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GLOSSARY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND COMPUTING TERMS

By Dr. Dave Rich, President, Geotech Computer Systems, Inc. [email protected] Revised January 2020

The following are some common terms used in the environmental and computing industries. We encourage reader feedback.

A Access time - Hard disk speed is rated by its access time, given in milliseconds (ms). The shorter the AA - Atomic absorption. A procedure for inorganic access time, the faster data can be manipulated and analysis based on the absorption of radiation by stored. mercury vapor (cold vapor), flame, or graphite furnace. Accreditation - A formal recognition that an organization (e.g., laboratory) is competent to carry Abscissa - Horizontal or X-axis of a graph. out specific tasks or specific types of tests. See also Absolute coordinates - Coordinates tied to an Certification. established reference system such as position on the Accreditation criterion - A requirement that a globe. laboratory must meet to receive authorization and Absolute method - A body of procedures and approval to perform a specified task. techniques for which measurement is based entirely Accredited laboratory - A laboratory that has been on physically defined fundamental quantities. evaluated and given approval to perform a specified Acceptable quality level - A limit above which measurement or task, usually for a specific property quality is considered satisfactory and below which it or analyte and for a specified period of time. is not. In sampling inspection, the maximum Accuracy - The degree of agreement between an percentage of defects or failures that can be observed value and an accepted reference value. considered satisfactory as an average. Inaccuracy includes a combination of random error Acceptable quality range - The interval between (precision) and systematic error (bias) components specified upper and lower limits of a sequence of which are due to sampling and analytical operations. values within which the values are considered to be EPA recommends that this term not be used and that satisfactory. precision and bias be used to convey the information Acceptable value - An observed or corrected value usually associated with accuracy. See Precision and that falls within the acceptable range. See Corrected Bias. value and Observed value. ACIL - American Council of Independent Acceptance sampling - The procedure of drawing Laboratories. Trade group of independent testing samples from a lot or population to determine laboratories that fosters communication between whether to accept or reject a sampled lot or laboratories. population. ACS - American Chemical Society. Accepted reference value - A numerical quantity Action limit - See Control limit. that serves as an agreed-upon basis for comparison, Acute toxicity - The effect of high-level, short-term and which is derived as l) a theoretical or established (as opposed to long term or chronic) exposure to a quantity, based on scientific principles, 2) an toxic substance. assigned value, based on experimental work of some recognized organization, or 3) a consensus quantity Adjusted value - The observed value after based on collaborative experimental work under the adjustment for values of a blank or bias of the auspices of a scientific or engineering group. measurement system. 1

ADSL - Asymmetrical digital subscriber line Analyte - The substance, a property of which is to be broadband communication connection. Download measured by chemical analysis. speeds are usually higher than upload speeds. Analytical batch - A group of samples, including ADR - Automated Data Review. Software from quality control samples, which are processed together Laboratory Data Consultants formerly used on using the same method, the same lots of reagents, and USACE projects. at the same time or in continuous, sequential time Adsorption - Adhesion of contaminants to liquids or periods. Samples in each batch should be of similar solids. composition and share common internal quality control standards. Aerobic - Having a high oxygen content, or an organism that lives or is active in the presence of Analytical blank - See Reagent blank. oxygen. Analytical limit of discrimination - See Method AES - Atomic Emission Spectrometry. detection limit. AFCEC - Air Force Civil Engineering Center. Analytical method - A method used to determine the Formerly called AFCEE, Air Force Center for concentration of a chemical compound or chemical Environmental Excellence. Organization responsible element. for the ERPIMS environmental data system. Analytical protocol - See Statement of Work AFCEE - See AFCEC. (SOW). AFE - Authority for Expenditure. A document Analytical reagent (AR) - The American Chemical authorizing expenditure of funds, similar to a Society’s designation for the highest purity of certain purchase order. chemical reagents and solvents. See Reagent grade. Air Quality System - EPA's repository of ambient Android - Operating system software from Google. air quality data. Popular on portable devices such as smartphones and tablets. Algorithm - An algorithm is a numerical method. For example, in mapping, a common algorithm used ANOVA - Analysis of variance. Statistical test to for creating grids is “weighted moving average”. determine whether two populations have the same mean. Aliquant - A subsample derived by a divisor that divides a sample into a number of equal parts but ANSI - American National Standards Institute. This leaves a remainder; a subsample resulting from such organization develops and publishes standards in a a divisor. See Subsample. variety of technical areas. Aliquot - A subsample derived by a divisor that ANVO - Accept No Verbal Orders. All project divides a sample into a number of equal parts and changes should be in writing. leaves no remainder; a subsample resulting from such AOC - Analytical Operations Data Quality Center. a division. In analytical chemistry the term aliquot is The U.S. EPA Center which directs the national generally used to define any representative portion of Contract Laboratory Program. the sample. Apache - Popular open-source web server software. Alpha error - See Type I error. API - Application Programming Interface. A system Alternate method - Any body of procedures and for software applications to talk to each other through techniques of sample collection and/or analysis for a a set of defined interfaces. characteristic of interest which is not a reference or Append - To append something is to add a block or approved equivalent method but which has been file to an existing file without removing the contents demonstrated in specific cases to produce results of the original file. The new material is “tacked on” comparable to those obtained from a reference the end of the existing file. method. Apple - Technology company. Amazon - Shopping and technology company. Application - Software to perform a particular task Anaerobic - Having low oxygen content, or an such as data management or mapping. organism that lives or is active in the absence of APPS - Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. oxygen. AQS - See Air Quality System. Analysis (chemical) - The determination of the qualitative and/or quantitative composition of a Aquaveo - A company and software for surface and substance. subsurface fluid modeling.

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Aquifer - An underground geologic unit that can 122 z store water and supply it to wells and springs. ASP - Application Service Provider. A company that Aquitard - An underground geologic unit with a low hosts software that users can operate over the permeability that inhibits the vertical flow of water. Internet. See also Confining layer. ASP - Active Server Pages. A Microsoft technology ARAR - Applicable or Relevant and Appropriate that creates Web pages on the fly based on user Requirement. Cleanup or other standards that address requests. Usually the data displayed is coming from a problems or situations present at a CERCLA site. database. The language used is a dialect of Visual They are used to set cleanup goals, select a remedy, Basic. and determine how to implement that remedy. Aspect ratio - Relative scale of the horizontal and ArcGIS - Well-known geographic information vertical axes, such as on a video screen. system software from ESRI. Assignable cause - A factor or an experimental Architecture - The internal electronic configuration variable shown to significantly change the quality of of the data pathway on the motherboard is known as an effect or a result. the architecture. ASTM - American Society for Testing and Materials. Arithmetic mean - The sum of all the values of a set Asynchronous - Not at the same time - refers to of measurements divided by the number of values in communications from a computer to some other the set; a measure of central tendency. See Measure computer or peripheral device where the timing of of central tendency. the two devices may be different. Aroclor - Polychlorinated biphenyl (also called ATA - See SATA. PCB). Attribute - Textual or numeric information Aromatics - Organic compounds that contain associated with a graphic object such as a well or a structures of six carbon rings, such as creosote, block in a drawing. toluene, and phenol. Auger - A tool used to drill a hole in the ground Array- Set of values arranged in rows and columns. using a rotary drilling rig. Also used for a line or grid of sensors, such as geophysical devices. Audit - A systematic evaluation to determine the conformance to quantitative specifications of some Array processor - Computing device designed to operational function or activity. See Audit of data perform calculations on arrays of data. Used in quality, Performance evaluation audit, and graphic display, geophysical, and other number- Technical systems audit, and also Review and intensive applications. Management systems review. ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Audit of data quality (ADQ) - A qualitative and Interchange (pronounced as-kee); the most common quantitative evaluation of the documentation and way of representing data for microcomputers and procedures associated with environmental many larger machines as well. Each character is measurements to verify that the resulting data are of represented by a number, with the numbers ranging acceptable quality. from 0 to 127. IBM has extended the ASCII code from 128 to 255 to allow many additional graphics, Audit sample - See Performance evaluation foreign language, and special characters. Some sample. examples of ASCII codes (in decimal) and their Avatar - Graphical image representing something, representative meanings are: often a person, such as in a game or social ASCII Code Character networking site. 7 (Rings bell) Average - A measure of the most “typical” value in a 12 (Advances printer page) set of data. Types of averages include arithmetic 27 (Escape) mean, geometric mean, median, and mode. 38 & Axis - A line used for reference, such as the scale 42 * 48 0 lines on a graph. 49 1 Azure - Cloud system from Microsoft. 57 9 65 A 90 Z 97 a 3

B Benchmark - A benchmark is a test or series of tests that uses standardized data and/or algorithms to rate B2B - Business to business. Used mostly to describe hardware and software performance. Most Internet commerce transactions. benchmarks are rated on time, although some are B2C - Business to consumer. Also used mostly to compared to a known index. describe Internet commerce transactions. Beta error - See Type II error. Background level - The concentration of a substance Beta test - When a commercial hardware or software in a defined control area during a fixed period of time product is tested by selected individuals or companies before, during, or after a data-gathering operation. with “real world” data outside the office of the Backlit - A display for a portable computer that has a software author, the process is known as a beta test, light source behind the screen for increased and the users are called beta testers. brightness. Also, some digitizers are backlit allowing BHC - Benzene hexachloride. them to work with transparent materials. Bias - The systematic or persistent distortion of a Backup - When you make copies of a file or hard measurement process which deprives the result of disk, it is called a backup. representativeness (i.e., the expected sample Bandwidth - Amount of data that can be transferred measurement is different from the sample’s true at one time. The higher the bandwidth, the faster data value.) A data quality indicator. moves. Binary - Some software code and digital Bar code - Code usually printed on a label containing communication is in a format known as binary information such as product identification. because the code is a series of 1s and 0s. Binary code Baseline sampling - Samples taken before some is a base 2 system where every number is represented activity, such as mining or drilling an oil or gas well. by 2n or 2n +1. When binary data appears on the screen it has the appearance of “garbage.” BASIC - Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. This is a programming language Bioremediation - A treatment process that uses widely used on personal computers. BASICA was an microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast, and fungi to advanced version for IBM brand computers, and break down hazardous organic substances. GW-BASIC was often found on PC compatibles. The BIOS - Basic Input-Output System; acts as an latest version from Microsoft is Visual Basic, either interface between the hardware and the software, and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) or VB.net. provides services such as reading and writing to and Batch - A quantity of material produced or processed from memory and disk drives, and so on. It is in one operation, considered to be a uniform discrete “burned” into ROM chips using special equipment, unit. and once installed in the computer, it is not usually changed. Batch file - A file containing a series of commands that are executed as a group by the operating system. Bit - A bit (BInary digiT) is the smallest unit of computer information representing the presence or Batch lot - The samples collected under sufficiently absence of an electrical charge. It is equivalent to uniform conditions to be processed as a group. See yes/no or on/off. Batch, Batch size. Bit map - An image represented as an array of pixels. Batch sample - One of the samples drawn from a batch. Blank sample - A clean sample or a sample of matrix processed so as to measure artifacts in the Batch size - The number of samples in a batch lot. measurement (sampling and analysis) process. Baud - Transmission rate of serial devices such as Blank spike - See Spike. modems is given by baud rate. It roughly translates to bits per second. Blind sample - A subsample submitted for analysis with a composition and identity known to the BBS - Electronic Bulletin Board System. See submitter but unknown to the analyst, and used to test Bulletin board system. the analyst’s or laboratory’s proficiency in the Bedrock - Solid rock that underlies the soil. execution of the measurement process. See Double- Beer’s law - The amount of monochromatic light blind sample. absorbed by an aqueous solution is proportional to Bluetooth - A wireless technology standard for the concentration. This effect is used in colorimetric exchanging data over short distances. analysis methods. BMP - Best Management Practice. Also Windows bitmap, a format for digital image. 4

BOD - Biochemical Oxygen Demand. C Boot - Start up a computer. Based on an analogy of C - Programming language widely used for software pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps. A cold boot is development. starting the computer by turning it on. A warm boot is restarting the computer with a software or C++, C# - Programming languages based on C, but keyboard command. with object-oriented extensions. Borehole - A hole dug in the ground by a drilling rig CAA - Clean Air Act. or other method. Cable - Assembly of wires and plugs used to connect Boring log - A document created for a soil or other two devices. boring describing the material encountered, and other Cable modem - High-speed communication information like wellbore construction. connection for passing data over the lines used by BRAC - Base Realignment and Closure Commission. cable TV. An agency of the United States federal government Cache - An area of memory used to store data from a that aims to dispose of unnecessary United States slow device (such as a hard disk or main memory) to Department of Defense (DoD) real estate speed up the performance of a faster device (such as Broadband - High speed connection such as DSL or the main processor). cable modem. CAD/CAE/CAM/CIM - Computer-Aided Drafting Brownfield - Abandoned, idle, or under-used (or Design), Computer-Aided Engineering, industrial and commercial facilities where expansion Computer-Aided Manufacturing, Computer- or re-development is complicated by real or Integrated Manufacturing. perceived environmental contamination. Remediation CADRE - Computer Aided Data Review and levels for brownfields are often based on the Evaluation. The CADRE system evaluates QC results expected use rather than arbitrary standards. against data review criteria appropriate for a specified BTEX - Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and corresponding analytical method or procedure. Xylene. Calibrant - See Calibration standard. Bubble map - Map where values are shown as Calibrate - To determine, by measurement or colors. Usually the colors represent ranges of data comparison with a standard, the correct value of each values. Also called a chloropleth, dot map, or classed scale reading on a meter or other device, or the post map. correct value for each setting of a control knob. The Buffer - In computers, buffers are storage areas that levels of the calibration standards should bracket the hold all or parts of files for printing or plotting. They range of planned measurements. See Calibration also serve as holding areas for fast file access in curve. memory or to disk drives. Buffers can either be Calibration blank - Laboratory reagent water hardware or software. In chemistry, a buffer is a samples analyzed at the beginning, during, and at the solution that tends to maintain a constant value of end of an analytical run. They verify the calibration some parameter such as pH. of the system and measure instrument contamination Bulk sample - A sample taken from a larger quantity or carry-over. (lot) for analysis or recording purposes. Calibration curve - The graphical relationship Bulletin board system (BBS) - Computer configured between the known values for a series of calibration to answer the telephone and allow users to download standards and instrument responses. and upload software and leave messages. Largely Calibration drift - The difference between the made obsolete by the Internet. instrument response and a reference value after a Bus - The bus is the path data takes between the period of operation without recalibration. motherboard and adapter cards such as the video Calibration standard - A substance or reference display or drive controller cards. material used to calibrate an instrument. Byte - A byte is equal to 8 bits. The byte is the unit Calibration-check - See Calibrate. measure of file size and disk and RAM capacity on Calibration-check standard - See Calibration personal computers. standard. Callout box - A box on a map containing data, usually with a pointer to the appropriate location.

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Candidate method - A body of procedures and Central line - The line on a control chart that techniques of sample collection and/or analysis that is represents the expected value of the control chart submitted for approval as a reference method, an statistic; often the mean. See Control chart. equivalent method, or an alternative method. CERCLA - Comprehensive Environmental Carbonate - In geology, rock or soil made of calcite Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. Initiated (CaCO3) or dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2). In chemistry, in December 1980, CERCLA provided broad federal the CO3 ion. authority to respond directly to the release or possible Carcinogen - A substance that causes cancer. release of hazardous substances that may endanger human health or the environment. CERCLA also Carrying-agent - Any dilutent or matrix used to established a trust fund to provide for cleanup when entrain, dilute, or to act as a vehicle for a compound no responsible party could be identified; hence of interest. CERCLA is commonly referred to as “Superfund.” Cartesian coordinate system - Coordinates in which This legislation covers environmental issues at non- the X and Y axes are perpendicular and at the same operating facilities. scale. In mapping, examples of Cartesian coordinate CERCLIS - Comprehensive Environmental systems include state plane coordinates and universal Response, Compensation and Liability Information transverse Mercator. System (CERCLIS); CERCLIS is the official CAS number - Chemical Abstracts Service registry inventory database of Superfund hazardous waste number of elements, chemical compounds, and sites. It contains information about planned and certain mixtures. actual site activities and financial information entered Cat5 - Category 5 cable. Similar to standard by EPA regional offices. telephone wiring, but of higher quality, used for Certification - The process of testing and evaluation connecting computers and other devices. against specifications designed to document, verify, CATEX - CATegorical EXclusion. Outcome of the and recognize the competence of a person, NEPA process where an action is found to have no organization, or other entity to perform a function or significant effect on the environment. service usually for a specified time. See also Cause-effect diagram - A graphical representation Accreditation. of an effect and possible causes. A popular one is the Certification of Data Quality - The real-time Ishikawa “fish bone diagram.” attestation that the activities of an environmental data CCL - Construction Completions List. A list collection operation’s individual elements (e.g., developed under CERCLA that helps identify sampling design, sampling, sample handling, successful completion of cleanup activities. chemical analysis, data reduction, etc.) have been carried out in accordance with the operation’s CCS - Contract Compliance Screening. The requirements and that the results meet the defined screening of electronic and hard copy data quality criteria. deliverables for completeness and compliance with the contract. This screening is done under EPA Certified Reference Material (CRM) - A reference direction by the SMO Contractor. material that has one or more of its property values established by a technically valid procedure and is CCV - See Continuous Calibration Verification. accompanied by, or traceable to, a certificate or other CD-ROM - Compact Disk Read Only Memory. documentation issued by a certifying body. See Optical disks which are used to distribute large Certification and Reference Material. amounts of data. Can be read but not written to by a Certified value - The reported numerical quantity personal computer. that appears on a certificate for a property of a CDX - See Central Data Exchange. reference material. Ceiling plot - A two-dimensional contour plot that is CFC - Chlorofluorocarbon. projected above a three-dimensional mesh or floating CFR - Code of Federal Regulations. The final rules contour plot. These plots are usually created in of federal agencies published every year. mapping programs. Environmental regulations are codified in 40 CFR, Central Data Exchange - The point of entry on the and often other sections apply to environmental Environmental Information Exchange Network projects as well. (Exchange Network) for environmental data CGA - Color Graphics Adapter. Video adapter submissions to the Agency. introduced with the original IBM-PC with a maximum resolution of 640x200 pixels. 6

CGI - Common Gateway Interface. A technology Clean sample - A sample of a natural or synthetic that allows access to databases and programming matrix containing no detectable amount of the analyte capabilities using Web pages. It is popular on UNIX of interest and no interfering material. systems. Clipboard - An area of computer memory for Chain of custody - An unbroken trail of temporarily storing data copied or cut from a accountability that ensures the physical security of document, form, etc. to be pasted somewhere else. samples, data, and records. This is usually Clock calendar - Device which stores the correct accomplished with a paper form that travels with the time and date in a computer. This setting is not lost samples. when the computer is turned off. Clock calendars are Chance cause - An unpredictable, random standard on most computers. determinant of variation of a response in a sampling Clock speed - The speed of the microprocessor and or measurement operation. related components is known as the clock speed, and Characteristic - See Property. is usually expressed in megahertz, or millions of Check sample - An uncontaminated sample matrix cycles per second. spiked with known amounts of analytes usually from Cloud or cloud computing - Data storage and/or the same source as the calibration standards. It is software that is accessed through the Internet. The generally used to establish the stability of the actual location of the resources is determined by the analytical system but may also be used to assess the cloud service provider, and is not important to the performance of all or a portion of the measurement end user. system. See also Quality control sample. CLP - See Contract Laboratory Program. Check standard - A substance or reference material CMM - Capability Maturity Model. A framework for obtained from a source independent from the source organizing continuous process improvement into five of the calibration standard used to prepare check maturity levels geared toward achieving a mature samples. software process. Chi-square test - A statistical test of the agreement CMOS - Complimentary Metal Oxide between the observed frequency of events and the Semiconductor. A type of memory that can contain frequency expected according to some hypothesis. its information after the power is turned off. Chlorinated - A compound containing chlorine. CMYK - Description of a digital image in terms of Chloropleth map - Map where values are shown as the amount of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK. colors. See Bubble map. COC - See Chain of Custody Chromatograph - An analytical device that COD - Chemical Oxygen Demand. separates materials based on their relative rate of Coefficient of variation (CV) - a measure of relative movement through a gas or liquid. dispersion (precision.) It is equal to the ratio of the Chrome - Popular open-source web browser from standard deviation divided by the arithmetic mean. Google. See also Relative standard deviation. Chronic toxicity - The effect of low-level, long-term Cold boot - see Boot. (as opposed to short-term or acute) exposure to a Collaborative testing - The evaluation of an toxic substance. analytical method by typical or representative CLASS - Contract Laboratory Analytical Services laboratories using subsamples prepared from a Support. The contract that operates the Sample homogeneous standard sample. Management Office (SMO) and is awarded and Collocated sample - One of two or more administered by EPA. The contractor-operated SMO independent samples collected so that each is equally provides management, operations, and administrative representative for a given variable at a common space support to the CLP. The SMO contractor schedules and time. and tracks sample shipments for CLP analytical services requests. Collocated samplers - Two or more identical sample collection devices, located together in space and Classed post map - Map where values are shown as operated simultaneously, to supply a series of colors. See Bubble map. duplicate or replicate samples for estimating Clastic - Rock, such as sandstone, siltstone, or shale, precision of the total measurement system/process. made of mineral grains.

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Comparability - The degree to which different with control limit(s) and, usually, a central line and methods, data sets, and/or decisions agree or can be warning limit(s). See Central line, Control limit, represented as similar; a data quality indicator. and Warning limit. Compatibility - How well a hardware device or Control limit - A specified boundary on a control program mimics another, usually a better-known one. chart that, if exceeded, indicates a process is out of Completeness - The amount of valid data obtained statistical control, and the process must be stopped, compared to the planned amount, and usually and corrective action taken before proceeding (e.g., expressed as a percentage; a data quality indicator. for a Shewhart chart the control limits are the mean plus and minus three standard deviations, i.e., the Component of variance - A part of the total variance 99.72% confidence level on either side of the central associated with a specified source of variation. line.) Composite sample - A sample prepared by Control sample - See Quality control sample and physically combining two or more samples having Check sample. some specific relationship and processed to ensure homogeneity. See Flow-proportioned sample and Control standard - See Check standard. Time-proportioned sample. Controlled variable - A variable that is set at a pre- Cone penetrometer - A device driven into the selected level when a controlled experiment is ground to determine soil and rock properties. conducted. Confidence coefficient - The probability statement Controller - A controller is a piece of hardware that that accompanies a confidence interval and is equal controls a device in a computer such as a disk drive to unity minus the associated Type I error rate (false or monitor, or other type of hardware device such as positive rate). A confidence coefficient of 0.90 a pump. implies that 90% of the intervals resulting from Coordinate conversion - Changing coordinates from repeated sampling of a population will include the one system to another such as from latitude-longitude unknown (true) population parameter. See to Universal Transverse Mercator. Confidence interval. Coordinates - Two or three numbers that defines the Confidence interval - The numerical interval location of a point, such as a location on a map. constructed around a point estimate of a population Coordinates are related to a coordinate system, which parameter, combined with a probability statement defines the scale and units of the coordinates, such as (the confidence coefficient) linking it to the Cartesian (linear XY) or spherical (latitude- population’s true parameter value. If the same longitude). confidence interval construction technique and Coprocessor - Chip or board that works with the assumptions are used to calculate future intervals, microprocessor to perform some particular function they will include the unknown population parameter such as mathematical or graphical calculations. with the same specified probability. See Confidence Copy protection - System to prevent unauthorized coefficient. use of software. May involve hardware keys. Confining layer - An underground geologic unit Corrected value - The magnitude of a specific with a low permeability that inhibits the vertical flow measurement; a variable; a unit of space, time, or of water. See also Aquitard. quantity; or a datum after correction for a blank Connectivity - Communication between computers. value. See Observed value. Continuous calibration verification - A process Correlation - A measure of association between two using laboratory standards to ensure that the analysis variables. See also Correlation coefficient. process is in calibration. Correlation coefficient - A number between -1 and Contour - The shape of a surface. Also a line of 1 that indicates the degree of linearity between two equal value on a graph or map. variables or sets of numbers. The closer to -1 or +1, Contract Laboratory Program - A program that the stronger the linear relationship between the two supports the EPA’s Superfund effort by providing a (i.e., the better the correlation). Values close to zero range of chemical analytical services to produce suggest no correlation between the two variables. environmental data of known quality. This program Corrosivity - A substance’s ability to corrode metals. is directed by the Analytical Operations/Data Quality Cost recovery - A legal process by which potentially Center of EPA. responsible parties who contributed to contamination Control chart - A graph of some measurement at a Superfund site can be required to reimburse the plotted over time or sequence of sampling, together Trust Fund for money spent during any cleanup 8 actions by the federal government. Can also refer to a minute transmittal of the CCS and CADRE process of recovering funds from a government evaluation data to DLP customers. agency for approved cleanup activities. Data - Facts or figures from which conclusions can COTS - Commercial Off-the-Shelf software. be inferred. Also collection of letters, numbers, and Coverage - In GIS, data of a specific type such as other information elements stored in a computer. The transportation or drainage, and the area covered by word data can be either singular or plural depending that data. See also Theme and Layer. on personal preference. CPU - Central Processing Unit, referring to the Data assessment tool - A software-driven process, computer, or the chip that runs it. which incorporates CCS, CADRE, and DART, designed to produce enhanced CLP deliverables and CRDL - Contract Required Detection Limit. more usable reports in a standard format. Minimum level of detection acceptable under the contract Statement of Work. Data cube - Data structured in multiple dimensions for data mining. Critical-toxicity range - The interval between the highest concentration at which all test organisms Data mart - Data extracted from the main database survive and the lowest concentration at which all test with a focus on one particular task such as display. organisms die within the test period. Data mining - Analysis of a data warehouse using Crosstab - Data display showing rows and columns specialized tools to look at the data in various ways summarizing data. A typical crosstab environmental for trends and details. report might have samples across and parameters Data model - A description of the structure of a down, or vice versa. database, including the tables and fields, CRP - Community Relations Plan. relationships, etc. CRQL - Contract Required Quantitation Limit. Data normalization -See Normalization. Minimum level of quantitation acceptable under the Data quality - The totality of features and contract Statement of Work. characteristics of data that determines their ability to CRT - Cathode Ray Tube. The TV-like video satisfy a given purpose; the sum of the degrees of monitor used with some computers, now mostly excellence for factors related to data. replaced by flat panel displays. Data quality indicators - Quantitative statistics and Curie - Measurement of an amount of radiation qualitative descriptors that are used to interpret the equivalent to the activity of 1 gram of the radium degree of acceptability or utility of data to the user. isotope 226Ra. See Picocurie. The principal data quality indicators are bias, precision, accuracy, comparability, completeness, Cursor - A cursor is a place marker on a monitor, or and representativeness. a pointing device used for digitizers. Data Quality Objective (DQO) - Qualitative and Cursor keys - Cursor keys are the arrow keys on the quantitative statements of the overall level of keyboard that move the cursor. uncertainty that a decision maker is willing to accept Curve fitting - Using some type of equation to fit a in results or decisions derived from environmental sequence of data. Choosing different equations can data. DQOs provide the statistical framework for lead to different interpretations. planning and managing environmental data CVAA - Cold Vapor Atomic Absorption. operations consistent with the data user’s needs. CWA - Clean Water Act. Data reduction - The process of transforming raw CZMA - Coastal Zone Management Act. data by arithmetic or statistical calculations, standard curves, concentration factors, etc., and collation into D a more useful form. Data set - All the observed values for the samples in Daily standard - See Calibration standard. a test or study; a group of data collected under similar Daisywheel printer - Impact printers that use a conditions and which, therefore, can be analyzed as a printwheel to generate output. While they cannot whole. print graphics, daisy wheels produce text output of Data turnaround time - See Turnaround time. excellent quality but are slow and noisy. Mostly Data validation - Determination of suitability for replaced by inkjet printers. use, based on EPA region-defined criteria and limits, DART - Data Assessment Rapid Transmittal. DART professional judgment of the data validator, and (if is an active notification system providing up-to-the- 9 available) the Quality Assurance Project Plan Dilutent - A substance added to another to reduce the (QAPP) and Sampling and Analysis Plan (SAP). concentration and resulting in a homogeneous end Data warehouse - A centralized database with all of product without chemically altering the compound of the data of a particular type for an organization. interest. Database - A collection of related information. Dilution factor - The numerical value obtained from dividing the new volume of a diluted substance by its Database administrator - A person tasked with original volume. maintaining a database system. DIMM - Dual Inline Memory Module. A group of Database manager - Software that organizes a RAM chips attached to both sides of a carrier and database into a usable format. installed as a unit. Daughterboard - A small printed circuit board DIP switch - Dual Inline Parallel switch. Commonly attached to a larger one, usually to add some used to configure hardware. additional capability. Direct push sampling or measurement - Samples DBCP - 1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane. Pesticide. or measurements taken by pushing a tool or probe DCE - 1,1-Dichloroethylene. Volatile organic into the ground. contaminant. Directory - Group of files kept together by the DDT - Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Pesticide. operating system. Sometimes also called folders. See Decontamination blank - See Sampling equipment Subdirectory. blank. Discharge Monitoring Report - A report, usually to Default - Value used when no value is specified. a government agency, of the amount and composition Defensible - The ability to withstand any reasonable of discharge over a specific period of time. challenge related to the veracity or integrity of Disk cache - See Cache. laboratory documents and derived data. Diskette - Floppy disk removable data storage Degrees of freedom - The total number of items in a device. sample, minus the number of independent Diskette drive - Largely obsolete device for reading relationships existing among them; the divisor used and writing diskettes. to calculate a variance term; in the simplest cases, it Display adapter - Circuitry that translates the is one less than the number of observations. electronic signal from the computer into the signal Dependent variable - See Response variable. that feeds the monitor. These adapters come in Detection limit (DL) - The lowest concentration or different resolutions. amount of the target analyte that can be determined to DLG - Digital Line Graph is a specialized data be different from zero by a single measurement at a format used for geographic, cultural, and other data. stated level of probability. DLL - Dynamic Link Library. A way for programs to Determination - The application of the complete link software code at runtime. analytical process of measuring the property of DMR - See Discharge Monitoring Report. interest in a sample, from selecting or measuring a test portion to the reporting of results. DNAPL - Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid. A fluid that doesn’t mix with water, and sinks because it is Device driver - Device drivers are small programs dense. Examples include chlorinated hydrocarbons that set up the communication parameters between such as TCE, TCA, and PCE, coal tar, creosote, the computer or software programs and devices such polychlorinated biphenyls, and mercury. as monitors, disk drives, printers, plotters, or digitizers. Document control - A systematic procedure for indexing documents by number, date, and revision Dilution - Reducing a sample to a lower number for archiving, storage, and retrieval. concentration, usually by adding water. Sometimes necessary to effectively analyze high-concentration Document Type Definition - A set of markup samples due to matrix interference. declarations that define a document type for an SGML-family markup language (SGML, XML, Digitizer - Input devices that put graphic information HTML). into a computer. They consist of a handheld position sensor (stylus or cursor), a tablet, and sophisticated DoD - Department of Defense. electronics. DoE - Department of Energy. Formerly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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DOS - Disk Operating System. More specifically Duplicate samples - Two samples taken from and refers to PC-DOS and MS-DOS used by IBM- representative of the same population and carried compatible computers. Largely obsolete, replaced by through all steps of the sampling and analytical Microsoft Windows. procedures in an identical manner. Duplicate samples DoT - Department of Transportation. are used to assess variance of the total method including sampling and analysis. See Collocated Dot matrix printer - Dot matrix printers are impact sample. printers. They generate output when pins in the printhead strike a ribbon that transfers the DW - Drinking Water. information to paper. Largely replaced by inkjet DVD - Digital Video Disk. Also used for data printers. storage. Dot pitch - The smallest circle that can be drawn DXF - Drawing Exchange Files have a .dxf extension around all of the color dots making up one pixel. The and are used to communicate between graphics smaller the number, the sharper the appearance on the programs. Although .dxf files were first used by monitor. AutoCAD, many graphics packages will handle .dxf Double-blind sample - A sample submitted to directly or through a converter. These files are ASCII evaluate performance with concentration and identity text files. unknown to the analyst. See Blind sample. Dynamic blank - A sample-collection material or Download - Move data from another computer or device (e.g., filter or reagent solution) that is not network to yours. Opposite of Upload. exposed to the material to be selectively captured but is transported and processed in the same manner as DPI - Dots per Inch; used for describing printer, the sample. See Instrument blank and Sampling scanner, and screen resolutions. equipment blank. DQA - Data Quality Assessment. The third part of Dynamic calibration - Standardization of both the the EPA data verification/validation process that measurement and collection systems using a determines the credibility of the data. reference material similar to the unknown. For DQO - Data Quality Objective. Quality targets for a example, a series of air-mixture standards containing project. The EPA specifies five levels. sulfur dioxide of known concentrations could be used DRAM - Dynamic Random-Access Memory. The to calibrate a sulfur dioxide bubbler system. most common type of memory chip used in personal computers. E DRO - Diesel Range Organics. EA - See Environmental Assessment. Drylabbing - Fraudulent laboratory practice of Easting - The east-west direction on a map. failing to analyze data and then fabricating the results. EBCDIC - Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code. While most computers speak DSL - Digital subscriber line broadband ASCII, a few, especially some IBM mainframes, use communication connection. EBCDIC. It is a different way of encoding data, and DTD - See Document Type Definition. both methods work, but in situations where machines DTS - Data Transfer Standard. Document describing using the two different encoding schemes must be the format for electronic data deliverables. made to talk to each other, the translation required Duplicate - An adjective describing the taking of a can cause a problem. second sample, or performance of a second ECD - Electron Capture Detector. In measurement or determination. Often incorrectly pesticide/aroclor analysis, the compounds are used as a noun and substituted for “duplicate detected by an electron capture detector. sample.” Replicate is to be used if there are more EDB - Ethylene dibromide. Volatile organic than two items. See Replicate. contaminant. Duplicate analyses or measurements - The analyses EDD - Electronic Data Deliverable. This is the file or measurements of the variable of interest performed delivered by the laboratory containing the results of identically on two subsamples of the same sample. its analyses. The results from duplicate analyses are used to Edge - Web browser from Microsoft. evaluate analytical or measurement precision but not the precision of sampling, preservation, or storage Edit - Change the contents of a file such as a internal to the laboratory. document or drawing. 11

EDMS - Environmental Data Management System. EPA - United States Environmental Protection A software program for managing environmental Agency. data. See EMS and EMIS. EPCRA - Emergency Planning and Community EEPROM - Electrically Erasable Programmable Right-to-Know Act of 1986. This law requires Read-Only Memory. industrial facilities to disclose information about EIMS - Web-based data management system for chemicals stored onsite. Locus Technologies. EPROM - Electronically Programmable Read-Only EIS - See Environmental Impact Statement. Memory. ELCD - Electrolytic Conductivity Detector. Equipment rinseates - See Rinseate blank. EMIS - Environmental Management Information EQuIS - Data management system from Earthsoft. System. A software program to assist with an Equivalent method - Any method of sampling environmental management system. See EDMS and and/or analysis demonstrated to result in data having EMS. a consistent and quantitatively known relationship to EMS- Environmental Management System. An the results obtained with a reference method under administrative system for managing environmental specified conditions, and formally recognized by the issues at a facility. See EDMS and EMIS. EPA. Emulator - Hardware or software which is designed ERIS - See Environmental Restoration to work like or take the place of some other type of Information System. device. ERPIMS - Environmental Resources Program Entity-relationship diagram - Diagram showing the Information Management System (formerly tables, fields, and relationships in a relational IRPIMS). The Air Force system for validation and database. management of data from environmental projects at all Air Force bases. Enviro Data- Popular environmental data management software from Geotech Computer ERPTools - Software used with ERPIMS. Systems. Error (measurement) - The difference between an Enviro Insite - Geologic graphics program from observed or corrected value of a variable and a Earthsoft. specified, theoretically correct, or true value. Enviro Spase - Popular GIS-based environmental Error function - The mathematical relationship of graphics software from Geotech Computer Systems. the results obtained from the measurement of one or more properties and the error of the applied Environmental Assessment (EA) - Screening measurement process. See Normal distribution. document used to determine whether a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is required. ESA - Endangered Species Act. An EA can also result in a Finding of No Significant ESdat - Data management system from Australia. Impact (FONSI). Ethernet - A system for connecting a number of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) - A computer systems to form a local area network, with document prepared to assist with decision making protocols to control the passing of information. based on the environmental consequences of a Ex situ - Out of place, such as occurring out of the specific action. ground. Ex-situ treatment processes involve removal Environmental Restoration Information System - of the contaminated material from the ground prior to A web-based database system run by the U.S Army treatment. Environmental Center for the storage of Army Exchange Network - Environmental Information environmental restoration and range field data. Exchange Network. A partnership among states, Environmental sample - A sample of any material territories, tribes, and the USEPA to exchange that is collected from an environmental source. environmental information. Environmentally related measurement - Any Expansion slots - Places in the computer where assessment of environmental concern generated adapter cards can be inserted to increase the through or for: field, laboratory, or modeling computer's capabilities. processes; the value obtained from such an Experimental variable - See Controlled variable. assessment. Export - To transfer a file out from one program to EO - Executive Order. another is to export a file. EOX - Extractable Organic Halides. 12

Extension - The extension is the three-letter (or and laboratory procedures. The frequency of these more) suffix after the period in a file name. Examples spikes is project specific. of extensions include .doc for Word document files FIFRA - Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and or .dxf for drawing exchange files. Rodenticide Act of 1972. Provides federal control of External quality control - The activities that are pesticide distribution, sale, and use. EPA is routinely initiated and performed by persons outside authorized to study the consequences of pesticide of normal operations to assess the capability and usage and to require users such as farmers and utility performance of a measurement process. companies to register when purchasing pesticides, Extrapolate - Estimate values beyond the limit of the and to take exams for certification as applicators of data. pesticides, and pesticides used in the U.S. must be registered (licensed) by EPA. F File - Cohesive unit of data stored by a computer. Can be either a program or a data file. Facebook - Social networking site. Filtering - Removing suspended material by passing False negative decision - See Type II error. through a filter, either in the field or in the laboratory. False negative result - Estimating (incorrectly) that Results from unfiltered samples are often referred to an analyte is not present when it actually is present. as “Total” results, and from filtered samples, either False positive decision - See Type I error. filtered, or filtered followed by the coarseness of the filter, such as “Filtered 0.01 µ.” False positive result - Estimating (incorrectly) that an analyte is present when it actually is not present. Firefox - Mozilla Firefox is a popular open-source web browser. FAT - The File Allocation Table is the data area on a computer disk that tells the operating system where FireWire - IEEE 1394 high-speed serial interface for to find each file on the disk. Because of its connecting peripherals to computers. importance, there are two FATs on every disk. Fixed disk drive - See Hard disk. Fault - A break in rocks or an error in equipment. Flash drive - Small solid-state device, usually with a Feasibility study - A description and analysis of USB interface, for data transfer and storage. potential cleanup alternatives for a site such as one on Flat file - A file containing text data in rows and the National Priorities List. The feasibility study columns. usually recommends selection of a cost-effective Flat panel display - Computer monitor or other alternative. It usually starts as soon as the remedial display with digital components such as LCD or LED investigation is under way. Together, they are technology. commonly referred to as the “RI/FS.” Floaters - See LNAPL. FID - Flame Ionization Detector. Floating contours - Floating contours are also Field - Data elements within a database table. known as constant Z plots. A topographic map Field blank - A clean sample (e.g., distilled water), transformed into three-dimensions is an example of a carried to the sampling site, exposed to sampling floating contour map. conditions (e.g., bottle caps removed, preservatives Floating point number - An approximation of a real added) and returned to the laboratory and treated as number that supports a wide range of values, usually an environmental sample. Field blanks are used to by storing a fixed number of significant digits, called check for analytical artifacts and/or background the mantissa, scaled using an exponent. introduced by sampling and analytical procedures. Floating point processor - Math coprocessor. See Dynamic blank and Sampling equipment blank. FLOPS - FLoating point Operations Per Second; a measure of processor speed. Field duplicates - See Duplicate samples. Flow rate - The quantity-per-unit time of a substance Field reagent blank - See Field blank. passing a point, plane, or space; for example, the Field sample - See Sample. volume or mass of gas or liquid emerging from an Field sample spikes - Samples that have been spiked orifice, pump, or turbine, or moving through a point with known amounts of target analytes in the field in a conduit or channel. prior to shipment to the laboratory. These are Flow-proportioned sample - A sample or subsample submitted as double-blind quality control samples to collected from a fluid system at a rate that produces a measure the recovery of target analytes for both field

13 constant ratio of sample accumulation to matrix flow Functional analysis - A mathematical evaluation of rate. each component of the measurement system Folder - Group of files kept together by the operating (sampling and analysis) in order to quantify the error system. Sometimes also called directories or for each component. A functional analysis is usually subdirectories. performed prior to a ruggedness test in order to determine which variables should be studied FONSI - Finding of No Significant Impact. One of experimentally. the possible outcomes of an Environmental Assessment. FUSRAP - Formally Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. Font - Style of character as printed or viewed on the screen, currently meaning the same thing as typeface, although in letterpress printing the typeface referred G to the style of the characters, and font also included Gaussian distribution - See Normal distribution. the point size. Courier, Times Roman, Helvetica, and GC - Gas Chromatograph. The instrument used to Arial are examples of different fonts. Individual fonts separate analytes on a stationary phase within a come in a variety of sizes. chromatographic column. Gas chromatography is Form R - Form submitted to the EPA for the Toxics frequently used with other instruments for analyzing Release Inventory to report toxic materials entering organic compounds. the waste stream, recycled or treated at a facility, GC/MS - Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometry. source reduction practices, and other items. Geodetic coordinate system - Coordinates where the Format - With disks, preparing the disk to hold data. position is given as location on the globe. For data files, the arrangement of data within the file. Geometric mean - The antilogarithm of the mean of Formation - In geology, a mappable lithologic unit. the logarithms of all the values in a set. A type of Fortify - Synonym for spike. average. FORTRAN - FORmula TRANslator. Programming GeoTIFF - File storage format for digital images that language popular for numerical calculations. contains geographic reference data. FPD - Flame Photometric Detector. Georeference - The process of assigning a map Fracking - Hydraulic fracturing of an oil or gas well location to an object. to stimulate production. GFAAS - See Graphite furnace atomic absorption Fragmentation - When data is broken into parts. spectrophotometry. Often used to describe files on a hard disk which are GIF - Graphic Interchange File, a format developed not contiguous. by CompuServe for storing digital image files. Frame relay - Medium-speed communication Gigabyte - About one billion bytes, abbreviated as connection. GB. French drain - A trench covered with gravel or rock GINT - Popular log creation program from Bentley or containing a perforated pipe that redirects surface Systems, formerly GINT Software. and groundwater away from an area. This can be GIS - Geographic Information Systems are used for useful for managing contaminated surface or identifying and manipulating spatial or other groundwater. attributes on a map. FS - Feasibility study. GIS/Key - Environmental data management system FSP - Field Sampling Plan. from GIS/Solutions. FUDS - Formerly Used Defense Sites. GL - Graphics Language. FUDSCHEM - Corps of Engineers database to GLP - See Good laboratory practices. support the FUDS program. GML - Geography Markup Language. A protocol for Full-scale response - The maximum output of a transferring geographic data over the Web. measurement instrument in a given range as Good laboratory practices - Either general displayed on a meter or scale. guidelines or formal regulations for performing basic Function key - The F1, F2, etc. keys on a computer laboratory operations or activities that are known or keyboard are the function keys. The functions believed to influence the quality and integrity of the assigned to these keys vary with software. results.

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Goodness-of-fit - The measure of agreement Halogen - A group of elements that includes fluorine, between the data in a data set and the expected or chlorine, bromine, or iodine. These elements are hypothesized values. commonly found in pairs, such as Cl2. Google - Web search and technology company. HAP - Hazardous Air Pollutant. Google Earth - Desktop program for displaying Hard copy - Paper printout of text or graphic data. maps. Hard disk - A hard disk is a storage device that Google Maps - Web-based map display system from consists of one or more metal platters coated with Google. magnetic oxide. Sizes vary from 10 to 100 GB or GPS - Global Positioning System. A hardware device more. or component of another device such as phone or Hard disk controller - Interface between a computer camera for determining geologic locations from and a hard disk. satellite signals. Hardware - The physical components of a computer Grab sample - A single sample that is collected at system. one point in time and place. HASP - Health and Safety Plan. Grapher - Popular graphing program from Golden Hazardous waste site - A site contaminated with Software. substances that can pose a substantial or potential Graphics adapter - See Video adapter. hazard to human health or the environment. Graphics coprocessor - A chip that takes over HAZMAT - HAZardous MATerials. graphics operations, freeing the microprocessor to HAZWOPER - Hazardous Waste Operations and run the computer. Emergency Response. Graphics program - Software for creating graphics. HAZWRAP - HAZardous Waste Remedial Action Types include paint programs, graphing and charting Plan. programs, and CAD programs. Head - Parts of a disk drive that read and write the Graphite furnace atomic absorption data. The more heads, the larger the capacity of the spectrophotometry - A type of spectrometry that disk drive. Also, pressure exerted by groundwater. uses a graphite-coated furnace to vaporize the Head crash - Failure of a disk drive where the head sample. contacts the disk. Usually results in loss of data and Gravimetric analysis - A set of methods in damage to the drive. analytical chemistry for the quantitative Head parking - The capability of some disk drives to determination of an analyte based on the mass of a move the heads to an area of the disk that does not solid. contain data when the computer is turned off. Gray-scale - Refers to the number of levels of gray Heavy metal - A group of toxic metallic elements which a device can display or print. that includes arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, Grid - A grid is a mathematical representation of a lead, mercury, silver, and zinc. surface based on data point values. Different HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface. algorithms create different grids from the same data Connection standard for video devices. points. It can also refer to a sampling technique in which samples are taken at the nodes of a regular Health Insurance Portability and Accountability grid. Act - This act protects health insurance coverage for workers, requires national standards for electronic GRO - Gasoline Range Organics. health care transactions, and regulates the use and Gross sample - See Bulk sample. disclosure of protected health information. HIPAA GTTP -Geographic Text Transfer Protocol. A must be taken into consideration on projects that transfer protocol at the same level as HTTP involve individual health data. (HyperText Transfer Protocol) for transferring Heavy metals - A loosely defined subset of elements geographic data. that exhibit metallic properties, mainly including the transition metals, some metalloids, lanthanides, and H actinides. Hachure - Tic marks on contour lines or a pattern HECD - Hall Electrolytic Conductivity Detector. filling an area usually indicating the low side of the Hexadecimal - Hexadecimal number system is a contour. base-16 system used in many computers. Numbers

15 are represented by the digits 0 to 9 and the letters A screen is redrawn from top to bottom. A larger to F. number means a more stable looking image (less HIPAA - See Health Insurance Portability and flicker). Accountability Act. Hits - Results that either were detected (detection I hits) or were outside of some limit (exceedence hits). Icon - Graphical symbol representing a command or HMIS - Hazardous Materials Identification System. choice in a menu system. A system of colored bars that provide health warning ICP/AES - Inductively Coupled Plasma/Atomic information. HMIS labels cover, starting at the top: Emission Spectroscopy. A technique for the health, flammability, reactivity, and personal simultaneous or sequential multi-element protection. Other areas may be included as well. See determination of elements in solution. also NFPA, which is meant primarily for fire fighters ICP/MS - Inductively Coupled Plasma/Mass and other emergency personnel. Spectrometry. Holding time - Time from sampling to analysis. IDL - Instrument Detection Limit. Different methods have different holding times that may include other times such as extraction. IEEE 1394 - See FireWire. Homogeneity - The degree of uniformity of structure Ignitability - Tendency to cause fires. or composition. ILM04.1 - Inorganic analytical protocol. HPGL - Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language is a Import - Transferring a file into a program from language to direct pen and paper handling for another location or format. plotters. It is used by Hewlett-Packard and other In control - A condition indicating that performance manufacturers. of the quality control system is within the specified HPLC - High Performance Liquid Chromatography. control limits, i.e., that a stable system of chance is HRS - Hazard Ranking System. A numerically based operating and resulting in statistical control. See screening system that uses information from initial, Control chart. limited investigations to assess the relative potential In situ - In place. Cleanup contaminants where they of sites to pose a threat to human health or the are found, without excavation or pumping. environment. HRS is the principal mechanism EPA Independent variable - See Controlled variable. uses to place uncontrolled waste sites on the National Inkjet printer - A device which prints by shooting Priorities List (NPL). droplets of ink at the paper. Currently the most HSWA - Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments. popular type of printer. 1984 amendments to RCRA that required phasing out Inorganic - Substances that contain elements other land disposal of hazardous waste. than carbon and hydrogen, such as metals and HTML - HyperText Markup Language. Language nutrients. used by most Web pages on the Internet. Inspection criterion - The specification(s) and HW - Hazardous Waste. rationale for rejecting and accepting samples in a Hydrocarbons - Organic compounds containing particular sampling plan. carbon and hydrogen found in petroleum, natural gas, Institutional controls - Legal or institutional and coal. measures that limit activities at a property to ensure HydroGeo Analyst - Data management and display protection of human health and the environment. software from Schlumberger Water Services. Instrument blank - A clean sample processed Hydrogeology - The science that studies through the instrumental steps of the measurement groundwater, including its origin, occurrence, process; used to determine instrument contamination. movement, and quality. See Dynamic blank. Hydrology - The science that studies the properties, Instrument carryover blank - Laboratory reagent movement, and effects of water found above and water samples that are analyzed after a high-level below the earth’s surface. sample. These blanks measure instrument Hypertext - A software system that links topics on contamination, and are analyzed as needed when the screen to related information and graphics. highly concentrated samples are analyzed. Hz - Hertz or cycles per second. For monitors, used for the vertical scan rate, or the rate at which the 16

Interference - A positive or negative effect on a included in normal internal procedures to control the measurement caused by a variable other than the one accuracy and precision of measurements. being investigated. IO - Input-Output. An IO card is an adapter card that Interference equivalent - The mass or concentration adds one or more input-output ports to the computer. of a foreign substance which gives the same IO bandwidth - Rate at which a device such as a measurement response as one unit of mass or computer can input and output data. concentration of the substance being measured. Ion - An atom that has lost or gained one or more Interlaboratory calibration - The process, electrons, resulting in a positive or negative charge. procedures, and activities for standardizing a given Ion balance - A calculation comparing cations to measurement system to ensure that laboratories anions in a solution. participating in the same program can produce comparable data. IP address - Internet Protocol address. Set of numbers used to address a device on the Internet, Interlaboratory method validation study (IMVS) - such as 192.65.45.37. The formal study of a sampling and/or analytical method, conducted with replicate, representative iPad - Tablet computer from Apple. matrix samples, following a specific study protocol IPv6 - The latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP) and utilizing a specific written method, by a that includes many more addresses. minimum of seven laboratories, for the purpose of IPS - Inches Per Second is a measure of speed. estimating interlaboratory precision, bias, and Usually used for plotters and tape drives. analytical interferences. IR - Infrared. Also used for infrared Interlaboratory precision - A measure of the spectrophotometry. variation, usually given as the standard deviation, IRDMIS - Installation Restoration Data Management among the test results from independent laboratories Information System. A system that supports the participating in the same test. technical and managerial requirements of the Army’s Interlaboratory test - A test performed by two or Installation Restoration Program (IRP) and other more laboratories on the same material for the environmental efforts of the U.S. Army purpose of assessing the capabilities of an analytical Environmental Center. method or for comparing different methods. IRIS - Integrated Risk Information System. An Interlaced - For video displays, interlacing means electronic database of EPA regulatory information that alternate scan lines are drawn on each redraw. about chemical constituents. This allows higher resolution at a lower bandwidth. For interlaced system memory, alternate banks of ISCO - In-Situ Chemical Oxidation. Use of oxidizing RAM are accessed successively to minimize wait agents such as hydrogen peroxide, catalysts, etc. to states for the microprocessor. remove organic pollutants. ISO - International Standard Organization. An Internal quality control - See Intralaboratory organization that develops standards. Standards quality control. applicable to environmental work include ISO 9001 Internal standard - A standard added to a test for quality management systems, ISO 14001 for portion of a sample in a known amount and carried environmental management systems, ISO 17025 for through the entire determination procedure as a laboratory testing and calibration, and ISO 17043 reference for calibration and controlling the precision addressing environmental competence of and bias of the applied analytical method. organizations performing laboratory testing. Interpolate - Establish an intermediate value ISO image - A file containing the contents of an between two points of known value. optical disc, such as the setup disk for software. Intralaboratory precision - A measure of the Isopach - A line on a map representing equal method/sample specific analytical variation within a thickness, such as of a geologic formation. laboratory; usually given as the standard deviation Isopleth - A line of equal value (contour) on a graph estimated from the results of duplicate/replicate or map. analyses. See also Standard deviation and Sample variance. IT - Information Technology. Often companies have Intralaboratory quality control - The routine a group with this name (or IS for Information Solutions or Services) to provide technology activities and checks, such as periodic calibrations, solutions for the rest of the company. duplicate analyses, and spiked samples, that are

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J of the instrument system against defined performance criteria. Java - A programming language from Sun Microsystems often used for web programming. A Laboratory re-analyses - See Replicate analysis or reduced version is called JavaScript. measurements. Joint and several liability - A legal concept that Laboratory reference file - A file created by data allows responsibility to be placed regardless of the management software to communicate valid values amount of damage caused by each PRP. One PRP and other data items from the user to the laboratory therefore can be held liable for the entire cost of for consistency checking. cleanup. Laboratory replicates - See Replicate analysis or JPG or JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group. A measurements. file format for digital images. Laboratory sample - A subsample of a field, bulk, Juicing - Fraudulent laboratory practice of or batch sample selected for laboratory analysis. manipulating the sample prior to analysis by Laboratory spiked blank - See Spiked reagent fortification with additional analyte. blank. Laboratory spiked sample - See Spiked sample. K Lambert projection - Method of representing Key field - A data field that identifies a record, and spherical coordinates (latitude-longitude) on a flat that may also share a relationship with other tables. map using a cylinder parallel to the polar axis. Keyboard - A keyboard is the most common input LAN - Local Area Network. A way of connecting device for all types of computers. The most popular several computers together. one has a layout similar to that of a typewriter. Landscape orientation - A device or printout where kHz - Kilohertz or thousands of cycles per second. the horizontal axis is longer than the vertical axis. For monitors, used for the horizontal scan rate, or the The opposite of portrait. rate at which the horizontal lines of pixels are drawn Landfill - A land disposal site for solid wastes. on the screen. A larger number allows higher Laptop - Small, battery-operated computer. resolution. Laser printer - Laser printers provide very fast, Kilobyte - About 1000 bytes (actually, 1024), high-quality output using a laser and a toner abbreviated KB. cartridge. KML - Keystone Markup Language. XML-based Layer - In GIS, data of a specific type such as language used for providing data to Google Maps. transportation or drainage. See also Coverage and Kruskall-Wallace test - A statistical test that Theme. determines the trend of a set of data that works when LC - Liquid Chromatography. the data doesn’t fit a normal distribution. LCD - Liquid crystal display - a type of technology Kurtosis - A measure of the peakedness of the for computer monitors and other displays. probability distribution of a variable, that is, how LCS - Laboratory Control Standard or Laboratory much the tails are cut off. Control Sample. LDAR - Leak Detection and Repair. An EPA L program under the Clean Air Act that requires Laboratory accreditation - See Accredited refineries to develop and implement a program to laboratory and Accreditation. monitor for and repair leaks. Laboratory blank - See Reagent blank. LDC - Legacy Data Center. Older EPA system for Laboratory control sample - See Quality control managing water quality information. sample. LDR - Land Disposal Restrictions. The EPA’s LDR Laboratory control standard - See Quality control program works to minimize potential environmental sample. threats resulting from land disposal of hazardous wastes by establishing hazardous waste protocol and Laboratory duplicates - Synonym for duplicate treatment requirements that make the waste safe for analyses. land disposal. Laboratory performance check solution - A Leachate - A liquid, possibly containing solution of method and surrogate analytes and contaminants, resulting from water moving through internal standards used to evaluate the performance 18 material such as hazardous waste or a landfill. Also Lot - A number of units of an article or a parcel of can be generated from an environmental sample. See articles offered as one item; commonly, one of the TCLP and SPLP. units, such as a sample of a substance under study. Leaching - The chemical and physical process by See Batch. which chemicals are dissolved and moved through Lot size - The number of units in a particular lot. See the soil or other matrix by water or other fluids. Batch lot and Batch size. Least squares method - A technique for estimating Lower control limit - See Control limit. model coefficients which minimizes the sum of the Lower warning limit - See Warning limit. squares of the differences between each observed LQAP - Laboratory Quality Assurance Plan. value and its corresponding predicted value derived from the assumed model. LSE - Liquid-Solid Extraction. LED - Light Emitting Diode - a digital device that LUFT, LUST - Leaking Underground Fuel Tank, emits light, sometimes used in computer monitor and Leaking Underground Storage Tank. other display technology. Level logger - A tool for measuring water levels. M Light pen - Pen-shaped device for pointing to the Macintosh - Family of computers from Apple. All screen. Used for drawing and menu selection. feature a graphical user interface using a mouse. Limit of detection (LOD) - See Method detection Widely used in graphic arts and prepress, but rarely limit. in technical computing. Limit of quantification (LOQ) - The concentration Macro - A few keystrokes that represent many of analyte in a specific matrix for which the keystrokes and/or operations. Many programs probability of producing analytical values above the provide a macro language to automate operations. method detection limit is 99%. Mainframe - Large computer designed to handle LIMS - Laboratory Information Management many users and tasks at once. System. This is software that takes data from Maintenance agreement - An agreement with a laboratory instruments, performs calculations, and hardware or software manufacturer where any service creates electronic data deliverables. is paid for in advance or over time. Linearity - The degree of agreement between the Management systems review - The qualitative calibration curve of a method and a straight-line assessment of a data collection operation and/or assumption. organization(s) to establish whether the prevailing LinkedIn - Social networking site for business. quality management structure, practices, and procedures are adequate for ensuring that the type Linux - An open-source (pretty much free) version of and quality of data needed and expected are obtained. the UNIX operating system for PCs. Named after See Review and Audit. Linus Torvalds, who wrote the original version. Linux is increasing in popularity, especially for Management Zone Analyst - Software from the Internet applications such as Web servers. Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. MZA uses quantitative, LISP - LISt Processor. A programming language georeferenced field information to mathematically sometimes used for artificial intelligence. divide a field into natural clusters or zones and also LLE - Liquid-Liquid Extraction. helps determine the optimum number of management LNAPL - Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid. A fluid zones for each field. that doesn’t mix with water, and floats because it is Mann-Kendall test - A statistical test that less dense. Examples include gasoline and oil. determines the trend of a set of data that works when Logarithm - The exponent to which a number (base) the data doesn’t fit a normal distribution. A variety is must be raised to produce a given number. Typical Seasonal Kendall, where the data set is partitioned values for the base are 10 and e, the base of natural into seasons, and the test is run on each set and then logarithms (2.71828…). combined. Lognormal distribution - Distribution of data values Mapwindow - Popular open-source geographic where the logarithm of the values forms a normal information system software. distribution. Math coprocessor - A chip that takes over LogPlot - Log creation program from RockWare. mathematical operations, freeing the microprocessor to run the computer. 19

Matrix - A specific type of medium (e.g., surface Medium blank - See Field blank and Reagent water, drinking water) in which the analyte of interest blank. may be contained. See Medium. Megabyte - About one million bytes, abbreviated Matrix interference - Sample characteristics, such MB. as high concentration of a non-target analyte, that Megahertz - Millions of cycles per second. For interfere with the test method execution such that monitors, computer systems, or microprocessors, the reliable data cannot be generated. Often the solution rate at which instructions are executed or data is is dilution. transferred. A larger number means faster processing, Matrix spike - See Spiked sample. but the processing rate also depends on the type of Matrix spike duplicate - A duplicate of a matrix processor and the number of bits being transferred at spike, used to measure the laboratory precision one time. between samples. Usually one matrix spike duplicate Memory - Chips used in a computer for short-term is analyzed per sample batch. Percent differences handling of data. See RAM. between matrix spikes and matrix spike duplicates Memory cache - See Cache. can be calculated. Menu - Screen that presents a list of choices to the Matrix spike duplicate sample analysis - See user. Matrix, Duplicate analyses, and Spiked sample. Mesh plot - Graphical display consisting of three- Maximum contaminant level - The highest dimensional plots with constant X value and constant permissible concentration of a pollutant that may be Y value lines at specified intervals. delivered to any receptor. Metadata - Data about data. A description of the Maximum holding time - The length of time a content of a data set is the metadata for that data set. sample can be kept under specified conditions Method - A body of procedures and techniques for without undergoing significant degradation of the performing a task (e.g., sampling, characterization, analyte(s) or property of interest. and quantification) systematically presented in the MCL - Maximum Contaminant Level. order in which they are to be executed. MDL - Method Detection Limit. Method blank - A clean sample processed Mean - See Arithmetic mean and Geometric mean. simultaneously with and under the same conditions as Measure of central tendency - A statistic that samples containing an analyte of interest through all describes the grouping of values in a data set around steps of the analytical procedure. some common value (e.g., the median, arithmetic Method check sample - See Spiked reagent blank. mean, or geometric mean). Method detection limit (MDL) - The minimum Measure of dispersion - A statistic that describes the concentration of an analyte that, in a given matrix variation of values in a data set around some common and with a specific method, has a 99% probability of value. See Coefficient of variation, Range, Sample being identified, qualitatively or quantitatively variance, and Standard deviation. measured, and reported to be greater than zero. See Measurement range - The range over which the Detection limit. precision and/or recovery of a measurement method Method of least squares - See Least squares is regarded as acceptable. See Acceptable quality method. range. Method of standard addition - Analysis of a series Measurement standard - A standard added to the of field samples which are spiked at increasing prepared test portion of a sample (e.g., to the concentrations of the target analytes. This provides a concentrated extract or the digestate) as a reference mathematical approach for quantifying analyte for calibrating and controlling measurement or concentrations of the target analyte. It is used when instrumental precision and bias. spike recoveries are outside the QC acceptance limits Median - The middle value for an ordered set of n specified by the method. values represented by the central value when n is odd Method performance study - See Interlaboratory or by the mean of the two most central values when n method validation study. is even. Method quantification limit (MQL) - See Limit of Medium - A substance (e.g., air, water, soil) that quantification and also Method detection limit. serves as a carrier of the analytes of interest. See MFM - Modified Frequency Modulation. One type Matrix. of hard disk controller. 20

MHz - See Megahertz. MS - Mass Spectrometry. In volatile and semivolatile Microcomputer - Computer systems like IBM- analysis, the compounds are detected by a mass compatibles, Macintoshes, and other small computers spectrometer. are collectively known as microcomputers. MS - Matrix Spike. See Spiked sample. Microprocessor - The “guts” of a PC is the ms - Millisecond or 1/1000 second. Hard disk access microprocessor. Familiar processor designations times are rated in milliseconds. include the Intel Pentium and the AMD chips. MSA - See Method of standard addition. Microsoft Windows - A graphical user interface for MSD - Matrix Spike Duplicate. See Spiked sample. Intel processor and compatible computers. Allows MS-DOS - Microsoft’s version of the DOS operating several programs to be active at one time and system for PC-compatible computers from supports a mouse-based point and shoot interaction manufacturers other than IBM. with the computer. MSDS - Material Safety Data Sheet. Documents Microsoft Office - Most popular office productivity prepared for each substance by its manufacturer suite. describing the properties and safety issues for that Millisecond - See ms. substance. Minicomputer - Computer systems that were MSR - See Management systems review. intermediate between mainframes and Multifunction card - Adapter card with several microcomputers were known as minicomputers. features such as serial port, parallel port, game port, Some models of VAX, Prime, and others were clock-calendar, etc. minicomputers. Multipoint calibration - The determination of Minimum detectable level - See Method detection correct scale values by measuring or comparing limit. instrument responses at a series of standardized MIPS - Million Instructions Per Second. A rating of analyte concentrations; used to define the range for speed for computers. generating quantitative data of acceptable quality. MOC - Two-dimensional Method Of Characteristics Multitasking - The capability of some computers groundwater flow and transport model from the U.S. and operating systems to perform more than one Geological Survey. activity at once. Mode - The most frequent value or values in a data Multi-parameter probe - A device capable of set. measuring several properties, such as water quality Modem - MOdulators-DEModulators were used for values, at one time. communication between different computers over Multi-user - The capability of some computers and telephone lines. Modems are used much less now that operating systems to be used by more than one most computers are connected to the Internet via person at once. broadband. Mutagenesis -The formation of mutations or changes MODFLOW - U.S. Geological Survey modular in genetic material, either in the affected individual or finite-difference flow model, which is a computer in future generations. code that solves the groundwater flow equation. MySQL - Popular open-source relational data Module - In programming, an object containing management software. code. MZA - See Management Zone Analyst. Monitoring - Observation to determine the level of compliance with regulations or to assess pollutant levels. N Monitoring well - A well drilled or used specifically N/A - Not applicable. for monitoring purposes. NAA - Non-Attainment Area. Motherboard - The board inside a personal NAAQS - National Ambient Air Quality Standards. computer that contains the microprocessor, memory NAD 27 - The North American Datum of 1927 is a sockets, card slots, and other necessary chips to make network of triangulation stations and surveys the computer work. crisscrossing the United States. The purpose of Mouse - A mouse is a pointing device used for menu establishing this datum was so surveyors could have selection and moving the cursor around on the screen. access to a system of known reference points for Mozilla - See Firefox. mapping. 21

NAD 83 - As satellite information and distance Node - In networking, a computer or terminal on the measurement equipment became available, surveyors network. In mapping, the intersections of the X and Y became increasingly frustrated with their surveys lines of a grid. In GIS and CAD, the intersections of failing to agree with the reference points established segments of a polyline or polygon. by NAD 1927. To solve this problem, the U.S. Coast Noise - The sum of random errors in the response of and Geodetic Survey completed the North American a measuring instrument, or a random component of Datum of 1983. Changing from NAD 27 to NAD 83 data, as opposed to the desired signal. will change the latitude, longitude, and elevation Nondetect - The result for a constituent that was value for many points in North America, some by as analyzed for but not detected because it was below much as 100 m. the detection limit of the instrument. Often assigned Nanosecond - See ns. an analytic flag of “U” for undetected. NAPL - Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid. A fluid that Non-interlaced - See Interlaced. doesn’t mix with water. NAPLs can be light Non-parametric test - A statistical test suitable for (LNAPL) and float on water, or dense (DNAPL) and use on a non-normal distribution. See Parametric sink. test. NAS - Network Attached Storage. A server appliance Non-point source - Sources of pollution that do not that can be attached to a network to provide storage have a specific point of origin, such as contamination independent of a server. from an agricultural area. NCP - National Contingency Plan. Criteria and Normal distribution - An idealized probability procedures for cleanup of Superfund sites. density function that approximates the distribution of NEDD - NIRIS Electronic Data Deliverables. Format many random variables associated with for delivering electronic data to NIRIS. Loosely measurements of natural phenomena and takes the based on the USACE/USEPA SEDD format. form of a symmetric “bell-shaped curve.” NEPA - National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Normalization - In data management, a process that NESHAP - National Emission Standard for separates data elements into a logical grouping of Hazardous Air Pollutants. tables and fields. Different levels of normalization .net - A software framework developed by Microsoft are referred to as forms. In data analysis, converting that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. data so it can be easily compared. Netware - Software from Novell for connecting Northing - The north-south direction on a map. computers together on a network. Largely replaced Novell - See Netware. by Windows networking. NPD - Nitrogen-Phosphorus Detector. Network - Several computers connected together to NPDES - National Pollutant Discharge Elimination share data and applications. System. A program authorized by the Clean Water NFG - National Functional Guidelines. Documents Act that controls water pollution by regulating point designed to offer guidance on inorganic, organic, and sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the organic low concentration CLP analytical data United States. This is done via an NPDES permit, evaluation and review. which is usually administered by authorized states. NFPA - National Fire Protection Association. A NPL - National Priorities List. A list of sites for diamond system to denote firefighting hazards for hazardous waste cleanup under the Superfund emergency personnel. Corners of the diamond program. represent (clockwise from left) health hazard, NPT - Normal Temperature and Pressure. flammability, reactivity, and special hazards. See NRC - National Response Center. A communications HMIS. center maintained by the Coast Guard that tracks NGVD - National Geodetic Vertical Datum. discharges or releases of hazardous substances into Reference system for surveyed elevations. the environment. NIOSH - National Institute for Occupational Safety NRC - Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Now the and Health Department of Energy. NIRIS - Naval Installation Restoration Information ns - Nanosecond or 1/1,000,000 second. Backup Solution. Navy database for environmental data. See power supplies are ns-rated for the time it takes for also NEDD. the system to detect and correct a power problem. NIST - National Institute of Standards and Testing. 22

NSR/PSD - New Source Review/Prevention of OLTP - On Line Transaction Processing. Interaction Significant Deterioration. Air rules for new or with a database in high volume such as processing modified stationary sources. credit card transactions. NTA - NitriloTriacetic Acid. Carcinogenic phosphate OPA - Oil Pollution Act. substitute banned in the U.S. Open source - Software for which the source code is NTSC - National Television Standards Committee. provided or available. May or may not be free. Usually refers to a video standard compatible with Operating system - Software that is required by a U.S. broadcast television. computer to perform its tasks, but which is concerned NTU - Nephelometric Turbidity Units. Measurement with running the computer rather than some of cloudiness of a fluid. particular application. Examples are Windows, iOS, Nyquist Rule - Rule in computer gridding and Android, and Linux. contouring stating that for most algorithms, the Optical Character Recognition - Process or average grid block size should allow a data point software to create editable text from an image of the every 2 to 3 cells. text. Optical disk - Disk drive system and platter for O storing data using an optical or optical-magnetic method. Usually have very high storage capacity. The O&F - Operational and Functional. CERCLA status main types are CD-ROM and DVD, which can be where the remedy for a site is functioning properly read-only or read/write. and performing as designed, or has been in place for one year. Oracle - Database server software and the company that provides it. O&M - Operation and Maintenance. Activities that protect the integrity of a site, including the selected Ordinate - Vertical or Y-axis of a graph. cleanup remedy. Organic - Compounds containing carbon, usually Observation - A fact or occurrence that is with hydrogen and sometimes with oxygen. recognized and recorded. Origin - The intersection of the axes in a coordinate Observed value - The magnitude of a specific system, usually with the coordinates of 0,0. measurement; a variable; a unit of space, time, or OS/2 - Operating System 2; OS/2 was an alternative quantity; a datum. The observed value is the value to DOS and Windows from IBM that was not widely reported before correction for a blank value. See accepted. Corrected value. OSCs - On-Scene Coordinators for the Superfund’s OCX - OLE Control eXtension. A way in OLE to Removal Program. develop and use custom user interface elements. OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health OCR - See Optical Character Recognition. Administration. Administers the Occupational Safety ODBC - Open DataBase Connectivity. A Microsoft and Health Act of 1970. protocol for communicating between a database and OSW - EPA’s Office of Solid Waste is responsible other applications. for ensuring that currently generated solid waste is OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer. Refers to managed properly, and that currently operating a company that sells hardware or software from facilities address any contaminant releases from their another manufacturer under their own label, often operations. with some customization. OSWER - Office of Solid Waste and Emergency OLAP - OnLine Analytical Processing. Analysis of a Response. The EPA office that provides policy, data warehouse for trends and other intelligence. guidance, and direction for the EPA’s solid waste and emergency response programs, including Superfund. OLC02 - Organic low concentration water analytical protocol. Outlier - An observed value that appears to be discordant from the other observations in a sample. OLE - Object Linking and Embedding. A Microsoft One of a set of observations that appears to be protocol that allows programs to share information. discordant from the others. The declaration of an The programming component of this is OCX. outlier is dependent on the significance level of the OLM04.2 - Organic analytical protocol. applied identification test. See also Significance level.

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Oxidation - Combine with oxygen, or increase the PCBs - PolyChlorinated Biphenyls (also called charge of an ion, such as a change from Na+ to Na++. Aroclor). A group of toxic, persistent chemicals used

Ozone - A highly corrosive form of oxygen (O3) in electrical transformers and capacitors for found naturally and also manufactured for use as a insulating purposes, and in gas pipeline systems as a disinfectant. lubricant. The sale and new use of PCBs was banned by law in 1979. P PC-DOS - The version of MS-DOS for IBM brand personal computers. PA - Preliminary Assessment. A limited scope PCE - Tetrachloroethylene. Also called PERC. investigation performed under CERCLA at each Volatile organic contaminant. project site. Its purpose is to gather readily available information about the site and its surrounding area to PDF - A format for documents created by Adobe determine the threat posed by the site. Systems so that the documents will display or print the same regardless of the device. PA/SI - Preliminary Assessment and Site Investigation. A process of collecting and reviewing PE - Performance evaluation sample. A sample of available information about a known or suspected known composition provided by EPA for contractor hazardous waste site or release. analysis. Used by EPA to evaluate contractor performance. PAHs - Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. PE sample - See Performance evaluation sample. PAL - Phase Alternating Line is a signal encoding system for television broadcasts widely used in Peak shaving or Peak enhancement - Fraudulent Europe and Asia. See NTSC. laboratory practice of manipulating the results during analysis such as by reshaping a peak that is subtly out Palette - The range of colors available for display or of specification. printing. PERC - Tetrachloroethylene. Also called PCE. Pan - Change the view of a drawing or map by Volatile organic contaminant. moving horizontally and/or vertically at the same scale. Percentage standard deviation - Synonym for Relative standard deviation. Parallel port - A connection with peripheral equipment where eight bits are sent at one time. Performance evaluation audit - A type of audit in Printers are usually connected to parallel ports. which the quantitative data generated in a measurement system is obtained independently and Parameter - Any quantity such as a mean or a compared with routinely obtained data to evaluate the standard deviation characterizing a population. Also a proficiency of an analyst or laboratory. constituent to be measured. Performance evaluation sample - A sample, the Parametric test - A statistical test based on a normal composition of which is unknown to the analyst, distribution. See Non-parametric test. which is provided to test whether the PARCC - Precision, Accuracy, Representativeness, analyst/laboratory can produce analytical results Comparability, and Completeness. within specified performance limits. See Blind Parent-child - Refers to the two tables in a one sample and Performance evaluation audit. (parent) to many (child) relationship such as a sample Peripheral - Any device that is not necessary for coming from a station. running a computer, or which is outside the system PARLABEL - ERPIMS term for parameter or unit, is called a peripheral. Monitors, printers, mice, characteristic. modems, plotters, and digitizers are all considered Partition - Break up into parts, or the parts peripherals. themselves. Often used to refer to a hard disk that is PERL - A family of high-level, general-purpose, configured as more than one logical disk drive. interpreted, dynamic programming languages. It is PC - Personal Computer. While it technically covers probably not an acronym. all desktop computers with different operating Permeability - The ability of a rock or other material systems, PC is often used to refer to IBM Personal to transmit fluid. Computers and compatibles. Pesticides - Substances intended to repel, kill, or PCA - 1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethane. Volatile organic control any species designated a “pest,” including contaminant. weeds, insects, rodents, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms.

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PFAS - Perfluorinated alkylated substances. Includes Port - Interface for connecting devices together. PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), PFOA Types of ports include serial (RS-232), parallel, (perfluorooctanoic acid), and other compounds. This SCSI, firewire, and USB. group of thousands of compounds was widely used as Portrait orientation - A device or printout where the industrial surfactants, including firefighting foams, horizontal axis is shorter than the vertical axis. The and is widely distributed as a contaminant, especially opposite of landscape. in groundwater. PostgreSQL - Popular open-source data management Phenols - A group of oxygen-containing organic software. compounds that are by-products of petroleum Potentiometric surface - A surface below the refining and other industrial processes. ground that represents the level of the water table at PHP - A server-side scripting language designed for known locations such as wells often interpolated web development. Originally stood for Personal and/or extrapolated with a surface modeling program. Home Page, now considered to mean the recursive It is an indication of the direction and magnitude of phrase PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. groundwater flow. Picocurie - Measurement of an amount of radiation. POX - Purgeable Organic Halides. 1/trillionth of a Curie. See Curie. PPA- Pollution Prevention Act. PID - Photo Ionization Detector. PPB - Parts per Billion. Pitch - Pitch is the spacing of text letters on a page, PPI - Points per Inch. Used to describe the resolution as put out by a typewriter or character printer. of digitizers and printers. Common pitches include 10 (Pica), 12 (Elite), and 17 (condensed). PPM - Parts per Million. Pivot Table - A type of query where the results are Precision - The degree to which a set of observations turned sideways, and rows become columns. An or measurements of the same property, usually example would be a report where constituent names obtained under similar conditions, conform to are used as column heads and the values displayed in themselves; a data quality indicator. Precision is columns, in a database where the results are actually usually expressed as standard deviation, variance, or records (rows). Also called a crosstab table. range, in either absolute or relative terms. See also Standard deviation and Sample variance. See Pixel - A pixel, a PICture ELement, is the dots in an Accuracy. image, and is also the unit of resolution on monitors. Preventative maintenance - An orderly program of Planimeter - Device or software for calculating activities designed to ensure against equipment areas. failure. Plotter - A device that uses pens, ink droplets, or Primary reference standard - See Primary electrostatic charges to make varying sizes of hard standard. copy output, usually in multiple colors. Output media sizes range from 8.5" x 11" up to 36" x 42" or larger. Primary standard - A substance or device, with a property or value that is unquestionably accepted Plume - An area of contaminant concentration (within specified limits) in establishing the value of resulting from one or more releases of material. the same or related property of another substance or PO - Purchase Order. A document authorizing device. expenditure of funds, similar to an AFE. Printer - Device used for generating hard copy Point source - A specific single location from which output from a computer. Types include dot-matrix, pollutants are discharged. daisywheel, inkjet, thermal, and laser. Polyconic projection - Method of representing Probability - A number between zero and one spherical coordinates (latitude-longitude) on a flat inclusive, reflecting the limiting proportion of the map using an approximation based on a set of cones. occurrence of an event in an increasingly large Polygon - Closed group of line segments treated as a number of identical trials, each of which results in unit. either the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the event. Polyline - Group of line segments treated as a unit. Probability sampling - Sampling in which (a) every Population - All possible items or units that possess member of the population has a known probability of a variable of interest and from which samples may be being included in the sample; (b) the sample is drawn drawn. by some method of random selection consistent with these probabilities; and (c) the known probabilities of

25 inclusion are used in forming estimates from the implementation, assessment, reporting, and quality sample. The probability of selection need not be improvement to ensure that a process, item, or equal for members of the population. service is of the type and quality needed and expected Procedure - A set of systematic instructions for by the customer. performing an operation. QAMS - Quality Assurance Management Staff. Proficiency testing - A systematic program in which QAPP - See Quality Assurance Project Plan. one or more standardized samples is analyzed by one QATS - Quality Assurance Technical Support or more laboratories to determine the capability of laboratory. A contractor-operated facility operated each participant. under the QATS contract, awarded and administered Program - Software which permits the computer to by EPA. perform some desired action. Also the act of writing QBF - See Query by form. software. QC - Quality Control. The overall system of Programming language - A language used to write technical activities that measures the attributes and software. Examples are BASIC, FORTRAN and C. performance of a process, item, or service against Projection - As used in mapping, projection is the defined standards to verify that they meet the stated representation of the three-dimensional earth on a requirements established by the customer; operational two-dimensional map. Depending on how a surface is techniques and activities that are used to fulfill wrapped around the earth, different projections can requirements for quality. be obtained. Common projections include Mercator, QC check sample - See Quality control sample. Albers equal area, polyconic and Lambert Conformal QFD - Quality Function Development. A quality Conic. control method for product development. See SQFD. PROM - Programmable Read Only Memory. Quality - The sum of features and properties or Prompt - Message provided by the computer characteristics of a product or service that bear on its indicating that it is ready for input. A common ability to satisfy stated needs. prompt is the active drive and/or the current Quality assessment - The evaluation of subdirectory. environmental data to determine if it meets the Property - A quality or trait belonging to, and quality criteria required for a specific application. peculiar to, a thing; a response variable is a measure Quality assurance - See QA. of a property. Synonym for characteristic. Also land or a facility owned by a party or parties. Quality Assurance Narrative Statement - A description of the quality assurance and quality Protocol - A protocol is a method of doing control activities to be followed for a research something, and in the computer world is the format project. for transferring files. Also a detailed written procedure for a field and/or laboratory operation Quality Assurance Objectives - The limits on bias, (e.g., sampling, analysis) which must be strictly precision, comparability, completeness, and adhered to. representativeness defining the minimal acceptable levels of performance as determined by the data PRP - Potentially Responsible Party. PRPs are user’s acceptable error bounds. individuals, companies, or other parties that are potentially liable for payment of Superfund cleanup Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP) - A costs. formal document describing the management policies, objectives, principles, organizational Public domain software - Public domain software is authority, responsibilities, accountability, and free software available from a variety of sources. implementation plan of an agency, organization, or PUF - Polyurethane foam. laboratory for ensuring quality in its products and Pump and treat - A remediation method that utility to its users. involves pumping groundwater to the surface for Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPjP) - A treatment. formal document describing the detailed quality PVC - Polyvinyl chloride. control procedures by which the quality requirements defined for the data and decisions pertaining to a Q specific project are to be achieved. Quality circle - A small group of individuals from an QA - Quality Assurance. An integrated system of organization or unit who have related interests and management activities involving planning, 26 meet regularly to consider problems or other matters that any particular value occurs as though chosen at related to the quality of the product or process. random from a probability distribution of such errors. Quality control - See QC. The distribution of random error is generally assumed to be normal. Quality control chart - See Control chart. Random sample or subsample - A subset of a Quality control check sample - See Calibration population or a subset of a sample, selected according standard. to the laws of chance with a randomization Quality control sample - An uncontaminated sample procedure. matrix spiked with known amounts of analytes from Random variable - A quantity that may take any of a source independent from the calibration standards. the values of a specified set with a specified relative It is generally used to establish intralaboratory or frequency or probability. It is defined by a set of analyst-specific precision and bias, or to assess the possible values, and by an associated probability performance of all or a portion of the measurement function giving the relative frequency of occurrence system. See also Check sample. of each possible value. Quantiles - Sets of data classified by ranges of Randomization - The arrangement of a set of objects values, such as to display colored dots on a map. in a random order. A set of treatments applied to a set Quantitation limits - The maximum or minimum of experimental units is said to be randomized when levels or quantities of a target variable that can be the treatment applied to any given unit is chosen at quantified with the certainty required by the data random from those available and not already user. allocated. Query - Request for data from a database Randomness - A basic statistical concept and management program. In Microsoft Access and other property implying an absence of a plan, purpose, or DBMS programs, a database object used to locate pattern, or of any tendency to favor one outcome and retrieve specific data. rather than another. Query by form - A process of creating a query by Range - The difference between the minimum and filling out a form. the maximum of a set of values. QWERTY - Layout of the keys on a standard RAR file - A compressed file containing one or more keyboard. digital files. RAS - Routine Analytical Service. The standard R inorganic, organic, and organic low concentration, RA - See Remedial Action. high volume, multi-component analyses available through the CLP. Radar plots - Data diagram similar to a gun sight used to display concentrations and other data. Raster - Data represented as an array of points. Files containing photographs and similar data are raster RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives. files. Raster devices include monitors and printers. This is a system for combining several hard disk Differs from vector data, which uses line segments drives together to increase capacity and reliability. instead of dots to represent the image. The systems come in different levels based on the number of drives and how they are configured. Raster map- A map made up of image pixels. See also Vector map. RAM - Random Access Memory; refers to the main memory used by a computer for storage and Raw data - Any original factual information from a processing. The main feature of RAM is that it can be measurement activity or study recorded in laboratory both written and read at any time by the system, and worksheets, records, memoranda, notes, or exact any part of the RAM can be used at any time. The copies thereof, and that are necessary for the amount of RAM is usually specified in kilobytes reconstruction and evaluation of the report of the (KB) for smaller systems, and in megabytes (MB) for activity or study. Raw data may include photographs, larger systems. The more RAM that is present, the microfilm or microfiche copies, computer printouts, larger the programs that can be loaded, and magnetic media, including dictated observations, and sometimes the larger the data sets that can be recorded data from automated instruments. If exact processed. See also ROM. copies of raw data have been prepared (e.g., tapes which have been transcribed verbatim, dated, and Random - See Randomness. verified accurate by signature), the exact copy or Random error - The deviation of an observed value exact transcript may be substituted. from a true value, which behaves like a variable, in 27

RCRA - Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Relational database manager - Software that stores Legislation covering environmental issues at data in several tables and allows the data to be operating facilities. retrieved and related based on the contents of fields RD - Remedial Design. The phase of Superfund in the data tables. cleanup where the technical specifications for Relationship - Connection between fields in cleanup remedies and technologies are designed. relational database tables. RD/RA- Remedial Design/Remedial Action. Relative coordinates - Coordinates tied to a local RDX - Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine. reference system or based only on internal position rather than a global reference system. Reactivity - The tendency of a compound to burn, explode, or produce toxic fumes. Relative standard deviation - The standard deviation expressed as a percentage of the mean Reagent - A substance or compound that is added to recovery, i.e., the coefficient of variation multiplied a system in order to bring about a chemical reaction, by 100. or added to see if a reaction occurs Reliability - The likelihood that an instrument or Reagent blank - A sample consisting of reagent(s), device will function under defined conditions for a without the target analyte or sample matrix, specified period of time. introduced into the analytical procedure at the appropriate point and carried through all subsequent Remedial action - The remedial action follows the steps to identify sources of error in the observed remedial design and involves the construction or value caused by the reagents and the involved implementation phase of Superfund site cleanup. analytical steps. Remedial design - A phase of remedial action that Reagent grade - The second highest purity follows the remedial investigation/feasibility study, designation for reagents that conform to the current and includes development of engineering drawings specifications of the American Chemical Society and specifications for a site cleanup. Committee on Analytical Reagents. Remedial investigation - An in-depth study Record - Items being stored in a database table. designed to gather data needed to determine the nature and extent of contamination at a Superfund Records system (or plan) - A written, documented site, establish site cleanup criteria, identify group of procedures describing required records, preliminary alternatives for remedial action, and steps for producing them, storage conditions, support technical and cost analyses of alternatives. retention period, and circumstances for their The remedial investigation is usually done with the destruction or other disposition. feasibility study. Together they are usually referred to Recovery efficiency - In an analytical method, the as the “RI/FS.” fraction or percentage of a target analyte extracted Remedial response - Long-term action that stops or from a sample containing a known amount of the substantially reduces a release or threat of a release of analyte. hazardous substances that is serious but not an Referee duplicates - Duplicate samples sent to the immediate threat to public health. referee QA laboratory, if one is specified for the Remediate - Correct contamination with activities project. such as destroying the contaminants, capping a waste Reference material - A material or substance, one or site, excavating and transporting the contaminants to more properties of which are sufficiently well an approved hazardous landfill or any other method established to be used for the calibration of an that reduces risk at a site. apparatus, the assessment of a measurement method, Remote Desktop - System for operating one or assigning values to materials. computer from another. Reference method - A sampling and/or Repeatability - The degree of agreement between measurement method which has been officially mutually independent test results produced by the specified by an organization as meeting its data same analyst using the same test method and quality requirements. equipment on random aliquots of the same sample Reference standard - Standard of known analytes within a short period of time. and concentration obtained from an independent Replicability - See Repeatability. source other than the standards used for instrument calibration. They are used to verify the accuracy of Replicate - An adjective or verb referring to the the calibration standards, and are analyzed after each taking of more than one sample, or to the initial calibration or as per method specifications. performance of more than one analysis. Replicate is 28 to be used when referring to more than two items. RFID - Radio-frequency IDentification. A system See Duplicate. consisting of tags and readers to transfer information, Replicate analyses or measurements - The analyses such as product identification. or measurements of the variable of interest performed RGB - Red, Green, and Blue. Used to describe a identically on two or more subsamples of the same video system where the signal is sent to the monitor sample within a short time interval. See Duplicate using three or more lines, one each for red, green, and analyses or measurements. blue. With digital RGB systems the intensity of each Replicate samples - Two or more samples line, determined by the voltage, is at discrete levels. representing the same population characteristic, time, With analog RGB systems the voltage range is and place, which are independently carried through continuous for each color. all steps of the sampling and measurement process in RI - See Remedial Investigation. an identical manner. Replicate samples are used to RI/FS - Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study. assess total (sampling and analysis) method variance. This is the step in the cleanup process that is Often incorrectly used in place of the term “replicate conducted to gather sufficient information to support analysis.” See Duplicate samples and Replicate the selection of a site remedy. analyses. Rinseate blank - A clean sample (e.g., distilled water Replication - In database management, the process or ASTM Type II water) passed through of creating and managing duplicate versions of a decontaminated sampling equipment before database. sampling, and returned to the laboratory as a sample. Representative sample - A sample taken so as to Sampling equipment blanks are used to check the reflect the variable(s) of interest in the population as cleanliness of sampling devices. Usually one rinseate accurately and precisely as specified. To ensure sample is collected for each 10 samples of each representativeness, the sample may be either matrix for each piece of equipment. completely random or stratified depending upon the Risk - The probability or likelihood of an adverse conceptualized population and the sampling objective effect. (i.e., upon the decision to be made.) Risk (statistical) - The expected loss due to the use Representativeness - The degree to which data of a given decision procedure. accurately and precisely represent the frequency Risk assessment - Characterization of the potential distribution of a specific variable in the population; a adverse health effects of human exposures to data quality indicator. environmental hazards. Reproducibility - The extent to which a method, Robustness - (In)sensitivity of a statistical test test, or experiment yields the same or similar results method to departures from underlying assumptions, when performed on subsamples of the same sample especially a normal distribution. See Ruggedness. by different analysts or laboratories. RockWare - Seller of geological software. Resolution - For monitors and printers, the number of dots which can be displayed on the screen or RockWorks - Popular geologic graphics program printed. For digitizers, the smallest increment of from RockWare. movement that can be detected. ROD - Record of Decision. Administrative order that Response variable - A variable that is measured explains the cleanup method that will be used at a when a controlled experiment is conducted. site, and often sets target limits for project cleanup. Result - The product of a calculation, test method, ROI - See Return on investment. test, or experiment. The result may be a value, data ROM - Read-Only Memory; differs from RAM in set, statistic, tested hypothesis, or an estimated effect. that it takes special equipment to write ROM chips, Return on investment - A performance measure and once in a computer, they can be read and not used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to written to. They are usually used for low-level compare the efficiency of a number of different program code that does not change, such as the BIOS investments. on IBM-compatible computers. See also RAM. Review - The assessment of management/operational Rounded number - A number, reduced to a functions or activities to establish their conformance specified number of significant digits or decimal to qualitative specifications or requirements. See places, using defined criteria, that are fewer than Management systems review and Audit. those measured.

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Routine method - A defined plan of procedures and Sampling error - The difference between an techniques used regularly to perform a specific task. estimate of a population value and its true value. RPM - Remedial Project Manager. The EPA or state Sampling error is due to observing only a limited official responsible for overseeing onsite remedial number of the total possible values and is action. Also Revolutions Per Minute. distinguished from errors due to imperfect selection, bias in response, errors of observation, measurement, RSCC - Regional Sample Control Center. The RSCC or recording, etc. See also Probability sampling. coordinates regional sampling efforts. SAN - Storage Area Network. A hardware and RSO - Radiation Safety Officer. software system that allows storage, usually using Rubber-banding - Indicating an area on the screen hard drives, to be attached to the network by moving a box outlining the area. independent of a server. Ruggedness - The (in)sensitivity of an analytical test SAP - Sampling and Analysis Plan. The Sampling method to departures from specified analytical or and Analysis Plan provides specific details on the environmental conditions. See Robustness. methodologies and locations of sampling events that Ruggedness testing - The carefully ordered testing will take place as part of environmental and other of an analytical method while making slight investigations. variations in test conditions (as might be expected in SARA - Superfund Amendments and routine use) to determine how such variations affect Reauthorization Act. The 1986 amendment to test results. If a variation affects the results CERCLA. significantly, the method restrictions are tightened to SATA - Serial AT Attachment standard. Common minimize this variability. interface for hard drives. Saturated zone - A volume of rock or soil in which S the pores are filled with fluid, usually water. S8 - Molecular sulfur. SCADA - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. SAAS - Software As A Service - Software provided Software assistance with data gathering. over the Internet, usually within a web browser, and Scanner - Optical devices that allow input of not installed on the local computer. continuous tone graphic images, line drawings, and Sample - Material gathered in the field for analysis text. from a specific location at a specific time. Also a part Scanning Electron Microscope. A device in which a of a larger whole or a single item of a group; a finite beam of electrons is bounced off a specimen, forming part or subset of a statistical population. A sample an image. SEMs allow a very high magnification. serves to provide data or information concerning the Scanning frequencies - For monitors, the rate at properties of the whole group or population. A single, which the horizontal rows of pixels are drawn on the discrete portion of material to be analyzed, which is screen (horizontal scan rate) or the whole screen is contained in single or multiple containers and redrawn (vertical refresh rate). identified by a unique sample number. Scheduled maintenance - See Preventative Sample data custody - See Chain of custody. maintenance. Sample variance (statistical) - A measure of the Schema - Description of the structure of a database, dispersion of a set of values. The sum of the squares including the tables and fields, relationships, etc. of the difference between the individual values of a set and the arithmetic mean of the set, divided by one Scientific notation - Representation of a number less than the number of values in the set. (The square with some digits, called the mantissa, and an of the sample standard deviation.) See also Measure exponent, usually 10, such as 3.41712. of dispersion. Screening test - A quick test for coarsely assessing a Sampling - The process of obtaining a representative variable of interest. portion of the material of concern. Scribe - Software from the USEPA often used for Sampling equipment blank - A clean sample that is data management for emergency response. collected in a sample container with the sample- SCSI - Small Computer Systems Interface collection device and returned to the laboratory as a (pronounced “scuzzy”) is a high-speed parallel sample. Sampling equipment blanks are used to interface for attaching devices such as disk drives to check the cleanliness of sampling devices. See microcomputers. The standard allows mass storage Dynamic blank. devices to be designed to work with any computer

30 and allows several peripherals to be attached to one Significant figure - See Significant digit. port. SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module. A group of SD card - Secure Digital card. Data storage for small RAM chips attached to one side of a carrier and devices such as phones and cameras. Variants include installed as a unit. mini- and micro-SD based on physical size, and Single operator precision - The degree of variation enhanced versions such as SDHC with a higher among the individual measurements of a series of capacity. determinations by the same analyst or operator, all SDSL - Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line. other conditions being equal. Broadband communication connection. Upload and Sinkers - See DNAPL. download speeds are the same. Site - The area within boundaries established for a SDWA- Safe Drinking Water Act. defined activity. Secondary standard - A standard whose value is Site blank - See Field blank. based on comparison with a primary standard. Six Sigma - A set of processes designed to improve SEDD - Staged Electronic Data Deliverable. A set of quality. The target is to limit error to six standard XML-based data transfer standards created by the deviations from the mean. USEPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. SkyDrive - Cloud storage service from Microsoft. Selectivity (analytical chemistry) - The capability Skewness - A measure of the extent to which the of a method or instrument to respond to a target probability distribution of a variable leans to one side substance or constituent in the presence of non-target of the mean. substances. Skype - Computer-based communication technology SEM - See Scanning Electron Microscope. for voice and video. Free between Skype accounts. Semivolatile Organic Compound - A compound Slurry wall - A barrier made of impenetrable containing carbon that does not evaporate as readily material placed in the ground to stop the flow of as a VOC and has a boiling point greater than 200°C. (usually contaminated) groundwater. Sensitivity - Capability of method or instrument to SM - Standard Methods. discriminate between measurement responses representing different levels of a variable of interest. SM&TE - Standard Measuring and Test Equipment. Serial port - A serial port has a digital signal that is SMO - Sample Management Office. A contractor- sent one byte at a time, one after another. Largely operated facility operated by the Contract Laboratory replaced by USB ports. Analytical Services Support (CLASS) contract, awarded and administered by the EPA. SFE - Supercritical Fluid Extraction. SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol. This is an Shareware - Shareware software is distributed free XML-based protocol for information interchange in or for a small handling fee. If the user likes the distributed environments such as the Internet. It software, the user is supposed to send money in the describes message contents, data types, processing amount the author asks for. The fee often includes requirements, and remote procedure calls and registration, software upgrades, and a manual. responses. Shell - Software that surrounds other software (such SOC - Synthetic Organic Chemicals. as the operating system), usually to make it easier to use. Social media - Web applications like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that help people interact in SI - Site Inspection. A step under CERCLA that various ways. provides the data needed for HRS, and identifies sites that enter the NPL site listing process. Software - Program instructions which cause the computer to do something (hopefully) useful. Significance level - The magnitude of the acceptable probability of rejecting a true null hypothesis or of Soil boring - A hole dug in the ground from which a accepting a false null hypothesis; the difference soil sample is extracted for chemical, biological, or between the hypothetical value and the sample result. analytical testing to determine the level of contamination present or other information. Significant digit - Any of the digits 0 through 9, except leading zeros and some trailing zeros, which is Soil gas - Gaseous elements and compounds in the used with its place value to denote a numerical small spaces between particles of the soil. quantity to a desired rounded number. See Rounded number. 31

Solid state drive - A device containing a set of SPLP - Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure. memory chips configured as a storage device in place A way of determining the mobility of contaminants of a hard drive. such as metals in a solid matrix such as soil. Solid Waste Management Unit - A location where Spreadsheet - Program for manipulating rows and solid waste has been placed at any time, irrespective columns of data. Cells in the spreadsheet can contain of whether the unit was intended for the management text, numbers, or formulas. of solid or hazardous waste, including any area at a SQFD - Software Quality Function Development. facility at which solid wastes have been routinely and QFD as applied to software development. systematically released. SQL - Structured Query Language. Widely used for Solubility - Ability of a substance to dissolve in a retrieving data from relational database managers. particular liquid. SQL Server - Popular database server software from Solvent - A liquid capable of dissolving other Microsoft. substances. Water is a solvent, as are many organic SSD - See Solid state drive. compounds. Stakeholder - A party with an interest in a SOP - Standard Operating Procedure. remediation project, such as government officials, SOW - See Statement of Work. community members, PRPs, banks, etc. Span-drift - The change in the output of a Standard (measurement) - A substance or material continuous monitoring instrument over a stated time with a property quantified with sufficient accuracy to period during which the instrument is not permit its use to evaluate the same property in a recalibrated. similar substance or material. Standards are generally Span-gas - A gas of known concentration which is prepared by placing a reference material in a matrix. used routinely to calibrate the output level of an See Reference material. analyzer. See Calibration standard. Standard addition - The procedure of adding known SPE - Solid Phase Extraction. increments of the analyte of interest to a sample, to Specimen - See Sample. cause increases in detection response. The level of the analyte of interest present in the original sample Spike - A known mass of target analyte added to a is subsequently established by extrapolation of the blank or matrix sample or subsample; used to plotted responses. determine recovery efficiency or for other quality control purposes. Standard curve - See Calibration curve. Spiked laboratory blank - See Spiked reagent Standard deviation - The most common measure of blank. the dispersion or imprecision of observed values expressed as the positive square root of the variance. Spiked reagent blank - A specified amount of See Sample variance. reagent blank fortified with a known mass of the target analyte; usually used to determine the recovery Standard material - See Standard (measurement) efficiency of the method. and Reference material. Spiked sample - A sample prepared by adding a Standard method - An assemblage of techniques known mass of target analyte to a specified amount and procedures based on consensus or other criteria, of matrix sample for which an independent estimate often evaluated for its reliability by collaborative of target analyte concentration is available. Spiked testing and receiving organizational approval. samples are used, for example, to determine the Standard operating procedure - The SOP is a effect of the matrix on a method’s recovery written document that details the method of an efficiency. operation, analysis, or action whose techniques and Spiked sample duplicate analysis - See Duplicate procedures are thoroughly prescribed, and which is analyses and Spiked sample. accepted as the method for performing certain routine or repetitive tasks. Split samples - Two or more representative portions taken from a sample or subsample and analyzed by Standard reference material - SRM is a certified different analysts or laboratories. Split samples are reference material produced by the U.S. National used to replicate the measurement of the variable(s) Institute of Standards and Technology, and of interest. characterized for absolute content independent of analytical method. Split spoon - A device for taking samples, such as soil samples. 32

Standard reference sample - See Secondary Stratification - The division of a target population standard. into subsets or strata that are internally more Standard solution - A solution containing a known homogeneous with respect to the characteristic to be concentration of analytes, prepared and verified by a studied than the population as a whole. prescribed method or procedure, and used routinely Stratified sampling - The sampling of a population in an analytical method. that has been stratified, part of the sample coming Standardization - The process of establishing the from each stratum. See Stratification. quantitative relationship between a known mass of Strict liability - A legal concept under CERCLA that target material (e.g., concentration) and the response allows the federal government to hold PRPs liable variable (e.g., the measurement system or instrument without proving that the PRPs were at fault. response). See Calibration curve and Multipoint Stylus - A pointing device for a digitizer or screen calibration. that looks like a pen. State plane - Coordinate system within each state for Subdirectory - Part of a disk used for storing related creating a flat map from spherical coordinates data. Can be created and manipulated by the user. (latitude-longitude). The projection and origin used Called Folders on Macintosh and Windows systems. varies from state to state. Subsample - A representative portion of a sample. A Statement of Work - A document that specifies how subsample may be taken from any laboratory or a other project work is to be done, such as how field sample. See Aliquant, Aliquot, Split sample, laboratories analyze samples under a particular CLP and Test portion. analytical program. Sublimation - The transition of a substance directly Statistic - An estimate of a population characteristic from the solid to the gas phase without passing calculated from a data set (observed or corrected through an intermediate liquid phase. values), e.g., the mean or standard deviation. Summa canister - A stainless steel vessel which has Stepper motor - Device for positioning the heads in had the internal surfaces specially passivated using a inexpensive disk drives. Summa process, used for capturing and transporting Stiff diagram - A water quality diagram with cations air samples. on the left and anions on the right, used to identify Supercomputer - Very powerful computer designed and compare water populations. First developed by for fast calculations. H.A. Stiff in 1951. Superfund - The program operated under the Stock solution - A concentrated solution of legislative authority of CERCLA and SARA that analyte(s) or reagent(s) prepared and verified by funds and carries out EPA removal and remedial prescribed procedure(s), and used for preparing activities at hazardous waste sites. These activities working standards or standard solutions. include establishing the National Priorities List, Storage - Refers to the ability of computers to hold investigating sites for inclusion on the list, data. Usually means the amount of disk storage. determining their priority, and conducting and/or Storage blank - Laboratory reagent water samples supervising cleanup and other remedial actions. stored in the same type of sample containers and in Superseded - A value that has been replaced in the same storage units as field samples. They are importance by another value. prepared, stored for a defined period of time, and Surface water - Water naturally open to the then analyzed to monitor volatile organic atmosphere, such as rivers, lakes, and ponds. contamination derived from sample storage units. Surfer - Popular contouring program from Golden Typically one blank is used for each sample batch, or Software. as per method specifications. Surrogate - See Surrogate analyte. Stored procedure - User-defined functionality in a server database that performs certain data Surrogate analyte - A pure substance with manipulation tasks. May be executed by a Trigger. properties that mimic the analyte of interest. It is unlikely to be found in environmental samples and is STORET - STOrage and RETrieval. EPA’s added to them for quality control purposes. repository for water quality, biological, and physical data. Surrogate spikes - Non-target analytes of known concentration that are added to organic samples prior STP - Standard Temperature and Pressure. to sample preparation and instrument analysis. They Strater - Log display program from Golden measure the efficiency of all steps of the sample Software. 33 preparation and analytical method in recovering Taxonomy - The classification of organisms in an target analytes from the sample matrix, based on the ordered system that indicates natural relationships. assumption that non-target surrogate compounds TB - See Trip Blank. behave the same as the target analytes. They are run TBT - Tributyltin. with all samples, standards, and associated quality control. Spike recoveries can be calculated from TCD - Thermal conductivity detector. spike concentrations. TCDD - 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin. Surveillance - The act of maintaining supervision of TCE - Trichloroethylene. or vigilance over a well-specified portion of the TCLP - Toxicity Characterization Leaching environment so that detailed information is provided Procedure. A method of determining the mobility of concerning the state of that portion. toxins in soils. SVGA - Super Video Graphics Array. Popular video TDS - See Total Dissolved Solids. adapter on PC-compatible computers. Highest Technical systems audit - A thorough, systematic, standard resolution is 800x600 pixels. onsite, qualitative review of facilities, equipment, SVOC - See Semivolatile Organic Compound. personnel, training, procedures, record keeping, data Switch box - Multiple peripherals (usually 2 or 4) validation, data management, and reporting aspects can be hooked into a single parallel or serial port on of a total measurement system. one computer using a switch box. These boxes can Technique - A principle and/or the procedure of its also be used to hook multiple computers into one or application for performing an operation. more peripherals. Tedlar bag - Bags are manufactured from PVF SWMU - See Solid Waste Management Unit.. (Tedlar) film used to collect air samples containing Synthetic sample - A manufactured sample. See solvents, hydrocarbons, and many other classes of Quality control sample. compounds. System unit - Box containing the main components TEM - See Transmission Electron Microscope. of a computer system. Terabyte - About one trillion bytes, abbreviated as Systematic error - A consistent deviation in the TB. results of sampling and/or analytical processes from Teratogen - A substance that causes malformation of the expected or known value. Such error is caused by an embryo or fetus. human and methodological bias. Terrabase - Environmental database management Systems audit - See Technical systems audit. system from Integrate. Systems error - See Total systems error. Test - A procedure used to identify or characterize a substance or constituent. See Method. T Test determination - See Determination. T1 - Medium-speed communication connection. Test method - See Method. T3 - High-speed communication connection. Test portion - A subsample of the proper amount for Table - Database storage object containing records analysis and measurement of the property of interest. and fields. A test portion may be taken from the bulk sample Tablet - Small device combining a computer and a directly, but often preliminary operations, such as monitor, usually with a touch screen but without a mixing or further reduction in particle size, are keyboard. necessary. See Subsample. Tape backup - Device for backing up a hard disk. Test result - A product obtained from performing a test determination. See Determination. Tape drive - Device for reading and writing data on magnetic tape. Test sample - See Test portion. TAR file - A compressed file containing one or more Test specimen - See Test portion. digital files. Test unit - See Test portion. Target - The chosen object of investigation for Text editor - Software programs that create and which qualitative and/or quantitative data or modify ASCII text files. Windows Notepad is an information is desired, e.g., the analyte of interest. example. TAT - See Turnaround time.

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Theme - In GIS, data of a specific type such as Toxicology - The study of adverse effects of transportation or drainage. See also Coverage and chemicals on living organisms. Layer. TPH - Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons. Thermal printers - Printers that use a heating TQM - See Total Quality Management. element and special paper to place an image on the Traceability - An unbroken trail of accountability for page. verifying or validating the chain of custody of Thermal transfer printers - Printers that heat a samples, data, the documentation of a procedure, or wax-based ink on the ribbon which then flows onto the values of a standard. the paper. Transducer - A component that sends information. TIC - Tentatively Identified Compound. In a well, a transducer might transmit pressure. For TIFF - Tagged Image File Format. A format for digitizers, the device, either a stylus or a cursor, that storing digital images. See also GeoTIFF. indicates the position on the tablet. Time-proportioned sample - A composite sample Transmission Electron Microscope -A device in produced by combining samples of a specific size, which a beam of electrons is transmitted through an collected at preselected, uniform time intervals. ultra-thin specimen, interacting with the specimen as TM - See Transverse Mercator. it passes through, forming an image. TEMs allow a very high magnification. TNT - Trinitrotoluene. Transverse Mercator - A map projection in which a TOC - Total Organic Carbon. cylinder is wrapped around the earth, tangent to the Total dissolved solids - Mass of dissolved solids in a sphere (earth), at a chosen meridian. specific volume of liquid. Transmissivity - The ability of a rock or other Total measurement error - The sum of all the errors material to transmit fluid. that occur from the taking of the sample through the Treatment (experimental) - An experimental reporting of results. The difference between the procedure whose effect is to be measured and reported result and the true value of the population compared with the effect of other treatments. that was to have been sampled. TRI - See Toxics Release Inventory. Total Quality Management (TQM) - The process whereby an entire organization, led by senior TRIAD - A site investigation approach from the management, commits to focusing on quality as a USEPA that emphasizes field screening techniques. first priority in every activity. TQM implementation The three parts are systematic project planning, creates a culture in which everyone in the dynamic work strategies, and innovative rapid organization shares the responsibility for sampling and analytical technologies. continuously improving the quality of products and Triangulation - In mapping, a method of creating services (i.e., for “doing the right thing, the right contours using an array of triangles between the data way, the first time, on time”) in order to satisfy the points. In surveying, a method of determining customer. location based on observation of three angles. Total suspended solids - Mass of suspended solids Trip blank - A clean sample of matrix that is carried in a specific volume of liquid. to the sampling site and transported to the laboratory Total systems error - The combined error due to all for analysis without having been exposed to sampling components of the system. procedures. The most common type of field QC sample. Touch screen - A display device such as a flat panel that accepts input by touching the screen. Trigger - Functionality in a server database that performs certain functions, such as enforcing TOX - Total organic halides. uniqueness between records, when certain operations Toxic - A poisonous or hazardous substance. occur. Triggers often use Stored procedures to Toxics Release Inventory - TRI is published by the perform their tasks. U.S. EPA, and is a valuable source of information Trojan horse - Program which masquerades as regarding toxic chemicals that are being used, something useful but which can damage your data. manufactured, treated, transported, or released into TSCA - Toxic Substances Control Act. the environment. TSS - See Total suspended solids. Toxicity - A measure of the poisonous or harmful nature of a substance.

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Turbidity - A key water quality component, Upper warning limit - See Warning limit. measuring the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid, URL - Universal Resource Locator. A web address Measured in NTU. like www.geotech.com. Turnaround time - The maximum length of time USACE - United States Army Corps of Engineers. allowed for laboratories to provide the results of USACE is responsible for investigating, developing analyses. and maintaining the nation's water and related Tuning - The process of adjusting a measurement environmental resources. device or instrument, prior to its use, to ensure that it USB - Universal Serial Bus. High speed serial works properly and meets established performance interface for connecting peripherals to computers. criteria. User check - An evaluation of a written procedure Turnkey - Ready to run, or performed for a fixed (e.g., chemical analysis method) for clarity and price. Refers to a complete solution to an operational accuracy in which an independent laboratory or computing need. analyzes a small number of spiked samples, Type I error (alpha error) - An (incorrect) decision following the procedure exactly. resulting from the rejection of a true hypothesis. (A User interface - The part of software that interacts false positive decision.) with the computer operator. Type II error (beta error) - An (incorrect) decision USGS - United States Geological Survey. The U.S. resulting from acceptance of a false hypothesis. (A Geological Survey investigates the occurrence, false negative decision.) quantity, quality, distribution, and movement of surface and groundwater, along with much other data, U especially geologic and other maps, and provides the data to the public. Ultraviolet spectrophotometry - A technique in chemistry widely used to analyze chemical structure USPLS - United States Public Land Survey (also or composition. known as Jeffersonian Survey). The USPLS is the township-range location system used in most of the Uncertainty - A measure of the total variability western United States and in Canada. An ideal associated with sampling and measuring that includes township is a square consisting of 36 sections of 1 the two major error components: systematic error square mile each. (bias) and random error. UST - Underground Storage Tank. Universal Transverse Mercator - A coordinate system based in meters, originally used for UTM - See Universal Transverse Mercator. constructing military maps between 80° South and UV - Ultraviolet. Also used for Ultraviolet 84° North, based on the Transverse Mercator spectrophotometry. projection. (North and south of this zone, the Universal Polar Stereographic coordinate systems are V used.) The earth is divided into 60 UTM zones of 6° each. Zones are numbered west to east; a central Vadose zone - The area of unsaturated soil between meridian in each zone serves as the reference point. the ground surface and the water table (also called the unsaturated zone). UNIX - Operating system from Bell Laboratories that runs on a wide variety of computers including Valid study - A study conducted in accordance with supercomputers, engineering workstations such as accepted scientific methodology, the results of which Sun SPARCstation computers, and microcomputers. satisfy predefined criteria. Several different varieties exist. See Linux. Validated method - A method that has been Unsaturated zone - The area of unsaturated soil determined to meet certain performance criteria for between the ground surface and the water table (also sampling and/or measurement operations. called the vadose zone). Validation - Confirmation by examination and Upgrade - Increase the capability of hardware or provision of objective evidence that the particular software by adding hardware or changing to a newer requirements for a specific use have been fulfilled. or better version. Data validation is an analyte- and sample-specific process that extends the evaluation of data beyond Upload - Move data from a local computer to a method, procedural, or contractual compliance (i.e., server or web site. Opposite of Download. data verification) to determine the analytical quality Upper control limit - See Control limit. of a specific data set. 36

Value - The magnitude of a quantity. A single piece Voice coil - Device for positioning the heads on high- of factual information obtained by observation or quality disk drives. measurement and used as a basis of calculation. Volatile - A substance that has a high vapor pressure, Vapor - Gaseous phase of any substance that is that is, it evaporates easily. liquid or solid at atmospheric pressure and Volumetrics - Calculating volumes for surfaces temperature. generated by the computer. Vaporize - To go from the liquid to gaseous state. Voxler - 3-D display program from Golden Software. Variable - An entity subject to variation or change. VPN - See Virtual private network. Variance - See Sample variance. Vector - A geometric unit that has direction and W magnitude. Also refers to graphic images that consist WAN - Wide Area Network. A way of connecting of points and lines rather than raster dots. computers that are not at the same location. Vector map- A map made up of points, lines and Warm boot - See Boot. polygons. See also Raster map. Warning limit - A specified boundary on a control Verification - Confirmation by examination and chart that indicates a process may be going out of provision of objective evidence that specified statistical control and that certain precautions are requirements have been fulfilled. Data verification is required. the process of evaluating the completeness, correctness, and conformance/compliance of a Wastewater - Water from a home, community, farm, specific data set against the method, procedural, or or industrial facility that contains dissolved or contractual requirements. suspended substances. Verifiable - The ability to be proven or substantiated. Water table - The boundary between the saturated and unsaturated zones beneath the ground surface. VGA - Video Graphics Array. Older video adapter on PC-compatible computers. Highest VGA Waterloo Barrier - A patented groundwater resolution is 640×480 pixels. containment wall formed of sealable steel sheet piling. Video adapter - A card that translates the digital signal from the computer’s motherboard into the Wi-Fi - a local area network using Ethernet protocol monitor is the video adapter. High performance video that uses high frequency radio signals to transmit and adapters are particularly important to game players. receive data over distances of a few hundred feet. View - In a database management system, a view is a Wind rose - A circular diagram used to show wind stored query accessible as a virtual table composed of direction and magnitude. the result set of a query. Window - An area of the screen used for input or Virtual machine - An instance of an operating output of data. See also Microsoft Windows. system and applications that runs as if it were a Windows - See Microsoft Windows. separate computer on a host computer. A computer Windows RT - A variant of the Windows 8 can host multiple virtual machines. operating system designed for mobile devices that Virtual private network - A way of connecting two utilize the ARM architecture. computers across a public network such as the Word processor - Software to enter, edit, format, Internet so that they act as if they were on a private and print text, and sometimes graphics, on a network. computer. Virus - Software that can damage your system, and Working standard - See Secondary standard. which can spread from computer to computer. Workstation - Refers generally to any computer or Visual Studio - Software development environment terminal where work is done. from Microsoft for making .net applications. WP - Work Plan. VM- See Virtual machine. WQC - Water Quality Criteria. VOA - Volatile Organic Analysis. WQS - Water Quality Standards. VOC - Volatile Organic Compounds. This is a WQX - Water Quality eXchange. Interface to the compound containing carbon that evaporates more EPA STORET database. readily than an SVOC and has a boiling point less than 200°C. WW - WasteWater.

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WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get. gamma rays. Widely used for elemental analysis and Refers to word processing and desktop publishing chemical analysis such as metal concentrations. software that displays formatting as well as text during editing. Y X Y - The north-south axis on a map. Y axis - The vertical axis on a graph. X - An unknown value. Also the east-west axis on a map. Z X axis - The horizontal axis on a graph. Z or Z axis - The vertical axis on a map. XGA - eXtended Graphics Array. Popular video adapter on PC-compatible computers. Typical Zero drift - The change in instrument output over a resolution is 1024x768 pixels, although some go stated time period of nonrecalibrated, continuous much higher. operation, when the initial input concentration is zero; usually expressed as a percentage of the full XML - eXtensible Markup Language. A self- scale response. documenting text-based data transfer format often used for transferring data on the Internet. ZHE - Zero Headspace Extraction. XRF - X-Ray Fluorescence. Emission of Zip file - A compressed file containing one or more characteristic X-rays from a material that has been digital files. excited by bombarding with high-energy X-rays or Zoom - Change the viewing scale of a map or drawing

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