What's the difference between action and activity?

Action


Definition:

  • (n.) A process or condition of acting or moving, as opposed to rest; the doing of something; exertion of power or force, as when one body acts on another; the effect of power exerted on one body by another; agency; activity; operation; as, the action of heat; a man of action.
  • (n.) An act; a thing done; a deed; an enterprise. (pl.): Habitual deeds; hence, conduct; behavior; demeanor.
  • (n.) The event or connected series of events, either real or imaginary, forming the subject of a play, poem, or other composition; the unfolding of the drama of events.
  • (n.) Movement; as, the horse has a spirited action.
  • (n.) Effective motion; also, mechanism; as, the breech action of a gun.
  • (n.) Any one of the active processes going on in an organism; the performance of a function; as, the action of the heart, the muscles, or the gastric juice.
  • (n.) Gesticulation; the external deportment of the speaker, or the suiting of his attitude, voice, gestures, and countenance, to the subject, or to the feelings.
  • (n.) The attitude or position of the several parts of the body as expressive of the sentiment or passion depicted.
  • (n.) A suit or process, by which a demand is made of a right in a court of justice; in a broad sense, a judicial proceeding for the enforcement or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offense.
  • (n.) A right of action; as, the law gives an action for every claim.
  • (n.) A share in the capital stock of a joint-stock company, or in the public funds; hence, in the plural, equivalent to stocks.
  • (n.) An engagement between troops in war, whether on land or water; a battle; a fight; as, a general action, a partial action.
  • (n.) The mechanical contrivance by means of which the impulse of the player's finger is transmitted to the strings of a pianoforte or to the valve of an organ pipe.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Power urges the security council to "take the kind of credible, binding action warranted."
  • (2) The subcellular distribution of sialyltransferase and its product of action, sialic acid, was investigated in the undifferentiated cells of the rat intestinal crypts and compared with the pattern observed in the differentiated cells present in the surface epithelium.
  • (3) Consensual but rationally weak criteria devised to extract inferences of causality from such results confirm the generic inadequacy of epidemiology in this area, and are unable to provide definitive scientific support to the perceived mandate for public health action.
  • (4) The following is a brief review of the history, mechanism of action, and potential adverse effects of neuromuscular blockers.
  • (5) However, the mechanism of the inhibitory action is still somewhat uncertain.
  • (6) "What has made that worse is the disingenuous way the force has defended their actions.
  • (7) As prolongation of the action potential by TEA facilitates preferentially the hormone release evoked by low (ineffective) frequencies, it is suggested that a frequency-dependent broadening of action potentials which reportedly occurs on neurosecretory neurones may play an important role in the frequency-dependent facilitation of hormone release from the rat neurohypophysis.
  • (8) This was unlike the action of the calcium channel blocker, cadmium, which reduced the calcium action potential and the a.h.p.
  • (9) An initial complex-soma inflection was observed on the rising phase of the action potential of some cells.
  • (10) Most thyroid hormone actions, however, appear in the perinatal period, and infants with thyroid agenesis appear normal at birth and develop normally with prompt neonatal diagnosis and treatment.
  • (11) We are pursuing legal action because there are still so many unanswered questions about the viability of Shenhua’s proposed koala plan and it seems at this point the plan does not guarantee the survival of the estimated 262 koalas currently living where Shenhua wants to put its mine,” said Ranclaud.
  • (12) The evidence suggests that by the age of 15 years many adolescents show a reliable level of competence in metacognitive understanding of decision-making, creative problem-solving, correctness of choice, and commitment to a course of action.
  • (13) The blockade of H2 receptors is the primary action of these drugs; however, they possess also secondary actions which may represent untoward effects but in some cases may be actually useful (increase in prostaglandin synthesis, inhibition of LTB4 synthesis, etc.)
  • (14) It is concluded that in the mouse model the ability of buspirone to reduce the aversive response to a brightly illuminated area may reflect an anxiolytic action, that the dorsal raphe nucleus may be an important locus of action, and that the effects of buspirone may reflect an interaction at 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors.
  • (15) The macrophage-derived product, interleukin 1 (IL 1) is thought to play an important regulatory role in the proliferation of T lymphocytes; however, its mechanism of action is unknown.
  • (16) If there is a will to use primary Care centres for effective preventive action in the population as a whole, motivation of the professionals involved and organisational changes will be necessary so as not to perpetuate the law of inverse care.
  • (17) In oleate-labeled particles, besides phosphatidic acid the product of PLD action radioactivity was also detected in diglyceride as a result of resident phosphatidate phosphohydrolase, which hydrolyzed the phosphatidic acid.
  • (18) Selective removal of endothelium had no effect on BK-induced contraction or the action of the antagonists.
  • (19) When irradiated circular DNA, previously nicked by T4 endonuclease V, is briefly exposed to elevated temperature, the DAN becomes susceptible to the action of exonuclease V, and pyrimidine dimers are selectively released.
  • (20) The reproducibility of the killing-curve method suggests that at least two different concentrations should be used and that a decrease in viable counts below 2 log10 after 24 hours does not exclude a synergistic action.

Activity


Definition:

  • (n.) The state or quality of being active; nimbleness; agility; vigorous action or operation; energy; active force; as, an increasing variety of human activities.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Tryptic digestion of the membranes caused complete disappearance of the binding activity, but heat-treatment for 5 min at 70 degrees C caused only 40% loss of activity.
  • (2) A study revealed that the percentage of active sperm in semen 30 seconds after ejaculation was 10.3% when a nonoxynol 9 latex condom was used as opposed to 55.9% in a nonspermicidal condom.
  • (3) The most actively proliferating region of the excurrent duct system is zone 3 of the epididymis, whereas the least active region is the ductuli efferentes.
  • (4) Spectral analysis of spontaneous heart rate fluctuations, a powerful noninvasive tool for quantifying autonomic nervous system activity, was assessed in Xenopus Laevis, intact or spinalized, at different temperatures and by use of pharmacological tools.
  • (5) Activity of Na,K-ATPase activity was measured as a functional marker for synaptosomal membranes.
  • (6) The antiarrhythmic activity similar to that of quinidine (with ca.
  • (7) The microsomal preparations from untreated Syrian golden hamster livers exhibited higher activities of N-demethylation towards the macrolide antibiotics, erythromycin and troleandomycin, than those from untreated and phenobarbital-treated rats.
  • (8) Patient plasma samples demonstrated evidence of marked complement activation, with 3-fold elevations of C3a desArg concentrations by the 8th day of therapy.
  • (9) After stimulation with lipopolysaccharide and calcium ionophore A23187, culture supernatants of clones c18A and c29A showed cytotoxic activity against human melanoma A375 Met-Mix and other cell lines which were resistant to the tumor necrosis factor, lymphotoxin and interleukin 1.
  • (10) Phospholipid methylation in human EGMs is distinctly different from that in rat EGMs (Hirata and Axelrod 1980) in that the human activity is not Mg++-dependent, and apparent methyltransferase I activity is located in the external membrane surface.
  • (11) Increased plasmin activity was associated with advancing stage of lactation and older cows after appropriate adjustments were made for the effects of milk yield and SCC.
  • (12) Arachidic acid was without effect, while linoleic acid and linolenic acid were (on a concentration basis) at least 5-times less active than arachidonic acid.
  • (13) Following in vitro C activation in NHS by delta IgG, the 40 KD C4d component increased markedly.
  • (14) One hour after direct mechanical cardiomassage (DMCM) a moderately pronounced edema of the intercellular spaces in the basal compartment of the seminiferous epithelium, normal content of lactate and succinate dehydrogenases, and a certain decrease in the activity of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenases and NAD- and NADP-diaphorases were noted.
  • (15) We conclude that first-transit and blood-pool techniques are equally accurate methods for determining EF when the time-activity method of analysis is employed.
  • (16) This difference was not due to ATPase activity in the assay.
  • (17) In the surface epithelial cells, the basolateral cell surface showed moderate enzymatic activity.
  • (18) Both the vitellogenesis and the GtH cell activity are restored in the fish exposed to short photoperiod if it is followed by a long photoperiod.
  • (19) It was shown in experiments on four dogs by the conditioned method that the period of recovery of conditioned activity after one hour ether anaesthesia tested 7 to 7.5 days.
  • (20) Together these results suggest that IVC may operate as a selective activator of calpain both in the cytosol and at the membrane level; in the latter case in synergism with the activation induced by association of the proteinase to the cell membrane.