What's the difference between arbitrary and random?

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.

Random


Definition:

  • (n.) Force; violence.
  • (n.) A roving motion; course without definite direction; want of direction, rule, or method; hazard; chance; -- commonly used in the phrase at random, that is, without a settled point of direction; at hazard.
  • (n.) Distance to which a missile is cast; range; reach; as, the random of a rifle ball.
  • (n.) The direction of a rake-vein.
  • (a.) Going at random or by chance; done or made at hazard, or without settled direction, aim, or purpose; hazarded without previous calculation; left to chance; haphazard; as, a random guess.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Multiple stored energy levels were randomly tested and the percent successful defibrillation was plotted against the stored energy, and the raw data were fit by logistic regression.
  • (2) Twenty-seven patients were randomized to receive either 50 mg stanozolol or placebo intramuscularly 24 h before operation, followed by a 6 week course of either 5 mg stanozolol or placebo orally, twice daily.
  • (3) The effects of sessions, individual characteristics, group behavior, sedative medications, and pharmacological anticipation, on simple visual and auditory reaction time were evaluated with a randomized block design.
  • (4) We have addressed the effect of late intensification with autologous bone marrow transplantation on SCLC through a randomized clinical trial.
  • (5) However, survival was closely related to the severity of the illness at the time of randomization and was not altered by shunting.
  • (6) Statistically significant differences were found mainly in the randomized trial, where during the first and second years, respectively, adenoidectomy subjects had 47% and 37% less time with otitis media than control subjects and 28% and 35% fewer suppurative (acute) episodes than control subjects.
  • (7) In a random sample of 1,000 neonates from a Delhi Hospital the incidence of jaundice was 53% and of hyperbilirubinaemia (HB) 6%.
  • (8) Febrile reactions were not distributed randomly among the patients; those with respiratory tract infection experienced more febrile reactions during periods with infection than during periods without.
  • (9) Five days later, the animals were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: Group 1 received intracranial implantation of controlled-release polymers containing dexamethasone; Group 2 received intraperitoneal implantation of controlled-release polymers containing dexamethasone; Group 3 received serial intraperitoneal injections of dexamethasone; and Group 4 received sham treatment.
  • (10) In a randomized double-blind study, 40 patients with coronary heart disease received intravenously either 0.025 mg nitroglycerin or placebo.
  • (11) A prospective randomized trial was conducted at Srinagarind and Khon Kaen hospitals.
  • (12) Quantitative measurements of image contrast were carried out for B-mode images of anechoic spheres (cysts) embedded in a random scattering medium.
  • (13) The distribution of the amino acid pairs, i, i + 1 in alpha-helical configurations does not differ from the random pairing.
  • (14) The authors studied 84 randomly selected participants who live in retirement communities to discover factors leading to successful completion of a wellness enhancing program.
  • (15) In 290 patients with untreated carcinoma of the bladder the deoxyribonucleic acid properties, as measured by flow cytometry, of 3 random mucosal biopsies were studied and compared to those of the exophytic tumors.
  • (16) A prospective randomized trial involving 64 patients with bleeding peptic ulcers was performed to assess the efficacy of two modalities of injection therapy.
  • (17) The relationship between technique of obtaining Papanicolaou smears, presence of endocervical cells, and rate of cervical neoplasia was studied by comparing an endocervical and ectocervical nylon brush (Bayne brush), Ayre spatula plus endocervical brush, and spatula plus cotton-tipped swab in a randomized, prospective trial involving 11,061 patients.
  • (18) One hundred and sixteen patients with advanced and metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas were randomized to treatment with combined Streptozotocin and 5-fluorouracil or combined Streptozotocin and cyclophosphamide.
  • (19) The government has blamed a clumsily worded press release for the furore, denying there would be random checks of the public.
  • (20) The haemodynamics and affecting factors of the acute random skin flap and the methods for monitoring its viability were studied.