Märgistamine

Märgistamine is the process of attaching labels, markers, or tags to objects, substances, or data to enable identification, tracking, or analysis. In Estonian usage the term covers a range of tagging practices across science, industry, and information management. The common goal is to provide information about origin, composition, state, or function without altering the object beyond the label’s purpose.

Common methods and examples:

- Chemical and biological labeling: attaching chemical tags, fluorescent dyes, or radiolabels to molecules to track their behavior. Examples include fluorescent labeling with dyes or proteins, and radiolabeling with isotopes.

- Genetic tagging: genetically encoded markers such as fluorescent fusion proteins that report on cellular processes.

- Data labeling: annotating datasets with class labels, tags, or metadata to enable supervised learning and data management.

- Product and process labeling: using barcodes, QR codes, or RFID tags to identify items, track inventory, or monitor supply chains.

Applications:

Märgistamine is used in laboratory research to study pathways and interactions, in diagnostics and therapeutics to trace substances, in quality control and logistics to monitor products, and in data science to train and evaluate models. It supports quantification, provenance tracking, and error reduction across disciplines.

Considerations:

Label choice should minimize interference with the object’s function, ensure label stability under conditions of use, and comply with safety, ethical, and regulatory requirements. Cost, durability, and compatibility with analytical methods are also important factors.

See also: labeling (general), radiolabeling, fluorescent tagging, barcoding, data annotation.