Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Effective half-life


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. SarahStierch (talk) 16:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Effective half-life

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To me, this is a very unfamiliar way of describing issues with half-life. It seems to be the same as the reservoir effect as effectively described on Radiocarbon dating. It also seems to be a poor summary of the single external link. On the talk page there are older calls for deletion. PatHadley (talk) 19:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a basic concept in pharmacokinetics, applicable in case that biological elimination is a constant rate process that can be modeled as having a biological half-life. This paper, published in 1995, shows that the concept has been around since 1977. There is some controversy over its use, for instance in this PharmaPK discussion, because it may be too simple of a model in some cases. Nonetheless the concept has made it into an encyclopedia from the European Nuclear Society and a nuclear medicine tutorial. There are over 5,500 GScholar hits for the concept. There are multiple reliable sources for the topic, making it notable. The article could use some work on better sources and describing potential pitfalls, but it is salvageable per WP:SURMOUNTABLE. A notable topic and surmountable article problems suggest keeping the article. --Mark viking (talk) 20:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep per Mark viking. -- 101.119.14.241 (talk) 02:29, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep Ok - well I've learned some interesting stuff! I've removed the archaeology-related categories and I think it's now time for me to leave alone the stuff I don't understand! Thanks for clarifying PatHadley (talk) 13:39, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I should have noted above that in my brief search I saw no evidence of this term being used in either archaeological or geological contexts and agree those categories don't apply here. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 20:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment Effective half-life is a legitimate concept, although it is used more broadly than just with respect to elimination in radio-pharmacology (note that one of the references given by Mark viking, the one tracing it to 1977, is about its use in reflecting drug accumulation into distinct pharmacokinetic 'compartments', and the term also is used to reflect the cumulative effect of independent liver and kidney elimination half-lives). Radioactivity is a bit of a special case in that it has a physical half-life via radioactive decay, as distinct from one due to biochemical and physiological processes, but the MeSH definition of biological half-life, which we also use, includes the loss of radiologic activity, and this would take the duality into account. In effect, then, effective half-life is just the biological half-life in a complex system, the observed sum of each single specific biochemical, physiological and physical half-life, making the two effectively the same in most cases (given that rarely is there a single mode of elimination), and I suspect some of the controversy is over whether this is a worthwhile distinction.  I have done a major revision to try to reflect its broader usage, but perhaps this article should be merged into biological half-life, at least until someone is better able to draw the distinction than I have been. Agricolae (talk) 20:00, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Nice rewrite and expansion of the article. I agree that biological half-life is broad enough in definition/practical use to encompass what is meant by effective half-life. I suspect that biological half-life is a broader concept than effective half-life, but I'd need to do more digging to verify this. While I think that effective half-life is a notable enough concept to have a place somewhere in Wikipedia, a merge to biological half-life would be fine, too. --Mark viking (talk) 20:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.