation defines water absorbance spectral pattern, which describes the condition of the whole aqueous system. WASP can contain huge amounts of chemical and physical information about the respective aqueous system and can be thought of as a holistic marker because it captures the structure and dynamics of the respective system as a whole. At the moment, even without the assignment and understanding of water absorbance bands, WASPs can be used as holistic (bio) markers for system functionality. |
| Aquagrams (Tsenkova, 2010) | An aquagram is a novel graphical representation of data, invented to present in a succinct manner a water absorbance spectral pattern – WASP (Tsenkova, 2010). |
| Aquaphotomes (Tsenkova, 2009) | An aquaphotome is the entire complement of water molecular structures produced by aqueous or biological systems in different conditions. It can be defined as a comprehensive database of all water spectral patterns with the interpretation of their functionality given a particular set of conditions of the respective system, (Tsenkova, 2009). Every aquaphotome is system-specific. Once a large database of characteristic water bands has been acquired, they can be related to specific biological functions and subsequently used for prediction, diagnosis, and understanding of biology, chemistry and physics of biological and aqueous systems (Tsenkova, 2009). |