What's the difference between absolute and arbitrary?

Absolute


Definition:

  • (a.) Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command; absolute power; an absolute monarch.
  • (a.) Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless; as, absolute perfection; absolute beauty.
  • (a.) Viewed apart from modifying influences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real; -- opposed to relative and comparative; as, absolute motion; absolute time or space.
  • (a.) Loosed from, or unconnected by, dependence on any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing.
  • (a.) Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned; non-relative.
  • (a.) Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful.
  • (a.) Authoritative; peremptory.
  • (a.) Pure; unmixed; as, absolute alcohol.
  • (a.) Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence in government; as, the case absolute. See Ablative absolute, under Ablative.
  • (n.) In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The absolute recoveries of diazepam, nordazepam and flurazepam in human milk were 84, 86 and 92% and in human plasma 97, 89 and 94%, respectively.
  • (2) Other haematological parameters remained normal, with the exception of the absolute number of lymphocytes, which initially fell sharply but soon returned to, and even exceeded, control levels.
  • (3) No relationship was found with the absolute value of either peak or area GH.
  • (4) The guanethidine treatment resulted in an 86% absolute reduction in cell number in the superior cervical ganglia of 15 day old rats.
  • (5) The absolute level of ventilatory capacity resembles that of Nepalese children and differs from that of some other groups.
  • (6) Lipoprotein electrophoresis on agarose gel has been modified to allow estimation of the absolute quantity of each fraction.
  • (7) Paired tolbutamide and glucose infusions using a square wave technique demonstrated that although early phase insulin secretion is dimished in the fetus, this is not due to an absolute deficiency of stored insulin.
  • (8) Significant differences in the pharmacological characteristics of the alpha 2 adrenoceptor were observed between the tissues with reference to both absolute drug affinities as well as rank order of drug potency.
  • (9) This stimulation is mediated by one receptor with an apparent affinity of 3.3 X 10(-6) M. The hydroxyl group in the para position on phenylethanolamine was absolutely necessary to obtain an agonist whereas the meta hydroxyl group or the presence of a catechol almost suppressed the activity.
  • (10) The early absolute but transient dependence of these A-MuLV mast cell transformants on a fibroblast feeder suggests a multistep process in their evolution, in which the acquisition of autonomy from factors of mesenchymal cell origin may play an important role.
  • (11) From this it is clear that either an absolute increase in radiographic density or structural failure are the earliest radiological features.
  • (12) So far, attempts to produce linolenic acid deficiency in mammals have not revealed an absolute requirement for n-3 fatty acids.
  • (13) "We absolutely regret the setbacks Kim Dotcom has had since MegaUpload was taken offline, but we hope he as an entrepreneur will understand our side of the story and the decisions deliberately taken."
  • (14) But we sent out reconnoitres in the morning; we send out a team in advance and they get halfway down the road, maybe a quarter of the way down the road, sometimes three-quarters of the way down the road – we tried this three days in a row – and then the shelling starts and while I can’t point the finger at who starts the shelling, we get the absolute assurances from the Ukraine government that it’s not them.” Flags on all Australian government buildings will be flown at half-mast on Thursday, and an interdenominational memorial service will be held at St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne from 10.30am.
  • (15) The prime minister said: “I am taking absolutely nothing for granted.
  • (16) DR(+) cells, however, showed no change in percentage and a lesser drop in absolute numbers, suggesting an increase with advancing disease of DR(+), Ig(-) null cells, which may represent immature B cell precursors.
  • (17) The wide variation in potency explains the variation found in absolute bioavailability, and the increase in release rate when the pellets are crushed explains the differences seen in peak plasma times, since the pellets will be chewed to varying degrees by the horse.
  • (18) Methods are in development that will allow determination of absolute blood flow in pertinent vessels via IV-DSA.
  • (19) When using pair stimula, barbamil shortens the period of absolute nonexcitation and the second phase of depression in the cycle of restituted H-reflexes to the second stimula in the pair.
  • (20) Immune complex- and A23187-induced 20:4 release was absolutely dependent on extracellular Ca2+.

Arbitrary


Definition:

  • (a.) Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment.
  • (a.) Exercised according to one's own will or caprice, and therefore conveying a notion of a tendency to abuse the possession of power.
  • (a.) Despotic; absolute in power; bound by no law; harsh and unforbearing; tyrannical; as, an arbitrary prince or government.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This developed concept of "valve only" energy loss has the potential of standardising the findings of different research groups by removing the arbitrary selection of measurement points from reported results.
  • (2) 'Vertical' sections are plane sections longitudinal to a fixed (but arbitrary) axial direction.
  • (3) In the microtitre plate assay only 45% of specific IgE was immobilized and it was necessary to express the results in arbitrary units.
  • (4) It is concluded that renin levels in hypertension are influenced by several factors and that any attempt to subdivide patients into renin subgroups is therefore arbitrary.
  • (5) In his letter Abd El Fattah highlights the arbitrary nature of many of their detentions, the torture to which thousands have probably been subjected – and the apathy towards, and often enthusiasm for, such malpractice among the public.
  • (6) Although the diagnosis of hyperlipidemia is somewhat arbitrary, in that the upper limits of normal are not universally agreed upon, it is clear that the risk of atherosclerosis increases with plasma cholesterol concentration; it may also increase in hyperglyceridemia.
  • (7) Several arbitrary definitions have been used, some related to visual estimates of coronary stenosis and others to quantitative angiographic techniques.
  • (8) More than 60% of the residents' working hours in this program exceeded the arbitrary 80-hour limit, emphasizing the challenge of complying with the imposition of maximum work hours.
  • (9) Practically, serially accumulated images with sequentially prolonged accumulation times are weighted by two arbitrary functions.
  • (10) While somewhat arbitrary, the number of drug-affected newborns, adjusted for underreporting, was about 38,000 (95% confidence interval: 30,000-45,000).
  • (11) The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979 [...] I cannot imagine a more "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary invasion" than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.
  • (12) For the chain with arbitrary values of characteristic times of individual stages the maximal possible degree of the chain stability and corresponding value of the feedback coefficient are estimated.
  • (13) The cellular total polyamine (spermidine + spermine) concentration on the slides varied between 4 and 15 nmol per mg protein (MCF-7 cells) and 5 and 26 nmol per mg protein (HeLa cells) and the corresponding microfluorometric results between 60 and 115 arbitrary units (MCF-7 cells) and 80 and 160 arbitrary units (HeLa cells).
  • (14) A general purpose computer program, PROPAGATE, has been written to allow addition, deletion, and modification of the beam line elements used in the calculation and to provide a convenient means of repeating such calculations for arbitrary beam lines.
  • (15) The current government should learn from past mistakes and not expand the programme too quickly in pursuit of arbitrary targets, and, above all else, not overclaim for free schools.
  • (16) The device consists of a motor-driven shaft which moves the record past a fixed cursor, and an electronic counter which records the movements of the shaft, thereby providing a cumulative tally of the distance of the current position of the cursor from some arbitrary origin on the record.
  • (17) Analysis of total radioligand binding was found to be a better procedure because it eliminates the use of an arbitrary concentration of unlabelled ligand and improves the accuracy of the assay.
  • (18) Water ferns (Salviniaceae) and seed ferns (Pteridospermae) are known as the arbitrary type of Lycopsida which did not reach the state of shot structure of the body.
  • (19) Methods are reviewed for estimating the transverse relaxation time T2 and the pseudodensity (PD) from spin-echo measurements acquired at an arbitrary set of echo times [TEi].
  • (20) The response of the resting (fully formed) hair follicle to irradiation was studied using an arbitrary 6 unit scale of epilation as an endpoint.