What's the difference between difficulty and severity?

Difficulty


Definition:

  • (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.

Severity


Definition:

  • (n.) The quality or state of being severe.
  • (n.) Gravity or austerity; extreme strictness; rigor; harshness; as, the severity of a reprimand or a reproof; severity of discipline or government; severity of penalties.
  • (n.) The quality or power of distressing or paining; extreme degree; extremity; intensity; inclemency; as, the severity of pain or anguish; the severity of cold or heat; the severity of the winter.
  • (n.) Harshness; cruel treatment; sharpness of punishment; as, severity practiced on prisoners of war.
  • (n.) Exactness; rigorousness; strictness; as, the severity of a test.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify the breakpoint area of alpha-thalassemia-1 of Southeast Asia type and several parts of the alpha-globin gene cluster to make a differential diagnosis between alpha-thalassemia-1 and Hb Bart's hydrops fetalis.
  • (2) The newborn with critical AS typically presents with severe cardiac failure and the infant with moderate failure, whereas children may be asymptomatic.
  • (3) The low affinity of several N1-alkylpyrroleethylamines suggests that the benzene portion of the alpha-methyltryptamines is necessary for significant affinity.
  • (4) The main clinical features pertaining to the concept of the "psycho-organic syndrome" (POS) were investigated in a sample of children who suffered from severe craniocerebral trauma.
  • (5) The rise of malaria despite of control measures involves several factors: the house spraying is no more accepted by a large percentage of house holders and the alternative larviciding has only a limited efficacy; the houses of American Indians have no walls to be sprayed; there is a continuous introduction of parasites by migrants.
  • (6) Collins said she asked Sullivan several questions, including who the women were.
  • (7) Single-case experimental designs are presented and discussed from several points of view: Historical antecedents, assessment of the dependent variable, internal and external validity and pre-experimental vs experimental single-case designs.
  • (8) During and after the infusion of 5HTP, none of the patients showed an increase in anxiety or depressive symptoms, despite the presence of severe side effects.
  • (9) Histological studies showed that the resulting pancreatitis was usually mild to moderate, being severe only in association with sepsis.
  • (10) An “out” vote would severely disrupt our lives, in an economic sense and a private sense.
  • (11) No consistent relationship could be found between the time interval from SAH to operation and the severity of vasospasm.
  • (12) Also we found that the lipid deposition in the glomeruli of patients with Alagille syndrome is related to an abnormal lipid metabolism, which is the consequence of severe cholestasis.
  • (13) Sixteen patients in whom schizophrenia was initially diagnosed and who were treated with fluphenazine enanthate or decanoate developed severe depression for a short period after the injection.
  • (14) Concentrations of several gastrointestinal hormonal peptides were measured in lymph from the cisterna chyli and in arterial plasma; in healthy, conscious pigs during ingestion of a meal.
  • (15) In addition to the changes associated with blood group A, we also found a decrease in sugar content, alterations in other antigens, and changes in the levels of several glycosyltransferases in cancerous tissues.
  • (16) Based on several previous studies, which demonstrated that sorbitol accumulation in human red blood cells (RBCs) was a function of ambient glucose concentrations, either in vitro or in vivo, our investigations were conducted to determine if RBC sorbitol accumulation would correlate with sorbitol accumulation in lens and nerve tissue of diabetic rats; the effect of sorbinil in reducing sorbitol levels in lens and nerve tissue of diabetic rats would be reflected by changes in RBC sorbitol; and sorbinil would reduce RBC sorbitol in diabetic man.
  • (17) The severity and site of hypertrophy is important in determining the clinical picture and the natural history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).
  • (18) After a discussion of the therapeutic relationship, several coping strategies which have been used successfully by many women are described and therapeutic applications are offered.
  • (19) To clarify the functional roles of His40, Glu58, and His92, we analyzed the consequences of several amino acid substitutions (His40Ala, His40Lys, His40Asp, Glu58Ala, Glu58Gln, and His92Gln) on the kinetics of GpC transesterification.
  • (20) Moreover, in DCVC-treated cells the mitochondria could not be stained with rhodamine-123, indicating severe mitochondrial damage and loss of membrane potential.