The IUPAC Interdivisional Committee on
Nomenclature and Symbols met at Research Triangle, North Carolina, USA on
August 14 and 15, 1998.
The Committee gave its support to electronic publication of provisional
recommendations and encouraged comment from interested parties. The IUPAC
Handbook is already on the Web where it is updated regularly.
An item from the 1997 minutes of particular interest to IUNS related to the
kilogram which is the only base unit to carry a prefix. It is the least
definitive of the base units, the others being the metre, the second, the
ampere, the Kelvin, the mole and the candela. Currently the standard for the
kilogram depends upon a physical prototype of platinum-iridium for which the
mass changes by 1 part in 107. If physicists working in different parts of the
world can determine the Avogadro constant to within 1 part in 109, it would be
possible for the base unit of mass to be more precise. The suggestion to call
the newly defined unit a gio (symbol Gi) in honor of Giovanni Giorgi was in
conflict with the binary multiple, 230. IUNS, in any case, would not have to
relinquish the kilogram, and the Committee chairman, Dr. Ian Mills agreed that
it would not disappear. It was said, however, that a systematic name for a new
unit would be required when the Avogadro constant is made more precise.
Progress towards a better definition for the unit of mass is to be discussed
in France in September 1998 by the Consultative Committee on Units.
The >litre (L)=, which is outside the SI system but is used with it,
corresponds to the SI unit of dm3. This SI unit is already familiar to
students in the EU. The expressions ppm and ppb are discouraged and to be
replaced by such units as mmol/mol and nmol/mol. The difficulty with the
billion being either 109 or 1012 , depending on the country, would also be
eliminated.
A proposal for a new derived SI unit, the katal, to express catalytic
activity or rate of reaction was unacceptable because it was less explanatory
than moles per second, written as mol multiplied by sec-1. The sign for
multiplication is the >half-high dot=. The SI units, endorsed by IUPAC, aim
to be self-explanatory.
For clear communication, there was said to be a need for organic compounds
to be identified by internationally accepted nomenclature. Chemical names on
medical prescriptions are becoming a requirement in the EU. This trend with
its legal implications could become international.
The success and wide application of the Enzyme List prepared by a joint
committee of IUPAC and IUBMB was noted.
Atmospheric chemists have been examining the SI system of units and find
them advantageous over commonly used units. Dr. Stephen Schwartz of the
Brookhaven National Laboratory USA gave a presentation in which he showed how
each of the base units and its derivatives would apply to his discipline. A
similar study does not appear to have been done for the nutritional sciences.
The dating of documents in IUPAC should be according to the ISO
international standard, in which the year in 4 digits is given first, followed
the month in 2 digits, then the day in two digits.
The Lexicon of Lipid Nutrition, a joint project of an IUNS committee and an
IUPAC Commission on Fats, Oils and Derivatives appeared to have dropped into a
dark hole. It was suggested that the bulky document could be published
electronically.
1998 IUPAC publications that may be of interest to members of IUNS are:
