where z is the electrical charge on the ion, I is the ionic strength, ε and b are interaction coefficients and m and c are concentrations. The summation extends over the other ions present in solution, which includes the ions produced by the background electrolyte. The first term in these expressions comes from Debye–Hückel theory. The second term shows how the contributions from "interaction" are dependent on concentration. Thus, the interaction coefficients are used as corrections to Debye–Hückel theory when concentrations are higher than the region of validity of that theory.