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Automobile Repair/Before you buy

Tests to conduct before purchasing a second-hand vehicle The sump compression of an engine must be negative. Pull out the dipstick while engine is idling, but don't engage the accelerator or throttle. If there's any wind, gas or oil escaping the dipstick holder then the piston rings are worn. This condition is known as "blow-by".

White smoke from the exhaust indicates engine oil remaining on the engine cylinder walls that the piston rings haven't scraped off, i.e. loss of oil control. Black smoke from the exhaust indicates dirty fuel injectors on a diesel engine. Dirty fuel injectors aren't a serious problem. The rings gets progressively worn down. A slight escape of wind from the dipstick is the first stage of ring failure. It will get worse until gasses and oil start escaping the dipstick holder. Reduced compression or blow-by on the rings has nothing to do with the condition of a diesel pump.

Reduced engine compression/white smoke are the result of the piston rings not sealing tight with the bore. Blow-by on the rings results in less power transferred to the crankshaft. The compression gases that escape past the rings are forced out via the sump. This results in the sump leaking oil.

First conduct a 'dry test' and then a 'wet test'. The dry/wet readings must be very close to each other. To do a dry test for petrol engines, unplug the spark plugs and on a diesel engine, remove the glowplugs. Place compression tester inside glowplug/sparkplug hole and crank engine a maximum of 10 times, during which needle indicates maximum compression. Note this maximum compression reading and write it down. Repeat test for remaining cylinders. All four readings must be within 10% of the vehicle official specs and very close to each other. Should a reading be out of spec, insert 10mL engine oil into the glowplug/sparkplug hole and repeat compression test. The oil seals any faulty rings that may be skewing the test results. Should the reading differ from the dry reading, it indicates a failing ring. Above sea level the compression readings on all four pistons must be within 20% of the specs.

Always have a mechanic perform a compression test on any used vehicle before purchase. Don't use the mechanic next door to the car sales location. You want ensure an unbiased opinion.

If there's no air, gases or oil escaping the dipstick holder, but the compression readings are not correct then the cylinder head is cracked or there is a blown head gasket. Look for a white emulsification on the dipstick. It would indicate a cracked cylinder head, leaking engine coolant on the piston. Check the dipstick end for gear oil or engine oil. Unscrupulous sellers add SAE90 (thick) gear oil to mask faulty ring symptoms.

Prevent engine overheating: Replace water pump, thermostat and radiator hoses. Have radiator cleaned at a radiator workshop. Make certain that the radiator capacity is big enough for the engine. Diesel uses 3core, petrol 2core radiators for LDV. Remove radiator cap and check for oil. Oil in the water means a cracked cylinder head. This is major structural damage to an engine. Machinist shops test head integrity via a pressure test. There must be engine coolant in the radiator. Clear water in radiator indicates poor maintenance of engine.

Repairing the internal combustion engine and condition inspection 1) Forged pistons need 80% more bore/piston clearance than cast iron pistons. Cast iron pistons expand less. 2) Custom, extremely hard, cast iron pistons can be made by a machinist so that bore/piston clearance can be kept very low. 3) The skirt is the bottom and crown the top part of a piston. 4) Clearance measurement is done at the skirt of the piston. 5) Mitutoyo bore gauge measures the inside diameter of an engine bore. It resolution is 0.0001 inch. 6) Ribbon gauges are thin long gauges that stick in between piston and bore to measure the clearance. Determine with a scale the pound/inch force needed to pull out the ribbon gauge. It must be a certain force. A 2.4D Toyota engine shall have 0.007 inch clearance between piston/bore. Use 0.002/0.004 inch ribbon gauges. If they are binded when pulled out, hone bore more. The piston is placed inside the bore without rings to measure the clearance. 7) Generally for each inch of bore diameter, the piston/bore clearance must be 0.0005 inch of bore. 8) If the piston skirt/bore clearance is to small, the piston will expand and seize the engine when hot. 9) Smear main bearings, big-ends,crankshaft with assembly grease before torquing bolts. 10) Ring gap-size is measured with a feeler gauge. It must be a certain minimum size to prevent the ends clamping together as the engine heats up during operation. The ring gap doesn't determine if the bore/piston clearance is correct. Insert an inverted piston at the top of the block to make the ring absolutely level, remove the piston and measure the gap. Rings in the first stage of failure will allow just air and/or a small amount of white gas with it. It sometimes is possible to only fit new rings and not new sleeves with first stage ring failure. The next size rings are fitted to the piston. But the ring gap must be manually resized via a file. Clamp a file onto a work bench and file of the ends of the oversized ring. Fit the ring in the piston and measure for ring gap clearance via a feeler gage. Repeat process until all the rings gap-size is within specs.  11) A toolshop bores the bore/sleeves to the exact size of the piston skirt. After this the bores are honed to the specified clearance via a honing machine. Insert the piston without rings to test for clearance as described.

Suspension check on light-duty delivery vehicle The front suspension consists of: 1) Lower control arm, bushing and connecting bolt x2 2) Upper control arm x2 3) Torsion bar x2 4) Upper and lower balljoints x4 5) Tie-rod ends x2 6) Wheel bearings x2 7) Draglink x1 Load 600 kg (~1300 lbs) on the bakkie (pick-up truck). Drive at 60 km/h (~40mph) and slam on the breaks hard. If the bakkie yanks to one side, then the lower-control-arm-bushing and bolt are worn out. The lower-control-arm are fastened to the chassis via the bushing and bolt. The torsion bar mounts on the connecting pin. To check the tie-rod ends and wheel bearing, jack the front up and manipulate the wheel - there should be no play. Wheel alignment can't be done unless the entire front suspension is in working order. Check for play on the steering wheel - there should be none. If there is, a nut on the steering box is turned to increase the tension. But before this is done, you must be certain that the entire suspension is order, in particular the draglink and tie-rod ends.

Unleaded fuel won't damage your engine.

title: Automobile Repair/Before you buy


text:
Automobile Repair/Engine Additives

Don't use engine additives Engine additives glazes the bore or sleeves of the block. This results in ring slippage and lost compression - 'blow-by' past the rings. Don't add it to the differential or gearbox either, it makes the gears brittle and thus prone to break. Replace gearbox and differential oil every 30000km with the lubricant specified by the manufacturer. Some Transmissions/Differentials use a SAE90 gear oil. Isuzu TD280's gearbox must take SAE30 oil. Other manual transmissions use Automatic transmission fluid, such as the Borg-Warner (Tremic) T5OD transmission. Engine additives is probably the biggest consumer fraud in the automotive business. The only thing in your engine should be the relevant viscosity oil - full stop

A certain company that sells an engine additive has the following statement on their webpage: XXXX Engine Treatment successfully reduces friction and heat in your engine with its patented technology. Of course their product reduces friction - by glazing the bore. There has to be a certain amount of friction between the rings and the bore so as to prevent blow-by past the rings. A car plant hones a diamond like pattern on the bore in a deliberate attempt to create friction between the bore and the rings. This friction must not be reduced, which is what engine additives do by bonding with the bore. Each engine has a specific amount of friction that is measured by pulling out a ribbon gauge between the skirt of the piston and bore. The sleeves of an engine block experience severe damage from prolonged use of engine additives. If the damage becomes severe enough, it may damage them beyond repair, in which case new sleeves have to be fitted.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Automobile Repair/Engine Additives


text:
Wikibooks:Technology bookshelf

Automotive

 * Choosing a Car
 * Ford Escape Hybrid
 * Jeep Liberty
 * Nissan 240SX Performance Modification
 * Suzuki UC125
 * Toyota Prius

Bicycles
A Comprehensive Guide to Riding and Maintaining Bicycles

Motorcycles
Honda Nighthawk

Trades and Crafts

 * Carpentry
 * Down'n'dirty Blacksmithing
 * Plumbing

Computers

 * Web Hosting

General

 * Technologies for Rural Development

title: Wikibooks:Technology bookshelf


text:
Template:Technology bookshelf

Technology A UTOMOBILES  — B ICYCLES  G ENERAL  All Technology books...
 * Technologies for Rural Development

title: Template:Technology bookshelf


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Horticulture/Soil Improvement

Almost any soil will benefit from improvement, and the overall health of the garden both over the long term and the short will be greatly improved by having a good soil to grow from. As a rule, the simple answer to soil improvement is to incorporate composts. However, the soil may need particular improvements, as indicated in a soil test. The goal is to create a soil with good tilth, appropriate levels of available nutrients, a desirable pH, and in most cases good drainage.

General soil improvement
Improving soil in a general sense (with or without a soil test) is a physically demanding yet crucial task in the garden. As an old saying goes, "a ten dollar plant in a twenty dollar hole will grow much better than a twenty dollar plant in a ten dollar hole." That saying might be misleading in some ways (current thinking is that putting plants in "good holes" has similar long-term effects as would planting it in a container), but improving the entire garden bed will indeed make for great plants.

The best way to improve most any soil is to add composts, because a soil with lots of organic matter will be much more amenable for growing plants.

Soil improvement after a soil test
/Soils

title: Horticulture/Soil Improvement


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Graphic Design/Graphics

Color
Color has three attributes: hue, intensity (saturation), and gradation (value). The two color models are RGB and CMYK. RGB is additive color, and is used by light-emitting devices like monitors and televisions. In this model, white is made up of all colors, and black is the absence of color. CMYK is subtractive color, and is a property of reflective (non-light-emitting) objects, such as paper. In this model, white is the absence of color, and black is made up of all colors. In CMYK, ( Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) Color percentages used determines the color output produced on the Print media.

There are two types of computer graphics: raster (bitmap), such as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group); and vector, such as EPS. These are non-proprietary formats, so they can be read by any vector or bitmap program. For example, if you're creating a file in Adobe Illustrator, and you save it in Illustrator's .ai format, only certain Adobe products will be able to read it. If you save it as an EPS, though, it can be read by other programs, such as QuarkXPress.

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) supports both vector and bitmap images, and can handle color separations. TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) also handles color separations, but only supports bitmaps.

Clip art consists of small illustrations that are not copyrighted. They are either in public domain, or sold with a user's license.

CMYK AND RGB
You must be wondering: what exactly does CMYK and RGB mean and under what circumstances should I use one of the two colour systems? Well, I don't want you to make the common mistakes that most customers sometimes make, so I created this guide to explain the differences between RGB and CMYK colours.

What is the RGB color system?
RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. The RGB color system uses these base colors to form almost all other colors, because red, green and blue are additive colors. Essentially, this means that the RGB color system creates other colors by combining (or 'adding') different amounts of red, green and blue.

For example, if you want to create the yellow color, just combine green and red. If you want to create the light blue color, you would add green to the blue. Obviously, it's a bit more complicated than it looks and the monitors know exactly how to combine these colors in varying amounts to ensure you get the desired color.

RGB is the color system usually associated with computer monitors and other monitors. LCD/LED televisions also use RGB. Most photographic equipment and digital scanners also use RGB.

The reason why RGB is the standard color system in most digital equipment because it offers a wide selection of colors. By combining the primary colors (red, green and blue) in varying amounts, you get any color with great accuracy. Most photo editing programs use RGB as standard, which is why you need to be extremely careful when developing the artwork for printing (we discuss this later).

What is the CMYK color system?
CMYK works in a completely different way from RGB colors, because instead of using color "additives", it uses subtractive colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key. Key is another name for black.

The main difference is that when you combine all the colors of the RGB color system (red, green and blue) in varying amounts, it ends up in white (i.e., the purest combination). With the CMYK color system, combining all colors, as they are substractive, the darker the colors will be.

For example, if you add 100% magenta and 90% yellow, you will have a striking red. If you combine yellow and cyan, you will have a green color.

Clearly, it works in a completely different way than RGB, as the color combinations are essentially opposite. In addition, CMYK is a four-color system instead of three.

The reason the CMYK color system works is that as it adds colors, the light is absorbed or removed to create various other colors.

CMYK is used by print printers, so if you want to get any printing, you need to be aware of this information.

You can check on the image above, you will first see how different RGB and CMYK are. One of the most notable differences between the two color systems is the way they display the blue color. You will notice that in the image, the main blue color looks different in each image, this is due to the color system.

Generally, blue gets a little more vibrant when presented in RGB compared to CMYK. This means that if you develop your design in RGB and print in CMYK, you will probably see a change in your blue, as professional printers use the CMYK color system.

The same is true of greens, which tend to look a little vibrant and get lost or darker when converted to CMYK.

title: Graphic Design/Graphics


text:
User:16@r

See my personal page on Wikipedia

title: User:16@r


text:
F Sharp Programming/Basic Concepts

Now that we have a working installation of F# we can explore the syntax of F# and the basics of functional programming. We'll start off in the Interactive F Sharp environment as this gives us some very valuable type information, which helps get to grips with what is actually going on in F#. Open F# interactive from the start menu, or open a command-line prompt and type.

Fundamental Data Types and Type System
In computer programming, every piece of data has a type, which, predictably, describes the type of data a programmer is working with. In F#, the fundamental data types are:

F# is a fully object-oriented language, using an object model based on the .NET Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). As such, it has a single-inheritance, multiple interface object model, and allows programmers to declare classes, interfaces, and abstract classes. Notably, it has full support for generic class, interface, and function definitions; however, it lacks some OO features found in other languages, such as mixins and multiple inheritance.

F# also provides a unique array of data structures built directly into the syntax of the language, which include:
 * Unit, the datatype with only one value, equivalent to  in C-style languages.
 * Tuple types, which are ad hoc data structures that programmers can use to group related values into a single object.
 * Record types, which are similar to tuples, but provide named fields to access data held by the record object.
 * Discriminated unions, which are used to create very well-defined type hierarchies and hierarchical data structures.
 * Lists, Maps, and Sets, which represent immutable versions of a stack, hashtable, and set data structures, respectively.
 * Sequences, which represent a lazy list of items computed on-demand.
 * Computation expressions, which serve the same purpose as monads in Haskell, allowing programmers to write continuation-style code in an imperative style.

All of these features will be further enumerated and explained in later chapters of this book.

F# is a statically typed language, meaning that the compiler knows the datatype of variables and functions at compile time. F# is also strongly typed, meaning that a variable bound to s cannot be rebound to  s at some later point; an   variable is forever tied to   data.

Unlike C# and VB.Net, F# does not perform implicit casts, not even safe conversions (such as converting an  to a  ). F# requires explicit casts to convert between datatypes, for example: The mathematical operators  and   are overloaded to work with different datatypes, but they require arguments on each side of the operator to have the same datatype. We get an error trying to add an  to an , so we have to cast one of our variables above to the other's datatype before the program will successfully compile.

Type Inference
Unlike many other strongly typed languages, F# often does not require programmers to use type annotations when declaring functions and variables. Instead, F# attempts to work out the types for you, based on the way that variables are used in code.

For example, let's take this function:

We have not used any type annotations: that is, we have not explicitly told the compiler the data type of  and , nor have we indicated the type of the function's return value. If F# is a strongly, statically typed language, how does the compiler know the datatype of anything beforehand? That's easy, it uses simple deduction:

 * The  and   operators are overloaded to work on different datatypes, but it defaults to integer addition and integer division without any extra information.
 * , the value in bold has the type . Since F# doesn't perform implicit casts, and it requires arguments on both sides of a math operator to have the same datatype, the value   must return a   as well.
 * The  operator only returns   when both arguments on each side of the operator are  s, so   and   must be  s as well.
 * Finally, since the return value of  is , the   function must return a float.

This process is called type-inference. On most occasions, F# will be able to work out the types of data on its own without requiring the programmer to explicitly write out type annotations. This works just as well for small programs as large programs, and it can be a tremendous time-saver.

On those occasions where F# cannot work out the types correctly, the programmer can provide explicit annotations to guide F# in the right direction. For example, as mentioned above, math operators default to operations on integers:

In absence of other information, F# determines that  takes two integers and returns another integer. If we wanted to use s instead, we'd write:

Pattern Matching
F#'s pattern matching is similar to an  or   construct in other languages, but is much more powerful. Pattern matching allows a programmer to decompose data structures into their component parts. It matches values based on the shape of the data structure, for example:

The  method uses pattern matching to recursively traverse and evaluate the abstract syntax tree. The  keyword marks the function as recursive. Pattern matching will be explained in more detail in later chapters of this book.

Functional Programming Contrasted with Imperative Programming
F# is a mixed-paradigm language: it supports imperative, object-oriented, and functional styles of writing code, with heaviest emphasis on the latter.

Immutable Values vs Variables
The first mistake a newcomer to functional programming makes is thinking that the let construct is equivalent to assignment. Consider the following code:

On the surface, this looks exactly like the familiar imperative pseudocode:

a = 1 // a is 1 a = a + 1 // a is 2

However, the nature of the F# code is very different. Every let construct introduces a new scope, and binds symbols to values in that scope. If execution escapes this introduced scope, the symbols are restored to their original meanings. This is clearly not identical to variable state mutation with assignment.

To clarify, let us desugar the F# code:

Indeed the code

prints out

1  2  1

Once symbols are bound to values, they cannot be assigned a new value. The only way to change the meaning of a bound symbol is to shadow it by introducing a new binding for this symbol (for example, with a let construct, as in ), but this shadowing will only have a localized effect: it will only affect the newly introduced scope. F# uses so-called 'lexical scoping', which simply means that one can identify the scope of a binding by simply looking at the code. Thus the scope of the  binding in   is limited by the parentheses. With lexical scoping, there is no way for a piece of code to change the value of a bound symbol outside of itself, such as in the code that has called it.

Immutability is a great concept. Immutability allows programmers to pass values to functions without worrying that the function will change the value's state in unpredictable ways. Additionally, since value can't be mutated, programmers can process data shared across many threads without fear that the data will be mutated by another process; as a result, programmers can write multithreaded code without locks, and a whole class of errors related to race conditions and dead locking can be eliminated.

Functional programmers generally simulate state by passing extra parameters to functions; objects are "mutated" by creating an entirely new instance of an object with the desired changes and letting the garbage collector throw away the old instances if they are not needed. The resource overheads this style implies are dealt with by sharing structure. For example, changing the head of a singly-linked list of 1000 integers can be achieved by allocating a single new integer, reusing the tail of the original list (of length 999).

For the rare cases when mutation is really needed (for example, in number-crunching code which is a performance bottleneck), F# offers reference types and .NET mutable collections (such as arrays).

Recursion or Loops?
Imperative programming languages tend to iterate through collections with loops:

This admits a direct translation to F# (type annotations for  and   are omitted because F# can infer them):

However, the above code is clearly not written in a functional style. One problem with it is that it traverses an array of items. For many purposes including enumeration, functional programmers would use a different data structure, a singly linked list. Here is an example of iterating over this data structure with pattern matching:

It is important to note that because the recursive call to  appears as the last expression in the function, this is an example of so-called tail recursion. The F# compiler recognizes this pattern and compiles  to a loop. The  function therefore runs in constant space and does not cause stack overflows.

F# programmers rely on tail recursion to structure their programs whenever this technique contributes to code clarity.

A careful reader has noticed that in the above example  function was coming from the environment. The code can be improved and made more general by parameterizing it by this function (making  a parameter):

This  function is indeed so useful that it has made it into the standard library under the name of.

For the sake of completeness it must be mentioned that F# includes generic versions of  called   (other List.* functions usually have Seq.* counterparts as well) that works on lists, arrays, and all other collections. F# also includes a looping construct that works for all collections implementing the :

Function Composition Rather than Inheritance
Traditional OO uses implementation inheritance extensively; in other words, programmers create base classes with partial implementation, then build up object hierarchies from the base classes while overriding members as needed. This style has proven to be remarkably effective since the early 1990s, however this style is not contiguous with functional programming.

Functional programming aims to build simple, composable abstractions. Since traditional OO can only make an object's interface more complex, not simpler, inheritance is rarely used at all in F#. As a result, F# libraries tend to have fewer classes and very "flat" object hierarchies, as opposed to very deep and complex hierarchies found in equivalent Java or C# applications.

F# tends to rely more on object composition and delegation rather than inheritance to share snippets of implementation across modules.

Functions as First-Order Types
F# is a functional programming language, meaning that functions are first-order data types: they can be declared and used in  exactly the same way that any other variable can be used.

In an imperative language like Visual Basic, there has traditionally been a fundamental difference between variables and functions. Notice the difference in syntax between defining and evaluating a function and defining and assigning a variable. In the preceding Visual Basic code we could perform a number of different actions with a variable we can:
 * create a token (the variable name) and associate it with a type
 * assign it a value
 * interrogate its value
 * pass it into a function or subroutine (a function that returns no value)
 * return it from a function

Functional programming makes no distinction between values and functions, so we can consider functions to be equal to all other data types. That means that we can:
 * create a token (the function variable name) and associate it with a type
 * assign it a value (the actual calculation)
 * interrogate its value (perform the calculation)
 * pass a function as a parameter of another function or subroutine
 * return a function as the result of another function

Structure of F# Programs
A simple, non-trivial F# program has the following parts:

Most F# code files begin with a number of  statements used to import namespaces, allowing programmers to reference classes in namespaces without having to write fully qualified type declarations. This keyword is functionally equivalent to the  directive in C# and   directive in VB.Net. For example, the  class is found under the   namespace; without importing the namespace, a programmer would need to access the   class through its fully qualified name,.

The body of the F# file usually contains functions to implement the business logic in an application.

Finally, many F# application exhibit this pattern:

The entry point of an F# program is marked by the [] attribute, and following it must be a function that accepts an array of strings as input and returns an integer (by default, 0).

title: F Sharp Programming/Basic Concepts


text:
Java Programming/Keywords/return

is a Java keyword.

Returns a primitive value, or an object reference, or nothing(void). It does not return object values, only object references.

Syntax: variable; // --- Returns variable or ;          // --- Returns nothing

title: Java Programming/Keywords/return


text:
Oracle Database/XML Management

Oracle possesses a variety of powerful XML features. A tremendous amount of documentation exists regarding Oracle's XML features. This resource is intended to be a cheat sheet for those of us who don't have time to wade through the hundreds of pages of documentation, but instead wish to quickly understand how to create simple XML output and input XML into a database.

getXML
Gets the XML document by fetching the maximum number of rows specified. It appends the XML document to the CLOB passed in. Use this version of GETXML Functions to avoid any extra CLOB copies and to reuse the same CLOB for subsequent calls. Because of the CLOB reuse, this GETXML Functions call is potentially more efficient.

Syntax: DBMS_XMLGEN.GETXML (  ctx          IN ctxHandle,    tmpclob      IN OUT NCOPY CLOB,   dtdOrSchema  IN number := NONE) RETURN BOOLEAN;

Generates the XML document and returns it as a temporary CLOB. The temporary CLOB obtained from this function must be freed using the  call:

DBMS_XMLGEN.GETXML (  ctx          IN ctxHandle,   dtdOrSchema  IN number := NONE) RETURN CLOB;

Converts the results from the SQL query string to XML format, and returns the XML as a temporary CLOB, which must be subsequently freed using the  call:

DBMS_XMLGEN.GETXML (  sqlQuery     IN VARCHAR2,   dtdOrSchema  IN number := NONE) RETURN CLOB;

Example:

The following procedure parses the fields in the employee table into XML and saves the XML as CLOB rows in a table. CREATE OR REPLACE procedure dump_pcd AS    qryCtx DBMS_XMLGEN.ctxHandle; result CLOB; BEGIN qryCtx := dbms_xmlgen.newContext ('SELECT * from employees;'); DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowTag(qryCtx, 'EMPLOYEE'); DBMS_XMLGEN.setMaxRows(qryCtx, 5); LOOP -- save the XML into the CLOB result. result := DBMS_XMLGEN.getXML(qryCtx); EXIT WHEN DBMS_XMLGEN.getNumRowsProcessed((qryCtx)=0); -- store the data to a temporary table INSERT INTO temp_clob_tab VALUES(result); END LOOP; END dump_pcd;

setRowSetTag
Sets the name of the root element of the document. The default name is ROWSET. Setting the rowSetTag to NULL will stop this element from being output. An error is produced if both the row and the rowset are NULL and there is more than one column or row in the output. The error is produced because the generated XML would not have a top-level enclosing tag.

Syntax: DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowSetTag (   ctx        IN ctxHandle,     rowSetTag  IN VARCHAR2);

Example: DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowSetTag ( ctxHandle, 'ALL ROWS' );

Sample output:

This encloses the entire XML result set in the tag specified by the second parameter.

setRowTag
This function sets the name of the element each row. The default name is ROW. Setting this to NULL suppresses the ROW element itself. This produces an error if both the row and the rowset are NULL and there is more than one column or row in the output. The error is returned because the generated XML must have a top-level enclosing tag.

Syntax: DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowTag (   ctx        IN ctxHandle,     rowTag     IN VARCHAR2);

Example:

This tells the XML generator to enclose the columns of each row in an AUTHOR tag.

DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowTag ( ctxHandle, 'AUTHOR' );

Sample output:

Every row output is now enclosed inside the AUTHOR tag.

Dumping a Query Result as XML
Sample procedure for dumping the results of an SQL query as XML.

CREATE OR REPLACE procedure dump_pcd AS    qryCtx DBMS_XMLGEN.ctxHandle; result CLOB; BEGIN qryCtx := dbms_xmlgen.newContext ('SELECT * from employees;'); DBMS_XMLGEN.setRowTag(qryCtx, 'EMPLOYEE'); DBMS_XMLGEN.setMaxRows(qryCtx, 5); LOOP result := DBMS_XMLGEN.getXML(qryCtx); EXIT WHEN DBMS_XMLGEN.getNumRowsProcessed((qryCtx)=0); INSERT INTO temp_clob_tab VALUES(result); END LOOP; END dump_pcd;

The returned XML results will look similar to the following:

title: Oracle Database/XML Management


text:
Printing

Positions
A printing broker is in charge of coordinating projects. A graphic designer creates designs and artwork for a project.

Copyright
According to intellectual property laws, software (including fonts) isn't actually owned by the person who buys it. The purchaser is paying for a license to use the software.

Choose contracts carefully. Make sure that printers "work for hire" so that you retain copyright to the work. If you would like to retain work products from a designer or printer for later use, negotiate this point before work begins. "Work for hire" is work that is created by, for example, a designer, but done so with the express understanding that it is exclusively the property of the client. Paying for work to be performed does not constitute "work for hire." A job cannon be "declared" as a "work for hire." This is a specific legal definition and the terms of "work for hire" cannot be assumed unless: Obviously, given the large number of factors involved, a contract is the safest way to assure that work that you hire performed is yours and yours alone.
 * 1) the job performed fits within a narrow range of possibilities, such as work by a full-time employee or similar or
 * 2) the worker creating the work is supplied with the "materials and methods" to perform the work as well as specific directions on how to do the job and (typically) the location to work or
 * 3) the worker signs a contract agreeing to create material on a "work for hire" basis.

Planning
Questions to ask during a project's planning phase:
 * 1) What is the project's purpose?
 * 2) Who is your audience?
 * 3) How will it look?
 * 4) How will it be used?
 * 5) How will your audience be reached?
 * 6) When do you need it done?
 * 7) What quantity and quality do you need?

One popular strategy is to start at the end of a project, and work backwards. In other words, conceptualize what you want the end product to be, and then figure out the steps to get there.

Prepress is the "creation" to "production" stage. It involves word processing, illustration, and image-editing programs (raster or vector-based).

Grades
One of the most important steps to a successful print job is determining the right grade for your job. The determining factors are quality, money, and type of job. For instance, items that have a short "lifespan" (such as a promotional poster or flyer) are typically printed on basic or good grade. Everything in a package should be the same quality.

Remember to save all project files for future use.

Basic

Basic grade uses toner, not ink. It is usually only one or two colors, for cheap, throwaway items like flyers. It is inexpensive and low quality.

Good

This grade can be made at a print shop (not a copy shop). It may use toner or ink. Used by magazines like Time and Newsweek.

Premium

This is the grade for "perfect" prints, used for publications that depend on high-quality color (ie, National Geographic).

Showcase

Showcase is top-of-the-line printing, suitable for high-quality art books.

Legibility is the contrast between print and background.

Halftone art causes fine lines to disappear.

Resolution
Resolution is measured in various ways, depending on the device. Printers use lpi (lines per inch) and dpi (dots per inch), while computer monitors use ppi (pixels per inch) according to the paper size.

Using color printing
The cheapest type of printing remains black ink on a white or colored paper stock. However, four-color process printing has become more affordable in recent years. Specifically, if your color printing job is fairly typical in size, paper stock and quantity, you can take advantage of economies of scale by using a "gang printer" who specializes in printing with process inks on large format presses, combining several print jobs onto a single sheet. If you need to print a lot of items with color, it might be worth considering using a gang printer to take advantage of the cost savings available through process inks. This sheet is later cut to produce different jobs for separate clients. This type of process printing is often cheaper than printing a job with solid color inks (say black, maroon and yellow solid ink colors).

Color Models
The RGB (Red Green Blue) color model is an "additive" color model. All colors are a mixture of these three hues, mixing 100% of all three colors produces white light and the absence of light leaves black (darkness). The term "additive" refers to the fact that adding color (light) produces a result (a specific color or image). Monitors and most scanners are RGB devices. Most inkjet printers are also RGB devices (despite some having ink sets that may resemble CMYK inks.)

The CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow blacK) process color model is used by professional printers. This is subtractive color method. In this system, black is theoretically composed of all colors, and white is the absence of color (paper-color). Cyan, magenta and yellow, mixed at full strength, do not produce black. This is a limitation of the pigments used. The closest result is a dirty brown, so black is added as a fourth "color" to allow for a full range of colors to be expressed and to bolster sharpness and contrast of the image.

Image setters are specialized printers that produce very high resolution output. Typically they are CMYK devices. They can print separations on film which are then used to produce printing plates. Or you can send directly to plate with the new Computer-to Plate technology.

Color Tips
Since color is dependent on light, an object which is one color under one type of light will be a different color when viewed under a different type of light. This phenomenon is metamerism. Some types of light are fluorescent (which is greenish), incandescent (yellowish-orange), and natural (which has a 5000 Kelvin color temperature).

Neutral grey is the best background to view another color.

Color quality, like print quality, depends on the type of publication. "Pleasing" color is used for newspapers, and is the standard for desktop publishing. The next levels are "match" color (used for magazines) and "match original" (used for calendars).

Terminology
The gamut is the color range available to a device. A palette is a set of colors. Chroma refers to the saturation of a color. Value is the tint or shade of a color.

Temperature is the warmth or coolness of a color. Relatively cool colors are violet, blue and green, relatively warm colors are red, yellow, and orange. Grey or beige are "neutrals", and are considered neither warm nor cool.

Printing techniques
The two major ways to print color are process printing and spot color printing. Process creates colors by printing very small colored dots. Spot color printing uses solid color inks that are either purchased premixed or mixed from base color inks using specific formulas to match the desired spot or solid color. Spot color printing is also used when a job calls for unusual colors like fluorescent or metallic inks. A spot color is usually specified to print a company logos or proprietary material, although it often will be combined with standard four-color process printing, making the spot color a "fifth" color. This combination can be expensive to produce, although it is common in jobs created for corporate clients.

Photos
When testing prints, view under "standard conditions" (that is, the type of lighting, etc. you expect to be in the environment where your finished project will be viewed).

Interpolation is a technique that computers use to increase the resolution of a photo. For example, if a digital image happens to have a resolution of 100 pixels per inch, interpolation can be used to increase the resolution to 200 pixels per inch. However, in doing so, four pixels are generated with the data from a single pixel, causing serious image degradation. Some advanced processing technologies, available, for example, in commercial plug-ins for use in Photoshop, can help mitigate the damage to the image. However, the results will not equal starting with an image with sufficient resolution in the first place. In short, interpolation produces sub-standard results in professional terms. Avoid it when you can.

Quality
Halftone

This technique is used for black-and-white photos. It uses one screen.

Duotone

This technique uses two screens for two colors (typically, black and a color). One screen is used for highlights, and the other for shadows.

Separation

This technique uses four screens (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) to create a wide variety of colors. If the registration of any of the screens is off, the photo will get a cast.

High fidelty

A method using 5-8 halftones.

File Types

 * PICT -native Apple Macintosh image format until the advent of Mac OSX when it was replaced with PNG and PDF formats
 * TIFF -(Tagged Image File Format) - Contains bitmap images, and supports color separations.
 * EPS -(Encapsulated PostScript) - may contain both bitmap & vector images; can only be cropped or scaled. This format is often used for color separations.
 * JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group (lossy) - Commonly used for Photographs, artifacts may appear on logos or text.
 * DCS - Desktop Color Separations
 * PDF - Portable Document Format
 * GIF - 8-bit - Limited color palette

Scanners
Scanner quality is measured in spots per inch (spi). (Digicams use the same measurement.) To ensure a good quality, make sure that pictures are scanned at 1.5 to 2 times the lpi of the finished product.

A scanner's density' (DMax) ranges from 0-5 (with 0 being low density). Most models are between 0 and 3 DMax.

Paper
Paper is usually made from trees. After a tree is cut, debarked and chipped, it can be processed many different ways to make different kinds of paper. It is pulped for newsprint and bag paper. To make writing paper, it must be processed with chemicals. It is calendared (pressed) to make it smooth.

Categories of paper are defined by use (fine, industrial, or sanitary paper), printing method (sheet or web), or pulp content (groundwood, used for newsprint and paper bags, or free sheet, used for writing paper).

Types
Bond is the most common writing paper. It is standard printing paper, and is more transparent than book or text paper.

Uncoated book is used for books and newsletters.

Coated book is used for textbooks.

Text paper (short for "texture") is used for brochures.

Cover is very thick paper used for paperback book covers and postcards.

Attributes
Paper is rated from I-5 (coated) to A-E (uncoated).

The rest of choosing the right paper depends on aesthetics. Does it have the right look and feel? What kind of texture is good? What level of whiteness do you want? Paper comes in many off-whites, and there are no standards for color. Colored paper is more expensive, and the price goes up the darker the shade is.

Brightness of paper is a measure of its reflectance. Brighter paper creates contrast, but may contribute to eyestrain. Opacity ranges from 1-100%. Most papers are 80-98%.

The grain of a piece of paper can be determined by getting the paper wet and seeing which way it curls. If the sheet curls along the long edges, the paper is "grain long"; if along the short edges, it is "grain short." This is denoted by marking a line under the dimension that the grain follows (for example, 8.5 x 11 would be grain long letter paper).

The paper's weight determines cost. It is sold by "basis weight", which is how much one ream (500 sheets) weighs, in pounds, when cut to 8.5 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm). For example, bond paper is 20# weight, since one ream of letter-sized bond weighs 20 pounds.

Caliper is paper thickness, and is measured in points. One point = .001 inch. (This is a different point than the measurement used in typesetting. A typesetting point = 1/72 inch.)

Dot gain is caused by the matte quality of paper. Dots spread as they are absorbed by the paper. The less absorbent the paper is, the less the dots will spread. Glossy paper has low dot gain; this is why higher quality photos are printed on it. (Another factor in dot gain is the ink used. Soy ink has lower dot gain than petroleum-based inks, but takes longer to dry.)

Ink
The three types of ink are printing ink (a solid), writing ink (a solution of dye), and toner (a mixture of liquid and solid).

Printing ink, like paint, is made of pigment and binder. It may also contain agents to speed drying and prevent scuffing.

The four ways ink can dry are by absorption, oxidation (exposure to air), evaporation (exposure to heat), and from exposure to light.

Two important attributes of ink are viscosity and tack. Viscosity is a measure of flow. Ink that flows easily has a low viscosity. Tack is a measure of stickiness. Inks that have higher viscosity have greater tack. The faster a press is, the higher the tack should be.

Press
Once the job has been fully planned, a proof can be made up for evaluation. This is a preview of the final product, and a vital step in the project.

Plates are used for some types of printing. Light is passed through a film negative to make an impression on the light-sensitive plate material, such as aluminum or plastic.

Planographic
Planographic printing uses a flat surface. It uses areas marked off by oil and water to transfer an image. The most popular usage of this process is lithography. The term comes from two Greek words---litho (stone) and graph (writing). (Originally, the plates used were made of limestone.)

Anti-offset powder is used to hasten drying. The ink has a high viscosity and tack. Since it's oil-based, it takes about four hours to dry, and the machine's rollers have to be cleaned after printing. Only uncoated paper can be used.

Problems that arise in planographic printing include moire patterns (from misalignment), ghosting (not enough ink), hickies (particles stuck in the rollers), setoff (ink's too wet), scumming (not enough water), and picking (ink's too tacky,or high print pressure.).

Intaglio
Intaglio is an expensive process using an engraved plate (such as a rotogravure).

Gravure is the process used to make US dollar bills. It uses quick-drying, low viscosity ink.

Relief
Relief is the opposite of intaglio: the printing area is raised. Simple examples of relief printing are rubber stamps and typewriter keys.

Flexography is one method of relief printing. It uses rubber plates wrapped around a revolving cylinder to create the impression. An anilox roller picks up ink and transfers it to the printing roller. This method is often used to for package printing, such as food bags and boxes, owing to the processe's ablilty to deal with difficult materials such as flexible roll plastics (think of heavy plastic wrap). Common problems with flexographic printing are halos (caused by too much pressure between the plate and the substrate) and voids (not enough pressure). Art meant to be printed on a flexographic press must be mechanically stretched in the direction of the material feed to counteract the distortion of the printing plate as it wraps around the cylinder.

Letterpress Uses metal type either on a flat bed or mounted on a cylinder. The raised areas are inked and the paper is placed in direct contact with the type. At one time most newspapers where printed with letterpress. One of the last major newspapers to switch to ofset lithography was the New York Times. For additional information see the "Pocket Pal" from International Paper Company

Gravure
Gravure printing is an intaglio method of printing in which the printing areas are lower than the surface of the printing plate. The plate is coated with ink and the flat surfaces are scraped clean, leaving ink in the recesses of the plate. The press then uses high pressure to force the paper into the recesses which pull out the ink and leave a surface that can be felt with the hand in the areas which contain printed image. One type of letterpress in common use was created by the German company Heidelberg and, due to the pinwheeling arms that both loaded and unloaded the paper stock from the press, was often called a "windmill" press. Ref: Pocket Pal "A graphic arts production handbook" from International Paper 15th edition

Stencil
Stencil printing is a method in which ink is forced through a surface with positive spaces (solid material) and negative spaces (openings) which form the image. A simple example would be using a cardboard mask to spray-paint words on a crate or box.

Screenprinting, a form of stencil printing, is the most versatile method of printing. It uses a squeegee to force ink through a fabric screen with the non-printing areas masked with a resist or film. It is often employed to print on shirts, sportswear and wallpaper,but other uses range from glass bottles to metal plates to printing on flexible plastics and complex shapes. Screenprinting can be used to print the resists that form the circuits (traces) of electronic circuit boards. This resist keeps the metal that is meant to carry current from being etched away by the acid bath that removes the unwanted metal from the surface of the board.

Electrostatic
Electrostatic printing is used by machines such as laser printers.

Inkjet
The two types of inkjet are CIJ (Continuous InkJet) and DOD (Drop On Demand).

CIJ prints with a series of ink drops. Since the ink is continuous, a switch is used to either drop a dot or deflect the drop back into the ink reservoir. This is the method used to print address labels.

DOD sprays ink when it receives a signal.

Imposition is pagination on a large sheet press. This large sheet is then cut and bound. This is the process used to print books.

Table of Contents

 * /Conserving Toner/

title: Printing


text:
F Sharp Programming/Essential Syntax

Every language-type has its own unique way of expression.

title: F Sharp Programming/Essential Syntax


text:
Typography/Fonts

Adobe Type One fonts require two files (a screen font and a printer font) in order to print.

TrueType fonts have the screen and printer fonts incorporated into one file, but an interpreter is needed to use them.

title: Typography/Fonts


text:
Java Programming/Keywords/const

is a reserved keyword, presently not being used.

In other programming languages, such as C, const is often used to declare a constant. However, in Java, is used instead.

title: Java Programming/Keywords/const


text: Template:F Sharp Programming/title

title: Template:F Sharp Programming/title


text:
Card and Magic Tricks/Card tricks

This chapter provides a brief overview of the use of card tricks when performing. Thousands of books have been written on the topic of card magic and some of the finer examples are listed below. Note: Before leaping into performing card tricks, remember the basic principle every magician lives by: never divulge the secrets to your tricks.

Introduction
Magicians have used playing cards to entertain audiences for centuries. Tricks using playing cards became quite popular during the 1800s with the rise in popularity of both poker playing as well as cards used in parlor games (bridge, etc.)

It would be difficult to name a "basic" use for card tricks, but the most commonly recognisable model would involve a scenario wherein the magician would ask the spectator to choose a card from a fanned deck of cards, look at the card (while noting it's value and suit) and replace the card in the deck. From that point, either the magicians shuffles the card into the deck (legitimately or otherwise) - - or possibly even asks the spectator to shuffle the deck, then the magician would find the card.

How to force a card onto a spectator
Note the top card of the deck(this is the one you will force). Ask the spectator to cut the cards and leave the top half down on a table. Bring the bottom half and leave it on top of the cards on the table so that it makes a cross(i.e. perpendicular to the other half). You will need about 5 seconds of misdirection after this so ask a question. The card you noted at the beginning and is the top card of the bottom half. Bring the attention back to the cards and lift off the top half. Tell the spectator to look at the card he cut to and point to the card on the table. This force is called the cut cross force and can be performed convincingly even though it does not require much skill to perform it.

title: Card and Magic Tricks/Card tricks


text:
F Sharp Programming/Introduction

Introducing F#
The F# programming language is part of Microsoft's family of .NET languages, which includes C#, Visual Basic.NET, JScript.NET, and others. As a .NET language, F# code compiles down to Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) byte code or Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) which runs on top of the Common Language Runtime (CLR). All .NET languages share this common intermediate state which allows them to easily interoperate with one another and use the .NET Framework's Base Class Library (BCL), that is part of Standard Libraries.

In many ways, it's easy to think of F# as a .NET implementation of OCaml, a well-known functional programming language from the ML family of functional programming languages. Some of F#'s notable features include type inference, pattern matching, interactive scripting and debugging, higher order functions, and a well-developed object model which allows programmers to mix object-oriented and functional programming styles seamlessly.

A Brief History of F#
There are three dominant programming paradigms used today: functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming. Functional programming is the oldest of the three, beginning with Information Processing Language in 1956 and made popular with the appearance of Lisp in 1958. Of course, in the highly competitive world of programming languages in the early decades of computing, imperative programming established itself as the industry norm and preferred choice of scientific researchers and businesses with the arrival of Fortran in 1957 and COBOL in 1959.

While imperative languages became popular with businesses, functional programming languages continued to be developed primarily as highly specialized niche languages. For example, the APL programming language, developed in 1962, was developed to provide a consistent, mathematical notation for processing arrays. In 1973, Robin Milner at the University of Edinburgh developed the ML programming language to develop proof tactics for the LCF Theorem prover. Lisp continued to be used for years as the favored language of AI researchers.

ML stands out among other functional programming languages; its polymorphic functions made it a very expressive language, while its strong typing and immutable data structures made it possible to compile ML into very efficient machine code. ML's relative success spawned an entire family of ML-derived languages, including Standard ML, Caml, its most famous dialect called OCaml which unifies functional programming with object-oriented and imperative styles, and Haskell.

F# was developed in 2005 at Microsoft Research. In many ways, F# is essentially a .Net implementation of OCaml, combining the power and expressive syntax of functional programming with the tens of thousands of classes which make up the .NET class library.

Why Learn F#?
Functional programming is often regarded as the best-kept secret of scientific modelers, mathematicians, artificial intelligence researchers, financial institutions, graphic designers, CPU designers, compiler programmers, and telecommunications engineers. Understandably, functional programming languages tend to be used in settings that perform heavy number crunching, abstract symbolic processing, or theorem proving. Of course, while F# is abstract enough to satisfy the needs of some highly technical niches, its simple and expressive syntax makes it suitable for CRUD apps, web pages, GUIs, games, and general-purpose programming.

Programming languages are becoming more functional every year. Features such as generic programming, type inference, list comprehensions, functions as values, and anonymous types, which have traditionally existed as staples of functional programming, have quickly become mainstream features of Java, C#, Delphi and even Fortran. We can expect next-generation programming languages to continue this trend in the future, providing a hybrid of both functional and imperative approaches that meet the evolving needs of modern programming.

F# is valuable to programmers at any skill level; it combines many of the best features of functional and object-oriented programming styles into a uniquely productive language.

title: F Sharp Programming/Introduction


text:
Java Programming/Keywords/this

is a Java keyword. It contains the current object reference.
 * 1) Solves ambiguity between instance variables and parameters.
 * 2) Used to pass current object as a parameter to another method.

Syntax: .method; or .variable;

Example #1 for case 1:

Example #2 for case 1:

title: Java Programming/Keywords/this


text:
Java Programming/Keywords/abstract

is a Java keyword. It can be applied to a class and methods. An abstract class cannot be directly instantiated. It must be placed before the variable type or the method return type. It is recommended to place it after the access modifier and after the keyword. A non-abstract class is a concrete class. An abstract class cannot be.

Only an abstract class can have abstract methods. An abstract method is only declared, not implemented:

An abstract method cannot be, nor. Either you instantiate a concrete sub-class, either you instantiate the abstract class by implementing its abstract methods alongside a new statement:

A private method cannot be.

title: Java Programming/Keywords/abstract


text:
User:Kjetil r

commons:User:Kjetil r

title: User:Kjetil r


text:
User talk:Kjetil r

commons:User talk:Kjetil r

title: User talk:Kjetil r


text:
User:ChadyWady

Welcome to my Userpage!

I don't usually edit Wikibooks, mostly I am on Wikipedia. Nevertheless, I do edit articles and try to help them.

title: User:ChadyWady


text:
Chess Opening Theory/1. d4/1...d6

= Universal =

1...d6
As with many of Black's off-beat 1st move alternatives, this move does not hold independent status as it usually transposes into other mainstream openings. It is certainly not a bad move on Black's part, but it does allow white to transpose into the Pirc or Modern defence by playing 2. e4, so black must enjoy playing these defences or should shy from this move.

White's options are many. Here are the 2 most popular:
 * 2. e4 - Pirc or Modern transposition
 * 2. c4 - Heading for various queen's pawn games (e.g. KID, OID)

Theory table
.

1. d4 d6

title: Chess Opening Theory/1. d4/1...d6


text:
Talk:ZK/How-Tos/Issues

I am trying to display an image from a thread i used setSrc but it is not working then i tried setContent (after creating AImage tpe) it give an exception what shouldi do?

Here is the code that ised to create GUI from the thread

public void run {	 for (int i=0; i< imgsrc.length;i++) {		 System.out.println("from the run method of test run"); System.err.println(new File(".").getAbsolutePath); _vbox=new Vbox; Window w=new Window; Label label=new Label(labelValues[i]); label.setStyle(styles[0]); w.appendChild(label); //com.potix.image.Image imag=new com.potix.image.Image; //	System.out.println("imgsrc[i] "+imgsrc[i]); com.potix.image.AImage img=null; //com.potix.image.Image img=OutImage_perf_run.png; try {     			 img=new com.potix.image.AImage(imgsrc[i]); }     		catch(Exception e){} //	com.potix.zul.html.Image deleteImage=new com.potix.zul.html.Image(imgsrc[i]); com.potix.zul.html.Image deleteImage=new com.potix.zul.html.Image; deleteImage.setContent(img); //System.out.println("imgsrc[i] "+imgsrc[i]); //deleteImage.setSrc(imgsrc[i]); w.appendChild(deleteImage); Button button =new Button("Details"); button.addEventListener("onClick", new ButtonListener(pageSrc[i],_desktop )); w.appendChild(button); _vbox.appendChild(w); //myhbox.appendChild(vbox); }		//_label = new Label("Execute "+ ++_cnt); synchronized (_mutex) { //to avoid racing Executions.notify(_desktop, _mutex); }

}

title: Talk:ZK/How-Tos/Issues


text:
Half-Life Computation

Probabilistic and Deterministic Computations
Because half life computations may be either probabilistic or deterministic it is important to consider the difference between each method since each method is used extensively in nuclear physics, chemistry, and medicine as well as in commerce, business and finance. In both cases half life computations refer to the amount of time it takes for one half of the components that make up a group to be eliminated from the group through successive half-life intervals of time. This book will explain both the probabilistic and the deterministic methods of half life computation and show how each method of computation is used.

Growth and Decay
In the context of time when a group expands it grows and when it contracts it decays. The state of growth or decay is determined by means of comparing the current count of members with a previous count. If the previous count is less than the current count then the group is in a state of growth. If the previous count is greater than the current count then the group is in a state of decay.

Linear Rates of Growth and Decay
Sometimes we need to know the rate at which a group is growing or decaying. If the time of the previous and the current count are known then the rate of change can be determined by subtracting the previous count from the current count to get the change in members and subtracting the previous time from the current time to get the change in time and then dividing the change in members by the change in time. Thus a previous count of 50 made last month and a current count of 60 made this month means a rate of growth of 10 members per month.

Exponential Rates of Growth and Decay
Using the example above it can be seen that it will take an additional 5 months to increase the membership from 50 to 100 and an additional 10 months to increase it from 100 to 200 and an additional 20 months to increase it from 200 to 400 at the rate of adding 10 members per month. Instead of doubling the number of months each time to get the same increase in membership we can instead double the number of members per month. Thus if we increase the number of members per month from 10 to 20 it will only take 5 additional months instead of 10 to increase the membership from 100 to 200 members. If we next increase the number of members per month to 40 it will again take only 5 additional months instead of 10 to reach 400 members. When the number of members doubles in the same interval of time the group may be said to double in size every 5 months and to follow a pattern of exponential rather than linear growth. This also applies to decay where groups which loose half of their members in 5 months are said to have a Half-life of 5 months duration. In this case and in the case of instantaneous compounding of interest Half-life computation is deterministic and the survival of its members does not vary at random.

The Deterministic Method - Compound Interest Rates
In the case of an annuity that is loosing money the half-life of the account may be determined if the age of the account and the percentage of the original value of the account that has survived is known by using the following deterministic formula: Half-life of the account equals the account's age times the natural logarithm of two divided by the natural logarithm of one divided by the percentage of the original value remaining in the account. (In this example the group is represented by the account and the members by the dollars.)

$$ \text{Half life} = \text{age} * \left[\frac{\ln \left({2}\right)}{\ln \left(\frac{1}{p}\right)}\right]$$

In some cases, however, Half-life is not deterministic but probabilistic and intended to represent cases in which the survival of each member is random. In other words the rate at which a group looses half of its members varies according to the laws of probability rather than according to a deterministic, stable, absolute, or fixed amount.

The Probabilistic Method - Coin Flipping
The Half-life of any random activity such as tossing a coin is determined as simply one half of the possible outcomes. Any number of possible outcomes may be represented using the mathematical or computational equivalent of this method. The probability of survival for a group which has two possible outcomes or a Half-life of one can be represented by a coin with two sides where one side represents survival and the other side represents termination. Cards or balls of various numbers can be used to represent a higher number of possible outcomes. Each card or ball in the set is simply marked "terminal" except for one which is marked "survival" and the set is placed into a container. For each "toss" only one card or ball is retrieved, counted if it is labelled "survival" and returned to the container to be ready for the next “toss.” (The container and contents are usually well shaken after each "toss.") If six balls or cards are used then the Half-life is three. Multiple items with only two possible outcomes may be considered as well by "tossing" each item and counting only the items which turn up "survival" sides. Multiple items with multiples sides may be used as well.

The starting number of tosses is determined (usually 100, but 1,500 is better) and all tosses are completed for the first Half-life period and the number of survivors are counted. The number of tosses for the next Half-life period is then set to the number of survivors that were previously counted and the process repeated until the number of tosses remaining is zero. This process is repeated once for each trial. Option Explicit Private Sub Form_Load Randomize Dim a, i, j, c, n, d, e, h, l n = 2 'number of sides, balls or cards l = n / 2 'number of tosses per Half-life a = 100 'number of tosses '- initialize the array - ReDim h(a + 1, 20) For i = 0 To a + 1 For j = 0 To 20 h(i, j) = 0 If i = 0 Then h(i, j) = j If j = 0 Then h(i, j) = i Next Next '- begin doing trials -- For j = 1 To 8 'number of trials e = 0 ' set number of half lives to zero a = 100 'initial number of tosses Do 'loop until remaining tosses reach zero e = e + 1 'count number of half lives c = 0 'reset survival count For i = 1 To a 'toss the number of times that equal previous survivors count d = Int(Rnd * n) 'flip coin or retrieve ball or card If d <> 0 Then c = c + 1 'if coin, ball, or card survives then count it Next a = c 'reset number of tosses to count of survivors h(e, j) = c 'store count in the array 'Debug.Print "Half-life:"; e; a; " tosses remaining"'verify operation 'Stop Loop Until c <= 0 Next j ' print chart --- For i = 0 To 20 c = 0 For j = 0 To 8 Debug.Print h(i, j); If j > 0 Then c = c + h(i, j) Next Debug.Print If c = 0 Then Exit For Next '-- end of program - End End Sub

Carbon 14 Dating Application
The probabilistic computation of Half-life is easy to understand when presented in a simple and meaningful way using mathematical symbols and basic computer source code together. The purpose of this example is to demystify and explain the use of Half-life computation in determining the age of an archaeological sample.

The Half-life of Carbon-14 is 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). This means that radioactive emission from the decay of Carbon-14 into Nitrogen-14 after 11,460 years will be one quarter as much or the amount shown in the table above where ~25% of the Carbon-14 has survived. Why? The transition of Carbon-14 into Nitrogen-14 proceeds at the rate of one Half-life every 5,730 years which means that there will be only half as much Carbon-14 in an archeological sample that is 5,730 years old as compared to a sample that is created today. The following is an example of Half-life computation applied to the decay of Carbon-14. (Note: the symbol "ln" in the formula's below is generated by the Wikipedia math markup language and stands for "logarithm." Since there are both natural and base 10 logarithms it must be clarified that "ln" stands for natural logarithms while "log" in the basic code below also represents the natural logarithms.)

The age equation (percent of isotope)

 * Where h is the archaeological isotope half-life and
 * where p is the percent or portion of the isotope in the archaeological sample where
 * $$ p = \frac {1}$$ and
 * where n is defined by the ratio of the age of the archaeological sample and the isotope half-life
 * $$ n = \frac{\text{age of archaeological sample}}{\text{half life}} $$ or
 * where the number of isotope half lives in the archaeological sample are defined by
 * $$ n = \frac{\ln \left(\frac{1}{p}\right)}{\ln \left({2}\right)}$$
 * and where age of an archaeological sample is defined as
 * $$ \text{age}=\text{h}\times\text{n}$$

Specifically:

 * Where h is the half-life of Carbon 14:
 * $$ h=5730\ $$
 * and
 * $$ p = \frac{1}{2^{\left({\frac{11,460}{5,730}}\right)}} $$
 * and the percent or portion of Carbon-14 in the archaeological sample is 25%:
 * $$ p=.25\ $$
 * and the number of Carbon-14 half lives equal to:
 * $$ 2 = \frac{\ln \left(\frac{1}{.25}\right)}{\ln \left({2}\right)}$$
 * then the age of the archaeological sample will be:

 * $$ 11,460 =5730 * 2\text{ years} $$

Basic language computer code

Option Explicit Dim h As Double, p As Double, n As Double, age As Double Private Sub Form_Load h = 5730 'Where h is the Half-life of Carbon 14 p = 0.25 '(where p is the percent or portion of Carbon-14 in the archaeological sample) and defined by' 'p = 1 / (2 ^ n) 'and n is defined as the number of half lives n = log(1/p) / log(2) 'and age of the archaeological sample is defined as age = h * n Debug.Print "Half-life", "Percent", "Half-lives", "Age" Debug.Print h, p, n, age End Sub

The age equation (isotope proportions)
Considering that radioactive parent elements decay to stable daughter elements, the mathematical expression that relates radioactive decay to geologic time, called the age equation, is :

$$ t = \frac{1}{\lambda} {\times} {\ln \left(1+\frac{D}{P}\right)}

$$

where

$$ t = $$age of the sample

$$ D = $$number of atoms of the daughter isotope in the sample

$$ P = $$number of atoms of the parent isotope in the sample

$$ \lambda = $$decay constant of the parent isotope

$$ \ln = $$natural logarithm

where

$ {\lambda} = \frac{\ln (2)}{t_{1/2}} $

The decay constant (or rate of decay) is the fraction of a number of atoms of a radioactive nuclide that disintegrates in a unit of time. The decay constant is inversely proportional to the radioactive half-life.

and

$$ t_{1/2} = $$ half-life of the parent isotope, which can be obtained from tables such as the one given in :

title: Half-Life Computation


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User talk:Kyle~enwikibooks

Hello and welcome to Wikibooks!

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The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

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title: User talk:Kyle~enwikibooks


text:
Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Black Family

Overview
The Black family were considered to be one of the noblest family in the wizarding world. They are very strict when it comes to blood status.

Role in the Books
Note that many members of the Black Family appear in this series. This article will only briefly touch on all known Black family members. For more discussion of the Black family, see the articles on Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Narcissa (Black) Malfoy, Bellatrix (Black) Lestrange, Andromeda (Black) Tonks, Phineas Nigellus Black, Orion Black, and Walburga Black. Although Draco Malfoy, Narcissa's son, is related to the Black family through Narcissa, we will not include him directly in this article.

Philosopher's Stone
Hagrid, as he brings the infant Harry to Professor Dumbledore, says that he had borrowed young Sirius Black's flying motorcycle.

Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry finds out that Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban to find him, and it is widely believed Sirius' purpose is to kill Harry. He then finds out that Sirius was his father's best friend, and his godfather. Harry later finds out that actually it was Ron's rat, Scabbers, actually an Animagus wizard named Peter Pettigrew, that betrayed Harry's parents, and that he framed Sirius. Pettigrew, one of Sirius' purported victims, manages to escape before his continuing existence can be proved to the satisfaction of the Ministry of Magic, so Sirius remained a wanted criminal.

Goblet of Fire
Needing advice about dreams he is having, and about the Triwizard Tournament, Harry contacts Sirius using Owl Post, and Sirius answers by means of Floo Powder. Sirius counsels him, both from the fireplace and later in person, having concealed himself via his Animagus dog shape, but despite providing reassurance is not particularly helpful.

Shortly after the appearance and disappearance of Bartemius Crouch, Harry is briefly left alone in Dumbledore's office. While there, he discovers Dumbledore's Pensieve. Experimenting with it, he finds himself witnessing the trials of several Death Eaters, including Bellatrix Lestrange, who he feels is quite insane.

As the book ends, Dumbledore has Sirius reveal himself to Professor Snape and Mrs. Weasley, and sends Sirius off to round up "the old gang".

Order of the Phoenix
Shortly after Harry's birthday, the "Advance Guard" arrives to bring him to "Headquarters". This building, at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, is now the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, and is the ancestral Black home. Harry is reunited here with Sirius, and meets the mad, screaming portrait of his mother, Walburga.

Sirius Black shows Harry the Black family tree on a tapestry in the front parlour at Grimmauld Place. The members of the family that he mentions are Phineas Nigellus, Aunt Elladora, Araminta Meliflua, his uncle Alphard Black, his parents Walburga and Orion, his brother Regulus, his cousins Bellatrix, Andromeda (who has had her spot on the tree burned off because she dated to marry "the Muggle Ted Tonks") and Narcissa, and Narcissa's son Draco Malfoy. This family tree is huge, and the motto is Toujours Pur - "Always Pure". Those like Andromeda and Sirius himself who have dared to consort with Muggles or the Muggle-born have been burned off the family tree, and the tapestry itself is apparently fastened to the wall with a Permanent Sticking Charm.

Harry and Sirius speak by means of Floo Powder a number of times in this book. Additionally, Phineas Nigellus at several points carries messages back and forth between Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place.

Some time after Christmas, several Death Eaters imprisoned in Azkaban break out. Bellatrix Lestrange is one of them.

At the end of the book, both Sirius and Bellatrix take part in the climactic Battle at the Ministry of Magic, though on opposite sides. Of the twelve Death Eaters who take part in that battle, Bellatrix is the only one to escape, after killing Sirius. Bellatrix is trapped by Dumbledore, but is finally rescued by Voldemort.

Half-Blood Prince
Bellatrix (Bella) and Narcissa (Cissy) together visit Severus Snape. Narcissa has a favour to ask him; Bellatrix tries to dissuade her because she does not trust Snape's return from Dumbledore's side. Snape manages, mostly, to reassure Bellatrix, though he does mention that her value to Voldemort and her position in his councils has not been improved by the fiasco at the Ministry. After warning Narcissa that Voldemort prohibits discussion of missions between Death Eaters, Snape notes that he was already aware of Draco's mission, which is never clearly stated, and agrees to help him. He further reinforces his statements to Bellatrix about his loyalty by agreeing to take an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco complete his mission.

Barely a fortnight into the summer, Professor Dumbledore visits the Dursley house to pick up Harry, and while there he tells Harry what he has inherited from Sirius. It appears Sirius left Harry everything he owns, including the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black at Grimmauld Place, and Kreacher, the house elf belonging to the house.

Draco's mission, it turns out, has been in part to arrange a secret entrance to Hogwarts. Having managed that, Draco waits until Dumbledore is away from the school, then leads a large number of Death Eaters into the school. Among their number is Bellatrix, who we see at one point taunting the weakened Dumbledore, and at another point dueling with Ginny Weasley.

The locket that Dumbledore retrieved from the lake in the cave bears a note signed by one "R. A. B." It was believed, following the publication of this book, that the mysterious R. A. B. was Regulus Black; this was confirmed in the next book.

Deathly Hallows
We see Bellatrix and Narcissa in council with Voldemort, where it has become apparent, by the location where they are seated, that both have fallen out of favour with the Dark Lord. Bellatrix is also part of the group of Death Eaters who attack the seven Harry Potters in the escape from Privet Drive; she targets Nymphadora Tonks, her own niece.

Having returned to Grimmauld Place, Harry recalls a locket that had been discarded two years earlier and guesses that it could be the locket Dumbledore had been trying to retrieve from the cave in the previous book. Summoning Kreacher, Harry discovers that Voldemort had borrowed Kreacher from Regulus in order to place the locket in the cave. On discovering what Voldemort had done, Regulus then returned to the cave with Kreacher, told Kreacher to take the locket and destroy it, and then drank the potion protecting the locket, afterwards being dragged to his death in the lake when he tried to quench the thirst caused by the potion. Kreacher remains distraught because he is unable to follow his master's final wishes, especially now as the locket has been stolen by Mundungus Fletcher. Harry reveals that he has the same mission, to retrieve and destroy the locket, and gives Kreacher the locket Dumbledore had retrieved from the potion; Kreacher, as a result, becomes fervently loyal to Harry.

Captured by Snatchers, disguised hastily by Hermione, and brought to Malfoy Manor, Harry is faced by Bellatrix and Narcissa, who try to identify him. Bellatrix recognizes the Sword of Gryffindor, and states that summoning Voldemort before they know where the Sword came from would be fatal. She questions Hermione, and the goblin Griphook, with the Cruciatus curse, finally accepting Hermione's story that the sword is a fake. Harry and Ron manage, with the help of Dobby, to rescue Hermione, Griphook, and the other prisoners, but in the process Dobby is murdered by a dagger thrown by Bellatrix.

After their escape, Harry mentions that, as they had overheard earlier that the Sword had been moved to Gringotts Wizarding Bank, Bellatrix' recognizing the Sword indicates that it had gone into her vault at Gringotts, and her fear suggested strongly that there was something else in there that Voldemort treasured. Harry guesses, correctly, that this is one of Voldemort's horcruxes, and determines to break into Gringotts and destroy it. To do this, Hermione disguises herself as Bellatrix, and using her captured wand as identification, manages to get the Trio into the deep vaults.

Both Narcissa and Bellatrix take part in the final battle at Hogwarts. After Harry's and Voldemort's souls return from the Waystation, Bellatrix rushes to help Voldemort, who brushes her off while ordering Narcissa to see if Harry is truly dead. Harry is not, and Narcissa can't help noticing this; she asks Harry if Draco is still alive. Harry replies that he is, and Narcissa lies to Voldemort, saying Harry is dead so Voldemort will not re-open the battle on the school. Battle is rejoined, however, and eventually Bellatrix is killed by Molly Weasley, who is defending her daughter Ginny.

We see later that Narcissa has survived the battle, and we are told that Andromeda Tonks had stayed at home to care for the infant Teddy.

Strengths
The Black family seemed to have considerable magical strength. We see that Bellatrix (Lestrange) is an extremely powerful witch, and Sirius is quite able to hold his own with the other Marauders. It is also mentioned that Sirius' father had strengthened the protective spells on Number 12, Grimmauld Place, which we expect would take a rare strength, that building being so old and well-established.

Much of the perceived strength of character in the Black family was based on a belief in their own superiority due to being pure-blood wizards. While this may have made them appear stronger, it carries with it all the less savory aspects of nobility (looking down on others, treatment of those not blessed with pure blood as menials or subhuman) and so does not count particularly in their favour.

Weaknesses
There seems to have been a strain of mental instability that is expressed in the Black blood line. We see this to a great extent in the portrait of Sirius' mother, and in Bellatrix Lestrange, and to a lesser extent in Sirius himself. We can only speculate that this is at least in part due to the Black belief in pure-blood strength, and the resulting in-breeding; we will note in the Black family tree that both Sirius' parents are descended from Phineas Nigellus Black.

The Blacks seemed to have a surprisingly short life span for wizards. Most of the later generations were female and, with the death of Sirius near the end of Order of the Phoenix, the family name came to an end. The blood-line continues, however, through Nymphadora Tonks, child of Andromeda (Black) Tonks, and through Tonks' child, Teddy; and Draco Malfoy, son of Narcissa (Black) Malfoy.

Relationships with Other Characters
Family tree drawing (note: pending redrafting of the tree, we are using a Portuguese image, hence the odd spellings of the names):

Analysis
If nothing else, the Black family tree details just how inbred and intermarried the "pureblood" Wizards are – both of Sirius' parents are descended from Phineas Nigellus and his wife Ursula Flint. One point of interest is that Dorea Black married Charlus Potter, and they had one son – could that be James Potter, Harry's father? James was born, we think, about 1959, when Dorea would have been about 40, which is possible; though it is equally possible that Charlus is James' grandfather. Sirius did mention that he spent rather a lot of time over at James' parent's, presumably because he didn't get along with his parents; it's possible that James' mother was his aunt or great-aunt. The Family Tree would not show James Potter in any event, as he had committed the cardinal sin (in the Black family estimation) of marrying the Muggle-born Lily Evans.

It is curious that Harry did not see, or did not see fit to comment on, the presence of his own family name, when he saw the House of Black tapestry in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Other interesting names appear in this tapestry as well. Callidora, who was born in 1915 and is still alive, married Harfang Longbottom; what relationship are they to Neville Longbottom? Lucretia (1925 - 1992) married Ignatius Prewett; Molly Weasley gave this name to her son Percy as his middle name as it was her uncle's name. Charis (1919 - 1973) married one Caspar Crouch: Bartemius Crouch Sr.'s brother, perhaps? And Septimus Weasley, who apparently married Cedrella Black (burn-mark 4), is almost certainly Ron's grandfather.

Burn-mark 7, Andromeda "who married Muggle Ted Tonks", is Nymphadora Tonks' mother; Ted Tonks is not a Muggle, though he was Muggle-born. Tonks did mention that she was related to the Black family.

Questions

 * 1) Is Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy's son, related to Harry Potter? If so, what is the relation?


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User:Vap0rtranz~enwikibooks

My userpage is on Wikipedia at vap0rtranz. Fun stuff there!

title: User:Vap0rtranz~enwikibooks


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Template:Turkish/TOC

You can give your feedback about this page on the |talk page.

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Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

General Overview
St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries is the wizard's hospital founded by Mungo Bonham. It is located in London.

Apparently there is a St Mungo Community Housing Association that assists the homeless in London. It is not immediately clear if there is any relationship between the names; the homeless charity was apparently founded in 1969, so the hospital may be named after it.

Extended Description
While we don't actually see the hospital in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it is mentioned by Professor Dumbledore that Neville's parents are long-term residents of St. Mungo's Hospital.

To Muggles, the hospital appears to be the store Purge and Dowse Ltd., which is "Closed for Refurbishment". Wizards and witches working in this hospital, who work directly with the patients, are called Healers; they can be recognized by their lime green robes. The hospital can treat a wide range of magic-related illnesses and injuries.

Floor Guide (as it appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix):

(Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.)
 * ARTIFACT ACCIDENTS...................... Ground Floor

(Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.)
 * CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES............... First Floor

(Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrofungulus)
 * MAGICAL BUGS............................. Second Floor

(Rashes, regurgitation, uncontrollable giggling, etc.)
 * POTION AND PLANT POISONING.............. Third Floor

(Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.)
 * SPELL DAMAGE............................ Fourth Floor

 * VISITOR'S TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP..... Fifth Floor

If you are unsure where to go, incapable of normal speech, or unable to

remember why you are here, our Welcome Witch will be pleased to help.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Mr. Weasley is taken to St. Mungo's after Harry reports seeing him attacked by a snake. Harry, Ron, Fred, George, Ginny, and Hermione visit him there, along with Mrs. Weasley, Mad-Eye Moody, and Tonks. Mr. Weasley is in a ward with other people who have received bites from magical creatures, including a werewolf and a woman who won't say what had bitten her.

When Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and the Twins return to St. Mungo's some time later to visit again, Ginny and the Trio end up on the wrong floor of the hospital. There, they find the long-term spell damage patients, including one-time Professor Lockhart, still suffering from his own mis-fired memory charm, and Broderick Bode. They also run into Neville and his grandmother Augusta, there visiting Neville's parents.

Broderick Bode later dies in the hospital when a Devil's Snare which had been sent to him as a pot plant (US: potted plant) strangles him. The hospital is unable to explain how a Devil's Snare could have been accepted.

We actually only enter St. Mungo's in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We do hear of it in many places, though; in particular, Professor McGonagall goes to St. Mungo's after she has been hit by multiple Stunners during Professor Umbridge's attempt to arrest Hagrid, Katie Bell is sent to St. Mungo's to recover after she touches a jinxed necklace, and it is said that Neville's grandmother had put the Auror Dawlish in St. Mungo's when he had tried to arrest her. In addition, it is mentioned that if Professor Dumbledore's sister Ariana had been injured, she should have gone to St. Mungo's; the apparent fact that she did not lends weight to the belief that there was something shameful wrong with her.

It is during the Trio's attempt to find the tea shop that we hear a portrait of an ancient Healer chasing Ron around the stairwell, diagnosing him with Spattergroit. While we believe this to be a fictional or archaic disease, like "the vapours" in the Muggle world, we will see later that it is a very real disease, but luckily one that is not commonly encountered.

Analysis
As it is a hospital, the intent is to care for people while they heal, so there should not be any permanent residents, only those who are taking longer to heal than others. We do see one ward for people with long-term spell damage, and see four people there that are mentioned elsewhere in the series: Gilderoy Lockhart, Broderick Bode, and Frank and Alice Longbottom. These four, among others, could be considered long-term residents of the hospital, but attempts are being made to return Bode and Lockhart to a more normal life.

A mature reader looking at this story might be dismayed to note that there does not seem to be an A&E (Accident and Emergency; US Emergency) department in the hospital. However, looking at the sign board mentioned above, and at the sort of inquiries the Welcome Witch has to field, we gather that the main purpose of the hospital is A&E, and that what little long-term care there seems to be a need for is handled in ancillary wards. We suggest that this makes sense on two fronts. First, a child's experience with hospitals is almost certainly going to be short term, following household accidents, so, this series being intended for children, it only makes sense that the emergency room is the main reason for hospitals to exist. And second, most ailments can be cured so rapidly by means of magic that the need for long-term stays and observation, so common among Muggles, is likely to be very minor.

We note a possible reference to other literary works in the name of this hospital. In the series of stories about the detective Father Brown, written by G. K. Chesterton, Father Brown's parish is mentioned a few times, and each time it is given a different name. We note that in "The Wrong Shape", collected in The Innocence of Father Brown, it is mentioned in passing that Father Brown was of St. Mungo's (parish).

St. Mungo was a real Catholic saint in the late 6th century, despite the odd-sounding name. It is unusual that a London hospital would use that form of his name, though, as in England and Wales he is known by his birth name Kentigern; it is in Scotland that he is known as as Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow.

Greater Picture
It is actually the presence of the long-term spell damage ward that we see at St. Mungo's that explains why Kendra, Ariana's mother, was so reluctant to take her to St. Mungo's when Ariana was injured by the Muggle boys. Kendra was certain that the Healers at the hospital would deem her a long-term case, potentially dangerous to others, and effectively lock her up in a ward similar to the one where we find Lockhart and the others. This would doom her to a life away from her family, with only occasional visits from her parents and brothers for company. The earlier description of the Longbottoms' case, and our visit to their ward, reinforces for us the idea that magic is not a panacea, it cannot cure all ailments, particularly those that are caused by magic. Having seen the long-term care ward and its denizens, we start to understand Kendra's fear, and understand also her willingness to take care of Ariana herself, even at the risk of having Ariana believed to be a Squib, rather than risk effectively losing her to the bureaucracy of the hospital. It simply compounds the tragedy that Kendra ends up dying, possibly due to Ariana's actions, as a result of this decision to care for her at home.

We do not believe that we should draw parallels here between Kendra's case and the charity the author has since founded. The Lumos charity foundation aims to rescue children from orphanages, a situation that more than somewhat matches Kendra's fear for Ariana. However, any mother who cares about her children would be likely to share that concern.

The adult reader may also perceive in that episode a certain distrust of bureaucracy and governments on the part of the author. As the characters in the books make no secret of their disdain for the Ministry, this should not come as a surprise to the reader, but it is of interest that the author is aware of, and willing to portray, the increasing officiousness of the more petty bureaucrats.


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Template talk:Turkish/TOC

Creation - 26 June 2006
I created this template to help organize the Turkish book a little more. This is my first time creating a template, so I'm not sure if this is the best way to go for navigation or not.... Comments are welcome! --Jay McAliley 02:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It is probably the best you can do if you are planning on having the toc on more than one page. L10nM4st3r / Roar at me 20:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

title: Template talk:Turkish/TOC