(n.) The state of being difficult, or hard to do; hardness; arduousness; -- opposed to easiness or facility; as, the difficulty of a task or enterprise; a work of difficulty.
(n.) Something difficult; a thing hard to do or to understand; that which occasions labor or perplexity, and requires skill and perseverance to overcome, solve, or achieve; a hard enterprise; an obstacle; an impediment; as, the difficulties of a science; difficulties in theology.
(n.) A controversy; a falling out; a disagreement; an objection; a cavil.
(n.) Embarrassment of affairs, especially financial affairs; -- usually in the plural; as, to be in difficulties.
Example Sentences:
(1) Technical factors that account for increased difficulty in these patients include: problems with guide catheter impaction and ostial trauma; inability to inflate the balloon with adequate guide catheter support; and need for increased intracoronary manipulation.
(2) To overcome this difficulty, a "hetero-antibody" RIA was studied.
(3) Epidemiological studies on low risks involve a number of major methodological difficulties.
(4) Mild swallowing difficulties occurred in 18 patients (39%), moderate dysfunction in 23 (50%), and severe dysfunction in five (11%).
(5) Reasons for non-acceptance do not indicate any major difficulties in the employment of such staff in general practice, at least as far as the patients are concerned.
(6) Spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions may be the only way of revealing very rare events but they present great difficulties of rational interpretation.
(7) The indication of the DNA probe method would be considered in the four cases as follows, 1. necessity of the special equipment to isolate the pathogen, 2. necessity of the long period to isolate the pathogen, 3. existence of the cross reaction among the pathogen and relative organisms in the immunological procedure, 4. existence of the difficulty to identify the species of the pathogen by the ordinary procedure.
(8) The 1-0-methylalduronic-acidmethylesters, obtained by the methanolysis of the polysaccharides, are reduced with boronhydrid to the corresponding methyl glycosides; there are split with acid to the aldoses, which are converted in pyridine with hydroxylamine to the aldoximes and than with acetic anhydride to the aldonitrilacetates, which can be separated by gaschromatography without difficulty.
(9) A control experiment demonstrated that changes in general arousal could not account for the effects of task difficulty on neuronal responses.
(10) In the anatomy laboratory we looked for an alternative approach to the glenohumeral joint which would accommodate these difficulties.
(11) A 27-year-old lady presented with history of discomfort in the throat and difficulty in swallowing for two weeks.
(12) Especially in the old patients (over 70 years) the incisional hernias represents an invalidating pathology whose treatment, for the high incidence of associated diseases of respiratory and cardiocirculatory apparatus in the aged, offers difficulties connected both to surgical methods and to the perioperative evaluation and preparation of patients.
(13) Marked pain and great difficulty in introducing the apparatus made its use limited in respectively 15% and 14.5% of cases.
(14) The tasks which appeared to present the most difficulties for the patients were written spelling, pragmatic processing tasks like sentence disambiguation and proverb interpretation.
(15) In favorable cases, tRNA-DNA hybrids of length about 80 nucleotide pairs can be recognized (although with difficulty).
(16) The patient with the right posterior lesion could not recognize handwriting, was prosopagnosic and topographagnosic, but had no difficulty in reading, lipreading, or in recognizing stylized drawings.
(17) A review of the literature summarises the difficulties of diagnosis.
(18) The major difficulty encountered with the current technique is the danger of neurologic injury during the passage and handling of conventional wires, especially in extensive procedures.
(19) However six equivocal studies were observed in profoundly jaundiced patients with bilirubin levels above 400 mumol l-1 due to difficulties in differentiating extrahepatic obstruction from severe intrahepatic cholestasis.
(20) While mindful of the potential difficulties which attend its introduction into the treatment situation there is an attempt to balance this position through a consideration of the appropriate conditions and modes of operation under which a humor-enriched approach may be efficacious.
Level
Definition:
(n.) A line or surface to which, at every point, a vertical or plumb line is perpendicular; a line or surface which is everywhere parallel to the surface of still water; -- this is the true level, and is a curve or surface in which all points are equally distant from the center of the earth, or rather would be so if the earth were an exact sphere.
(n.) A horizontal line or plane; that is, a straight line or a plane which is tangent to a true level at a given point and hence parallel to the horizon at that point; -- this is the apparent level at the given point.
(n.) An approximately horizontal line or surface at a certain degree of altitude, or distance from the center of the earth; as, to climb from the level of the coast to the level of the plateau and then descend to the level of the valley or of the sea.
(n.) Hence, figuratively, a certain position, rank, standard, degree, quality, character, etc., conceived of as in one of several planes of different elevation.
(n.) A uniform or average height; a normal plane or altitude; a condition conformable to natural law or which will secure a level surface; as, moving fluids seek a level.
(n.) An instrument by which to find a horizontal line, or adjust something with reference to a horizontal line.
(n.) A measurement of the difference of altitude of two points, by means of a level; as, to take a level.
(n.) A horizontal passage, drift, or adit, in a mine.
(a.) Even; flat; having no part higher than another; having, or conforming to, the curvature which belongs to the undisturbed liquid parts of the earth's surface; as, a level field; level ground; the level surface of a pond or lake.
(a.) Coinciding or parallel with the plane of the horizon; horizontal; as, the telescope is now level.
(a.) Even with anything else; of the same height; on the same line or plane; on the same footing; of equal importance; -- followed by with, sometimes by to.
(a.) Straightforward; direct; clear; open.
(a.) Well balanced; even; just; steady; impartial; as, a level head; a level understanding. [Colloq.]
(a.) Of even tone; without rising or falling inflection.
(v. t.) To make level; to make horizontal; to bring to the condition of a level line or surface; hence, to make flat or even; as, to level a road, a walk, or a garden.
(v. t.) To bring to a lower level; to overthrow; to topple down; to reduce to a flat surface; to lower.
(v. t.) To bring to a horizontal position, as a gun; hence, to point in taking aim; to aim; to direct.
(v. t.) Figuratively, to bring to a common level or plane, in respect of rank, condition, character, privilege, etc.; as, to level all the ranks and conditions of men.
(v. t.) To adjust or adapt to a certain level; as, to level remarks to the capacity of children.
(v. i.) To be level; to be on a level with, or on an equality with, something; hence, to accord; to agree; to suit.
(v. i.) To aim a gun, spear, etc., horizontally; hence, to aim or point a weapon in direct line with the mark; fig., to direct the eye, mind, or effort, directly to an object.
Example Sentences:
(1) Cancer patients showed abnormally high plasma free tryptophan levels.
(2) Similar experimental manipulation has yielded in vitro lines established from avian B-cell lymphomas expressing elevated levels of c-myc or v-rel.
(3) 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.
(4) Serum levels of both dihydralazine and metabolites were very low and particularly below the detection limit.
(5) Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, volumes, and temperatures of expired gas were measured from the tracheal and esophageal tubes.
(6) Since fingernail creatinine (Ncr) reflects serum creatinine (Scr) at the time of nail formation, it has been suggested that Ncr level might represent that of Scr around 4 months previously.
(7) Disease stabilisation was associated with prolonged periods of comparatively high plasma levels of drug, which appeared to be determined primarily by reduced drug clearance.
(8) The significance of minor increases in the serum creatinine level must be recognized, so that modifications of drug therapy can be made and correction of possibly life-threatening electrolyte imbalances can be undertaken.
(9) The high amino acid levels in the cells suggest that these cells act as inter-organ transporters and reservoirs of amino acids, they have a different role in their handling and metabolism from those of mammals.
(10) LHRH therapy leads to higher plasma LH levels and a lower FSH in response to an intravenous LHRH test.
(11) On the other hand, the LAP level, identical in preterms and SDB, is lower than in full-term infants but higher than in adults.
(12) BL6 mouse melanoma cells lack detectable H-2Kb and had low levels of expression of H-2Db Ag.
(13) 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.
(14) Participants (n=165) entering a week-long outpatient education program completed a protocol measuring self-care patterns, glycosylated hemoglobin levels, and emotional well-being.
(15) Measurement of the intraspinal monoamine level revealed a decrease in the intraspinal norepinephrine level in the treated animals.
(16) The level of gadd45 mRNA increased rapidly after X rays at doses as low as 2 Gy.
(17) Irrespective of the type of arthropathy, synovial fluid dialysable hydroxyproline levels correlate with urinary hydroxyproline excretion.
(18) This induction is sensitive to actinomycin D but not to protein synthesis inhibitor puromycin, indicating an effect of estradiol at the transcriptional level, possibly mediated by the estrogen receptor.
(19) Quantitative determinations indicate that the amount of PBG-D mRNA is modulated both by the erythroid nature of the tissue and by cell proliferation, probably at the transcriptional level.
(20) This new observation offers good possibilities to study the metabolism of tryptophan at the cellular level.