text:
Journal of Sensors
Journal of Sensors/
AbstractIntroductionAnalysisConclusionData AvailabilityConflicts of InterestAcknowledgmentsReferencesCopyrightRelated Articles
Volume 2019 | Article ID 4891761 | https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4891761
Study on Quantitative Sewage Blowing-Off and Real-Time Sewage Level Detection of Submarine Storage Tank
Kai Yang,1,2Yide Liao,1Xubing Chen,1and Xiaodong Yang1
Academic Editor: Antonio Lazaro
Received07 May 2019
Accepted18 Jul 2019
Published10 Sept 2019
Aiming at the problems of huge exhaust noise and air bubbles caused by sewage blowing-off at an inappropriate time for a submarine ST, a sewage level detection system is designed, which can detect in real-time the sewage level using a weighing sensor to achieve quantitative sewage blowing-off. Therefore, the theoretical analysis of the sewage blowing-off is carried out, and the process of the sewage blowing-off is simulated by a VOF model of Fluent. From the simulation, the gas-liquid volume distribution diagram, the volume curve of the sewage, and the flow rate curve of the outlet sewage are obtained. Furthermore, the installation and detection method of the weighing sensor are described in detail. Finally, an experimental test system for simulating the sewage blowing-off is established, and an ultrasonic liquid level sensor, capacitance level sensor, and weighing sensor are tested. By comparing the effects of the three sensors, the result shows that the weighing sensor is the most effective for real-time sewage level detection during the process of sewage blowing-off and can effectively reduce the exhaust noise of the sewage blowing-off system.
The storage tank (ST) is one of the necessary living facilities of a submarine, which is used to store solid-liquid mixed sewage mainly consisting of human excreta and seawater. Due to the limited volume of the ST, about 150 L, the sewage needs to be blown off frequently by high-pressure air. Influenced by the variation of the seawater pressure and the different solid-liquid mixing ratios, the time of sewage blowing-off is unstable. However, the existing sewage blowing-off system cannot detect the sewage level in real-time, which results in a large number of bubbles and a huge exhaust noise when the sewage is completely blown off.
The research on a submarine high-pressure air blowing-off system mainly focuses on the hovering system. By controlling the water level of the hovering ballast tank, the ballast tank mass can be quickly adjusted, and the depth and the pitch angle of a submarine can be controlled [1, 2]. Zhang et al. studied the process used in a high-pressure air blowing-off ballast tank based on a VOF two-phase flow model [3]. Liu et al. designed a small scale model experiment of a high-pressure air blowing-off ballast tank and obtained the drainage performance and key performance parameters [4]. The control approach of a variable ballast system and the fuzzy logic control system can make a ballast tank automatically fill up or empty itself of seawater as desired [5–7]. Liu et al. and Zhao et al. proposed a novel type of water hydraulic variable ballast system to improve control performance and reduce energy consumption when adjusting the ballast water [8, 9]. Xiang et al. summarized the designs and analytical processes of adaptive fuzzy control and fuzzy PID control as well as the trends of the future for fuzzy logic in the field of underwater vehicles [10]. Blowing-off equipment suitable for hovering systems has also been designed by researchers [11]. Xia et al. designed an extra-high-pressure pneumatic blowing valve with a differential pressure control for an emergency blowing-off ballast tank [12]. Yang et al. designed an extra-high-pressure pneumatic blowing valve and established a mathematical model for the valve based on a real gas state equation [13]. Compared with the hovering system, the sewage blowing-off system is smaller in size and its internal medium is more complex, so it is more difficult to detect the liquid level in real time.
In this paper, a sewage blowing-off system using a weighing sensor to detect the sewage level in real time is proposed, which realizes the quantitative sewage blowing-off and effectively reduces the exhaust noise of a sewage blowing-off system.
2. Analysis and Simulation of the Sewage Blowing-Off Model
2.1. Analysis of the Sewage Blowing-Off Model
Valves, flanges, and sensors are widely used in the sewage blowing-off system. In order to simplify the calculation, the physical model is reasonably simplified as a direct connection between the gas cylinder and the ST. The physical model of the sewage blowing-off system is shown in Figure 1.
A simplified model of the sewage blowing-off system.
The high-pressure airflow in the sewage blowing-off system is a complex thermodynamic process; the heat transfer between the gas and the pipeline has no effect on the flow of sewage and no mechanical energy is transferred into heat energy. Therefore, in order to simplify the calculation and neglect the influence of secondary factors on the system, the following assumptions are made.
Assumption 1. The ideal gas law can be applied to the whole system gas flow.
Assumption 2. The gas in the gas cylinder is in a stagnant state, the gas flow along the pipeline can be regarded as an isentropic flow, and the gas flow in the ST is in an adiabatic expansion process.
Assumption 3. The sewage in the ST is incompressible and nonviscous, and there is no energy loss when it flows, which conforms to the Bernoulli equation of an ideal liquid.
Assumption 4. The friction coefficient of the sewage pipeline is constant.
We consider that the air flows into the ST from the gas cylinder through a pipeline. Since the cross-sectional area of the gas cylinder is much larger than that of the pipeline, the movement of air in the ST can be neglected. The energy equation can be expressed as with where is the heat capacity at constant pressure, is the gas temperature in the ST, is the gas temperature in the gas cylinder, is the gas velocity at the outlet of the pipeline, is the adiabatic exponent, and is the ideal gas constant.
Based on the isentropic gas flow theory, the gas state equation (3) can be obtained as where is the air pressure in the cylinder and is the air pressure in the ST.
By equations (1)–(3), the air velocity and the air mass flow at the outlet of the pipeline can be expressed by equations (4) and (5).
Then, where is the area of the pipeline.
Taking the outlet center section of the ST as the datum, the Bernoulli equation of the sewage level and the outlet section can be expressed as where is the height of the sewage level, is the seawater pressure, is the density of the sewage, is the velocity of the sewage surface, and is the velocity of the outlet sewage.
We consider that the cross-sectional area of the ST is much larger than that of the sewage outlet. Therefore, the velocity of the sewage surface can be ignored. The velocity of the outlet sewage can be obtained as
The volume variation of the sewage blown off in time can be expressed as
The height variation of the sewage level in time can be expressed as where is the area function of the cross section of the ST.
Equations (9) and (12) reflect the instantaneous variation of the sewage volume and the sewage level height, respectively. Compared with the seawater pressure and the air pressure , the sewage level height is small and can be ignored. Therefore, the volume of the sewage blowing-off and the height of the sewage level are both inversely proportional to the seawater pressure and directly proportional to the air pressure .
2.2. Simulation of the Sewage Blowing-Off Model Based on Fluent
By using computational fluid dynamics, we can predict the performance and provide solid guidelines during the design phase of modelling and parameter estimation. Therefore, the process of sewage blowing-off and the gas-liquid volume distribution can be clearly observed by using the volume of fluid (VOF) model of Fluent. And a simulation model of the ST with a volume of 150 L is set up, and its 3D model is divided into 113925 hexahedral meshes by using the multizone sweep meshing.
In order to simulate the actual condition, the boundary conditions are set as pressure inlet and pressure outlet; the inlet air pressure is 3.4 MPa, and the outlet seawater pressure is 1.8 MPa. The fluid medium in the ST is set to gas-liquid two-phase, where one phase is seawater and the other phase is air. Before the simulation, a gravity acceleration of 9.8 m/s2 is added in the vertical direction, and the air volume fraction of the whole fluid area in the ST is 0, so the initial state of the ST is filled with seawater. The gas-liquid volume distribution diagram of the 3D model and the middle section of the ST during the blowing-off time from 5 s to 40 s are shown in Figure 2.
Gas-liquid volume distribution during the blowing-off time from 5 s to 40 s: (a) 5 s, (b) 10 s, (c) 15 s, (d) 20 s, (e) 25 s, (f) 30 s, (g) 35 s, and (h) 40 s.
Figures 2(a)–2(h) show the gas-liquid volume distribution of the 3D model and the middle section of the ST at different blowing-off times. The blue area and the red area represent seawater and air, respectively, and the other coloured areas represent different air proportions of the gas-liquid mixtures. The volume fraction of air is shown at the bottom of each picture at every time.
By monitoring the simulation process, the volume curve of the sewage in the ST and the flow rate of the outlet sewage at different seawater pressures are obtained as shown in Figures 3 and 4.
Volume curve of the sewage in the ST.
Flow rate curve of the outlet sewage.
As can be seen from Figures 2–4, when the sewage blowing-off begins, the air enters into the ST and forms a mixing layer at the gas-liquid interface. At this moment, the flow rate of the outlet sewage increases rapidly and maintains basic stability at a certain flow rate. With the continuous sewage blowing-off, three distinct layers are formed in the ST. The upper layer is air and the middle layer is gas-liquid mixing, and both of the two layers spread continuously with the entry of air. The lower layer is water. Due to the large flow rate of the outlet sewage, the volume of the sewage in the ST reduces rapidly, and the flow rate of the outlet sewage decreases sharply. Since then, the sewage is basically emptied, and a small amount of residual sewage diffuses throughout the ST. The lower the pressure of seawater, the greater the pressure difference between high-pressure air and seawater. And the larger the pressure difference, the faster the flow rate of the outlet sewage and the faster the volume change of the sewage in the ST.
3. Method Study on the Real-Time Sewage Level Detection
In order to realize the quantitative sewage blowing-off and reduce the exhaust noise, it is effective to detect the sewage level in real-time during the blowing-off process. Sensing technology is widely used in underwater vehicles [14], but the corrosive nature of seawater, biofouling, pressure resistant enclosure, data transfer reliability, and the dynamic nature of the ocean itself create great limitations in an underwater environment [15].
For the sewage blowing-off system, the ST is a sealed container withstanding high pressure, and the sewage is a solid-liquid mixture of human excreta and seawater in different proportions. The sewage level will oscillate violently when the sewage is blown off by the high-pressure air. Therefore, it is difficult to accurately detect the sewage level in real-time by using conventional sensors in the process of sewage blowing-off.
To solve this problem, a sewage blowing-off system using a weighing sensor to detect the sewage level in real-time is proposed. The ST is installed horizontally and is simply supported by a beam structure. The sewage outlet is hinged with the base through the flange, and the bottom of the other end is equipped with a weighing sensor. Therefore, the weighing sensor can detect about one-half of the sewage weight in real-time, and the real-time sewage level and the total sewage displacement can be obtained by conversion. In addition, the sewage inlet is connected to the bedpan by a flexible hose, which makes the ST rotate flexibly and enables it to avoid the influence of the bedpan or pipeline based on the accuracy of the sewage weight detection.
When the system operates, the sewage is blown off by the high-pressure air and the weight of the ST decreases continuously. When the weighing sensor detects the lower limit of the ST weight, it feeds back a signal to the system. Then, the system closes the sewage outlet valve and the high-pressure air valve, which realizes the sewage level detection and the quantitative sewage blowing-off.
4. Experimental Testing and Results Discussion
4.1. Experimental Testing
In order to verify the effect of real-time sewage level detection, an experimental test system for simulating the sewage blowing-off is established as shown in Figure 5.
Experiment testing system.
In addition to the weighing sensor, an ultrasonic liquid level sensor and a capacitance level sensor are tested and compared. The ultrasonic liquid level sensor is adsorbed on the outer wall surface of the ST through its two magnetic probes, and the capacitance opens a hole on the wall surface of the ST and is inserted inside it.
The sewage is replaced by salt water and soil. The soil accounts for about 10% of the total weight of the sewage, and the salinity of the salt water is about 3.5%. The sewage is discharged into the ST from the bedpan, and the ST is connected with a back-pressure simulated container through a metal hose. By controlling the pressure of the back-pressure simulated tank, the seawater pressure can be simulated and adjusted. The overflow valve is used to maintain the pressure of the seawater during the process of the sewage blowing-off, and the pressure relief valve is used to regulate the pressure difference between the air and the simulated seawater.
4.2. Results and Discussion
The detection effects of the three sensors are shown in Table 1.
Detection effect of the three sensors.
The ultrasonic liquid level sensor detects the liquid level by transmitting velocity differences in different media through ultrasonic waves, and its characteristics are suitable for the noncontact liquid level detection of a pressure vessel. But for the ST, either the gas-liquid oscillation intensity or the dirt thickness of the inner wall surface has great influence on its detection effect. These factors lead to its response delay of about 60 s to 80 s. The capacitive liquid level sensor uses the weak change of the different dielectric capacitance near the electrode to realize a liquid level signal output. However, when the solid-liquid phase containing salt is attached to its electrode, it will cause greater interference to the response. The weighing sensor detects the sewage level by detecting the weight of the sewage in the ST; it responds well in the whole experimental testing process and its signal output is stable and repeatable.
In order to improve the accuracy of the experimental testing, the time of quantitative blowing-off 100 L of the sewage is tested by using the weighing sensor. Limited by the test conditions, the simulated seawater pressure is set at low pressure (0, 0.1 MPa, and 0.2 MPa) and high pressure (1.8 MPa), and the pressure difference between the high-pressure air and seawater is adjusted by controlling the pressure of the high-pressure air. The time of the sewage blowing-off under different pressure differences is tested as shown in Figures 6 and 7.
Time of the sewage blowing-off at low simulated seawater pressure.
Time of the sewage blowing-off at a simulated seawater pressure of 1.8 MPa.
As can be seen from Figure 6, the lower simulated seawater pressure (0, 0.1 MPa, and 0.2 MPa) has little effect on the time of the sewage blowing-off. But a smaller pressure difference, such as 0.05 MPa, can quickly blow the sewage off. And when the pressure difference increased from 0.05 MPa to 0.3 MPa, the blowing-off time obviously decreased.
In Figure 7, the time of the sewage blowing-off at a pressure difference of 1.9 MPa is about 5 s or 6 s faster than that of the pressure difference of 1.6 MPa. The data indicate that the time of the sewage blowing-off is proportional to the pressure difference, which is basically consistent with the result of the above model and the simulation analysis.
The exhaust noise levels of the conventional sewage blowing-off and quantitative sewage blowing-off are both tested by the noise meter as shown in Figure 8. The experimental environment noise is about 60 db, and the simulated seawater pressure is 0.2 MPa.
The exhaust noise levels of conventional sewage blowing-off and quantitative sewage blowing-off.
As can be seen from Figure 8, with the increase of the pressure difference, both the exhaust noise levels of conventional sewage blowing-off and quantitative sewage blowing-off are enhanced. The exhaust noise of quantitative sewage blowing-off is within the range of 90 dB, and the maximum exhaust noise of conventional sewage blowing-off is more than 130 dB. Therefore, quantitative sewage blowing-off can effectively reduce the noise of the sewage blowing-off system.
In this paper, the real-time liquid level detection is applied to the sewage blowing-off system, which effectively realizes the quantitative sewage blowing-off. The main conclusions are drawn as follows: (1)By using the weighing sensor, the sewage level can be detected in real-time and the quantitative sewage blowing-off can be achieved, which can effectively avoid the inappropriate blowing-off time(2)The time of the sewage blowing-off is mainly related to the pressure difference between the high-pressure air and seawater. A higher pressure difference can lead to a shorter blowing-off time(3)Both the exhaust noise levels of conventional sewage blowing-off and quantitative sewage blowing-off are enhanced with the increase of pressure difference, and the quantitative sewage blowing-off can effectively reduce the noise of the sewage blowing-off system
The data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
This work is supported by the WuHan Yellow Crane Talent Program (Grant No. 17D005).
R. Font and J. García-Peláez, "On a submarine hovering system based on blowing and venting of ballast tanks," Ocean Engineering, vol. 72, pp. 441–447, 2013.
Y. Chen, W. Wang, G. Xu, W. Zhang, and G. Wang, "Water level control of submarine hovering tank based on sliding mode control," Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences, vol. 46, pp. 2461–2470, 2017.
J. H. Zhang, K. Hu, and C. B. Liu, "Numerical simulation on compressed gas blowing ballast tank of submarine," Journal of Ship Mechanics, vol. 19, no. 04, pp. 363–368, 2015.
H. Liu, J. Pu, Q. Li, and X. Wu, "The experiment research of submarine high-pressure air blowing-off main ballast tanks," Journal of Harbin Engineering University, vol. 1, 2013.
S. A. Woods, R. J. Bauer, and M. L. Seto, "Automated ballast tank control system for autonomous underwater vehicles," IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 727–739, 2012.
M. H. Khodayari and S. Balochian, "Modeling and control of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in heading and depth attitude via self-adaptive fuzzy PID controller," Journal of Marine Science and Technology, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 559–578, 2015.
K. Tanakitkorn, P. A. Wilson, S. R. Turnock, and A. B. Phillips, "Depth control for an over-actuated, hover-capable autonomous underwater vehicle with experimental verification," Mechatronics, vol. 41, pp. 67–81, 2017.
Y. Liu, X. Zhao, D. Wu, D. Li, and X. Li, "Study on the control methods of a water hydraulic variable ballast system for submersible vehicles," Ocean Engineering, vol. 108, pp. 648–661, 2015.
X. Zhao, Y. Liu, M. Han, D. Wu, and D. Li, "Improving the performance of an AUV hovering system by introducing low-cost flow rate control into water hydraulic variable ballast system," Ocean Engineering, vol. 125, pp. 155–169, 2016.
X. Xiang, C. Yu, L. Lapierre, J. Zhang, and Q. Zhang, "Survey on fuzzy-logic-based guidance and control of marine surface vehicles and underwater vehicles," International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 572–586, 2018.
L. Yinshui, R. Xiaojun, W. Defa, L. Donglin, and L. Xiaohui, "Simulation and analysis of a seawater hydraulic relief valve in deep-sea environment," Ocean Engineering, vol. 125, pp. 182–190, 2016.
J. Xia, Y. D. Liao, and K. Yang, "Simulation and experimental investigation of an extra-high pressure pneumatic blowing valve based on AMESim," Chinese Journal of Ship Research, vol. 10, pp. 117–122, 2015.
G. Yang, Y. Sun, and B. Li, "Numerical simulation on dynamic characteristics of a extra-high pressure pneumatic blowing valve," China Mechanical Engineering, vol. 23, pp. 42–45, 2012.
M. S. M. Aras, M. N. Kamarudin, I. Zainal, M. K. M. Zambri, and M. Sulaiman, "Analysis of integrated sensor for unmanned underwater vehicle application," Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences, vol. 46, pp. 2552–2561, 2017.
M. R. Arshad, "Recent advancement in sensor technology for underwater applications," Indian Journal of Marineences, vol. 38, pp. 267–273, 2009.
Copyright © 2019 Kai Yang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


text:
// Type definitions for csvrow 0.1
// Project: https://github.com/trentm/node-csvrow
// Definitions by: Peter Harris <https://github.com/codeanimal>
// Definitions: https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped

/**
 * Parse a CSV row (i.e. a single row) into an array of strings.
 *
 * c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values
 *
 * Limitations/Opinions:
 * - don't support elements with line-breaks
 * - leading a trailing spaces are trimmed, unless the entry is quoted
 *
 * @throws {TypeError} if the given CSV row is invalid
 *
 * @summary Parse a CSV row into an array of strings.
 */
export function parse(row: string): string[];

/**
 * Serialize the given array to a CSV row.
 */
export function stringify(columns: string[]): string;

/**
 * Normalize the given CSV line.
 */
export function normalize(row: string): string;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Truth be told, a microphone can never substitute good vocals as it is simply a tool that amplifies voice. It is for this reason important to know how to use one as this is a device that every singer will encounter every so often. Discussed in the article here are insights on how best to achieve this.
Using your full voice is key when using microphones as it helps keep the audience engaged in addition to establishing you as a speaker. You will agree that there are people that lose their natural voice due to the pressure that comes with making public presentations. It would be for your own good to experiment with volume, rhythm, and pitch to up the ante when it comes to optimally expressing yourself.
Varying the volume, rhythm, and pitch plays a big role in conveying emotions and meaning. Overlooking this will in most cases mean a boring voice that is not only monotonous but robotic as well. Keep in mind that microphones will never make a lackluster voice interesting – only painful to the ears.
Whenever you are on stage, the audience is always hawk-eyed on how well you bring out semantic cues and emotions laced in your voice. This is something that microphones cannot offer and your best bet to get this right is making use of vocal diversity. Everyone will be left craving for more as the tone of your message will be nothing short of topnotch.
You must have been born under a lucky star if you have a technician to take care of setting up of the sound system that keeps every aspect in check as you speak. You will be good to go under such circumstances as there will be someone to actively control sound to make it a good match for your audience and the size of the room. Even so, it would be good to hold rehearsal sessions as this would be an opportune time to perform sound testing.
On the flip side, if the technician varnishes in thin air after setting up, it would be prudent to perform sound checks on your own. Never give in to the temptation of skipping this as it could make you sound like a broken record. Even though using the microphone is something you can do with your hands tied, note that every presentation is unique in its own way. You will feel like the walls are caving-in if sound issues kept popping like popcorns, but a sound check will keep such issues at bay.
Testing whether the entire room is filled with sound is essential and realizing this is easy as a duck takes to water. Have someone act as the audience and he/she should move from corner to corner to evaluate quality of sound. It is however important to take volume a notch higher when the real audience shows up as this goes a long way in neutralizing any rustling and murmuring.
No need to bury your head in the sand if you have no access to a technician. Making the instruction manual your best friend will come in handy at such a time. Follow the steps precisely and everything will fall into place. Do not forget to perform the sound check lest all your efforts will end in futility.
This is something that might seem rather obvious, but you will be surprised at the number of people that fumble the moment they are handed the microphone. Overlooking this has been known to land people in hot soup after making private remarks that were supposed to be off the script. It is along the same lines that you would not want to start in high gear only to realize the microphone is off. Familiarize with the on, off, mute, and standby modes so that you get it right before and after speaking.
The lavaliere microphone is one that is clipped to your clothing meaning your mode of dressing is a big concern. You will have an easy time wearing a tie or something that has a lapel since clipping will not be an arduous task. A blouse or jacket will also fit the bill so long as it allows you to firmly fasten the lavaliere.
The lavaliere comes in two forms: wired and wireless. The latter has a transmitter pack that needs to be attached on to your waist area. Wearing a belt will come in handy as you will have somewhere to have the transmitter neatly placed.
The better part of lavalieres work optimally by placing them 8 – 10 inches, at the center, beneath the chin. In the event that you plan to use Power Point presentations, have the microphone fastened towards the direction of the slides as you will every so often face in that direction while speaking. Placing it so high will in most cases cause hot and cold spots every time you change head position.
Keeping buttons, jewelry, hair strands, and the likes far from reach is advised. Whenever such items rub or even hit your microphone, the sound gets amplified thus negatively affecting sound quality. Avoiding even the smallest rustle will go a long way in ensuring the message is delivered loud and clear.
Positioning yourself at an ideal distance when using microphones resting on lecterns or stands is essential. With different sound equipment, comes varying demands from the user and figuring out the best position that clearly brings out your voice will work to your advantage. The key objective is speaking across or over the mike, rather than into it. It is on the same note that you should avoid your face being blocked reason being this could interfere with making gestures. Make sure your movement is not hindered as well.
This is an aspect that many tend to overlook but breath and space are elements that are prerequisites to generating clear sound. The best way to achieve this is enabling your voice courtesy of a posture that is straight, aligned with both your spine and head.
Whenever a singer inclines towards a hunched or bent posture, sound reverberates around the throat yet it is supposed to find its way towards the listeners. Any twisting or bending of the neck will additionally cause a biomechanical disadvantage because air never gets to flow out slickly while speaking. An upright posture improves sound quality not to mention facilitating effective microphone use. Getting posture matters right means you will be talking across the mike and not into it – and this is what you want.


text:
Q: Add text color toggle to show/hide a jQuery function I have a working toggle function:
$(document).ready(function(){
   $(".hidecontrol").click(function(){
      $(".hide").toggle(300)
    });
});

I want to add a text colour change to a new class ".nohide" that also toggles. I have been trying
$(document).ready(function(){
  $(".hidecontrol").click(function(){
    $(".hide").toggle(300),
       $(".hidecontrol").css('color', 'red')
   });
 });

but this is 'permanent' after the first click, and doesn't toggle back. Is there a way to add a CSS color change to a .toggle() function?

A: $(".hidecontrol").toggleClass('redcolor')
your css
.redcolor {color:red}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Cole Clark Angel 2 Series Auditorium Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Redwood (E-STOCK)
Cole Clark Angel 2 Series Auditorium Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Redwood (E-STOCK). At Music Store Live we're all musicians like you, and we know how hard it can be to afford all the gear that you want and need.
We encourage you to make us an offer. Often times, you'll be pleasantly surprised! We'll do everything we can to help get that next piece of gear into your hands. Cole Clark Angel 2 Redwood Acoustic-Electric. Solid Australian Blackwood Back, and Sides.
Oak Fretboard w/Abalone Snowflake Inlays. Inlaid Wood Binding, Purfling, and Rosette. Graph Tech TUSQ Nut and Saddle.
(so you can choose if you want it on there or not). Instrument Weight: 3.9 lbs. Music Store Live is proud to offer up this Cole Clark Angel 2 acoustic guitar. Making some of the most innovative acoustic guitars with a focus on the electronics in the guitar, Cole Clark are the way to go for anybody that primarily plays their acoustic guitar plugged in. They sound stunningly beautiful through a PA or an acoustic amp.
The gist of their company is a simple one: Most acoustic-electric guitars have a preamp that is built around the guitar. At Cole Clark, they make guitars that are built around their preamp. So if you're the type of player that always performs with your guitar plugged in, then why not have a guitar that sounds it's best in that scenario, right? It's not that Cole Clark aren't interested in how their guitars sound acoustically. These guitars sound great unplugged.
They are loud and bright while retaining some nice warmth to them as well. The Australian Blackwood is quite snappy and it projects really well. The Redwood top helps to sweeten the sound up and warms things up a touch. It provides a bit of natural compression and makes for some great fingerstyle dynamics while also being able to handle hard strumming with ease. But building a guitar that sounds great acoustically has never been their end goal.
That's just the beginning. They want to build a guitar that sounds great coming through the PA system or the amplifier that you're likely to plug it into if you're performing on stage, in a studio, or just jamming with some other buddies. So the real magic of these guitars is not in the exotic tonewoods that they used, although they look and sound beautiful. The magic in the sound comes from the unbelievable preamp that they've built this instrument around that is unlike anything else out there on the market.
It's really 3 microphones or pickups combining to give you one cohesive sound that is extremely tweakable. The playability, fretwork, and general fit-and-finish construction of this guitar are really thoroughly impressive. The neck is slim and super comfortable to play.
It's a true, hand-made work of art, that feels effortless to play and will sound like a choir of angels coming out of your speakers. It's truly a guitar built by musicians for musicians.
There's good reason why some of their top endorsers are discerning players who are on the road and need to get a good amplified sound out of their acoustic guitar. Some names that'll likely ring a bell who rely on Cole Clark guitars are Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Johnny Marr, and The Mars Volta, to name a few. We're pretty sure you'll be as blown away by these as we were. We build our system into the guitar as it goes through production. A has subwoofers, speakers, and horns, each designed to hear a range of frequencies they are best equipped to handle and crossover points for frequencies best heard by the next component.
Cole Clark uses the same 3 component philosophy with a piezo system for the bottom end, a patented face sensor for the mid-range and a microphone for the top end. All Cole Clark pickups and preamps are proudly made in Melbourne, Australia.
Analogue 3-Way System Our most popular preamp, the analog 3-way is the'Cole Clark sound' heard the world over. The Piezo system utilizes individual piezo elements suspended under the bridge saddle which we believe is the best and most dynamic type of piezo system available. We know that the face/top is the most important component to the sound of an acoustic guitar, so it makes sense that we utilize that tone when amplifying the guitar. We do this with our unique face sensor which is specifically designed for the mid-range. We use a patented blend control which blends in the amount of face sensor required to go with the piezo sound or to completely replace the piezo in the mid-range.
This goes a long way in removing the'piezo quack', delivering a more natural tone. With a maximum crossover point of 350hz, the face sensor cannot hear any frequency in its feedback zone, instead, leaving those frequencies to the under saddle piezo. The third element is a condenser microphone for the top end. This microphone is set well above any feedback zone and is purely there to take the'ping' out of the piezo if there is some piezo blended through at full range. Music Store Live is proud to be an authorized dealer for Cole Clark. This Angel 2 Series Redwood AN2EC-RDBL is an exhibition stock guitar. It was on display at NAMM'19 and may have seen some play time throughout that weekend. All of our instruments are guaranteed to be fully functional upon arrival.
At Music Store Live, our goal is to revolutionize the way gear is bought online. Its not just about videos and know how; its about the person on the other end of the line. We're musicians just like you. We strive to offer the best gear with the best online experience, and the best personalized service in the industry.
The item "Cole Clark Angel 2 Series Auditorium Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Redwood (E-STOCK)" is in sale since Monday, February 11, 2019. This item is in the category "Musical Instruments & Gear\Guitars & Basses\Acoustic Electric Guitars". The seller is "musicstorelive" and is located in National City, California. This item can be shipped worldwide.
Brand: Cole Clark Guitars
MPN: AN2EC-RDBL-ESTK

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The purpose of the Workers' Compensation system is to fairly and efficiently provide injured workers with the compensation to which they are entitled. Sometimes that is difficult to do. Almost ten years after the 2005 statutory reforms to the Missouri Workers' Compensation Act we are still dealing with the fallout from changes in the statute's wording and philosophy. The Act went from being "liberally construed" to "strict construction." Since that time the courts have had to reinterpret what injuries are covered by the Act and what persons or entities are protected by the Act's exclusive remedy provision. We have new law on what constitutes a "prevailing factor" and very recent changes regarding the standard for when a terminated or demoted employee can bring a statutory action for retaliation against his or her employer. In this ever-changing landscape you need lawyers who know the law.
But getting a fast and fair determination in the Workers' Compensation system is not just based on a knowledge of the law, it is based on a knowledge of local practices and a working relationship with the Administrative Law Judges, Division staff and other attorneys who you must interact with on a daily basis. It is for this reason that we limit our geographical practice in Workers' Compensation to Eastern and Central Missouri where our attorneys practice every day. We know the law. We know the people. We do great legal work for our clients. If you insure employers for Workers' Compensation or if you are an employer who self-insures their work comp exposure and need a law firm that understands Missouri Workers'Compensation, then we are here to help. Contact Michael Margherio who leads our Workers' Compensation Team.


If you wish to spice up the look of your out of doors space, you may wish to think about putting in a rock garden. Not only are they slightly inexpensive to create, but they're additionally easy to arrange yourself. You could even use stones, or rocks which are already in your property. Examine the quality of your soil before planting your flower bed. Dig a gap and fill it with water to see how quickly it drains. Do a pH test. If needed, do some soil modification to achieve best drainage and good moisture to oxygen ratio. Give your crops the best possible chance to thrive by making ready the soil correctly.
Do you wish to make your yard extra private? It is best to consider using bamboo vegetation. Bamboo crops will grow a lot quicker than any tree or shrubs and can provide you with the privacy you want. Apart from, they're straightforward to take care of and will make your yard look more unique. During the Fall, remove debris out of your yard daily if doable. Removing a number of leaves once a day can really make the difference in the overall look of your yard, and it solely takes minutes to do. If you happen to wait to take away leaves until they're piled up, your yard will look unkept, and you'll create a much bigger job for yourself.
Someplace at the back of your mind, you understand that it's important to do extra to make your own home presentable. Even for those who think it is going to take a fortune to take action, this text has shown you that you are able to do it for a really affordable price and with just a few days, here and there. Plant companion vegetation in your garden. These vegetation naturally work collectively to help each other repel pests and illnesses. This may help you to have a healthier backyard without the use of pesticides. Yow will discover loads of data on companion crops through a fast Internet search.
Go beyond merely looking for your merchandise on-line and in catalogs.
Forgetting to do any landscaping on your private home is like forgetting to dress and put makeup on, within the morning before you leave the home. It just shouldn't be finished. Take the time and use the ideas from this text to be sure that your own home is looking its best possible. Now that you've learned extra about house landscaping, hopefully, it doesn't appear so sophisticated. You are able to do this and all that you must do is to simply get began with creating the yard of your dreams. When your neighbors ask who did your landscaping, you'll be able to proudly inform them that you simply did your self they usually would possibly even wish to hire you.
Lower your expenses when purchasing crops by making use of catalogs and mail order websites. It's cheaper to purchase the vegetation on-line than to buy at a nursery nearby. Additionally, this fashion of buying is far more handy, for the reason that items come straight to you. Don't forget to factor in the cost of transport when determining whether or not your purchase is an effective purchase.
Landscaping is among the things that gives an enduring first impression of your property. Some simple issues can make a big distinction, in both a very good or unhealthy manner. This text will provide you with concepts on how one can make the curb appeal on your property leap up a number of percentage points. Whenever you are designing your personal landscape, be sure and make use of stones and pebbles in your design. Ornamental stones and pebbles add a pleasant contrast to the greenery provided by your crops and may really improve the look of your complete landscape. Simply make certain to select stones that flatter your landscape.
Create a plan. Before you decide up a shovel, map the whole lot out on paper. Your plan can range in complexity from a fast sketch to a highly detailed proposal. Be sure you include the features in your garden that you need to maintain, after which make several copies of the plan. Use these copies to design a number of completely different options on your backyard, including varied sorts of beds and hard scape.
Take away any weeds, rake up any leaves, and add any needed fertilizer. It is comparatively inexpensive to select up several different sorts of plants, including impatiens, petunias and other annuals.


text:
Home / Poetry & Short Stories / Wade in the Water: Poems
Wade in the Water: Poems
The twenty-second Poet Laureate of the United States has four other poetry collections in print, all of which are worth reading, but it is Tracy K. Smith's most recent book, Wade in the Water that strikes at the heart of readers in a way that makes her a must-know voice in twenty-first century American poetry.
From the opening poem, "Garden of Eden", Smith's intentions are laid bare. Here the poem is an observation and meditation on a grocery store with the biblical name, but it is also a reminder of the myriad ways we leave the places that were once familiar to us. This duality is everywhere in Wade in the Water, and it is the sign of a truly gifted poet.
Split into four sections, each grouping of poems has a purpose and unifying tie. It is the second section that is most arresting. Written as a series of correspondences beginning with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, the other poems in this section are dated from 1849 to 1867. The ruminations on America before, during, and after the Civil War resonate powerfully with our divided nation today.
At once spiritual, temporal, and timeless, Wade in the Water is a masterful collection that should be read, studied, and shared by all who love poetry.
Reviewed By: Shannon Carriger
Tracy K. Smith
Be the first to review "Wade in the Water: Poems" Cancel reply
The Great Repression
The Essential Goethe


text:
We've all heard the staggering statistics about food waste. A new study says they're wrong.
Flickr/Nick Savchenko
How do you get to $165 billion? That depends on who you ask.
by Joe Fassler
Say you're a journalist, and you've been assigned a story about food waste. You're on a deadline, and you need some handy numbers to put a sprawling, overwhelming issue into context. Whether you're writing about the relationship between hunger and wasted food, the latest scrappy startups, freegans, or the trash generated by social media-induced body shame, odds are good that two factoids will find their way into your work: First, Americans waste about $165 billion worth of food each year. Second, 40 percent of all food in the United States goes uneaten.
Over the past five years, journalists have repeatedly, almost reflexively reached for both stats. They've become a kind of shorthand, a quick, easy way to achieve a sense of high stakes in stories about food waste. Here they are in a Reuters report. And in The Atlantic. In the Washington Post and the Huffington Post. Again in the Kansas City Star, and on CNBC, and repeated by a source on NPR's "Morning Edition."
In other words, these numbers—plugged into reporting by journalists all over the country, and recited by advocates like gospel—are likely to be the headline in any high-profile conversation on the topic of wasted food.
But how do we know they're true?
No one knows exactly what we mean when we use the term "food waste."
I don't mean to suggest these numbers are "fake news" (or as we call them, "lies")—the kind of demonstrably false reports that have spread on social media with alarming frequency. No one could deny that food waste is a major issue in this country. But these specific, hard-seeming numbers, so tantalizing to journalists (myself included): where do they actually come from? And do they hold up under scrutiny?
Maybe not. A new study by researchers from the University of Minnesota's Department of Applied Economics, and published in The American Journal of Agricultural Economics, argues that commonly cited food waste estimates are likely to be inaccurate, incomplete, overstated, or contradictory. The biggest issue the authors point out? No one knows exactly what we mean when we use the term "food waste." It turns out that definitions differ significantly from study to study, resulting in "wildly different estimates" and, ultimately, different policy conclusions.
Take, for example the two ubiquitous claims I've cited above. Who came up with those numbers—that 40 percent of food is wasted, amounting to $165 billion in squandered food? How were those conclusions reached, and were the methods sound?
Flickr/Christian Collins
Food that never makes it out of the farm gate can be classified differently than food that gets wasted at the grocery store
It probably started with a report published in 2012 by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), called "Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill." "Wasted" was widely circulated in the media, and did much to increase the public's sense of urgency around food waste. In some cases, the report was referred to as a "study," as if NRDC made the calculations itself. (See, for example, this CNBC piece.) But that wasn't the case. "Wasted" was a carefully footnoted report, but it relied on work of other researchers. And when you look more closely at the supporting evidence, some issues start to emerge.
For starters: the claim that we waste 40 percent of our food, and the idea that wasted food totals $165 billion in value, come from two separate studies with completely different methodologies.
The famous $165 billion stat seems to both underestimate and overestimate the financial cost of food.
The 40 percent figure came from a 2009 PLOS ONE study that calculated food waste by pitting a United Nations estimate of total number of calories available to Americans against the total number of calories Americans consume. I'm simplifying somewhat, but that's the basic idea. Generally speaking, the study figured the available calories that were not eaten for any reason amounted to waste. The $165 billion number, on the other hand, came from a 2012 study by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS)—and the eye-popping number included only food that went uneaten at the retail and consumer level. But food wasted on the farm or at the processing plant went uncounted, and no estimates were made about the amount of food that's wasted overall.
These findings aren't mutually exclusive, necessarily. And NRDC did nothing wrong to point them out in the same report. But after "Wasted" was published, these stats started to be repeated in the same breath by advocates and the media—as if both figures were somehow definitive, and as if they were found using the same method. That's an unfortunate simplification, and a misleading one, even if they were used in service of the important, urgent idea that we need to become radically conscious about what we throw out.
This is just one example of the kind of problem pointed out by in the new study: the major entities studying food waste aren't using the same methods or definitions, and one organization's "food waste" is not another's. These differences may have profound impact on both the way we view the problem and the efforts we take to address it.
They have a point: if a grocery store buys its tomatoes for a buck, but sells them for two, how do we tabulate the dollar amount of food wasted when one goes bad on the shelf?
To wit: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations defines "food waste" as any instance in which "safe and nutritious" food is discarded, or used for a non-food purpose, anywhere in the supply chain. ERS, meanwhile, is increasingly focused on "food loss," which for them means counts only as food that "goes unconsumed for any reason" after harvest. Food waste, though, they define as edible food that is thrown out after reaching retailers and/or consumers. Then, there's the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which measures only food from consumer, institutional (i.e. hospitals, stadiums, and schools) and retail sources that ends up in the landfill.
Clearly, there are major disagreements about even the most basic terms, and the differences are large enough to complicate the view of even a simple food waste quandary. Say I, for example, forget to eat some heads of romaine lettuce I have sitting in the fridge. If, in an effort to make up for my profligacy, I drop them off at the local farmers' market to be composted, FAO and ERS would call this "wasted" food since it didn't end up in a human stomach. But EPA wouldn't, since my veggies didn't end up in the landfill.
Say those same greens, instead, had been plowed under at the farm. (Let's pretend they weren't the right size or shape to be harvested, like so many so-called "ugly" veggies that never make it past the farm gate). In that case, FAO would count the passed-over romaine as food waste, while ERS wouldn't measure it (its work focuses only on post-harvest), and EPA wouldn't call it waste at all. There are further distinctions that make things even more complicated. According to the FAO and ERS, for instance, only "safe" and "edible" food can be wasted. That means carrot tops and tomato cores aren't counted towards their food waste totals. But should they be? And what about something like kiwi skins, which are perfectly edible, but which Americans tend to throw out?
"As long as food does not end up in a landfill, it is not wasted."
The study also points out major differences in the ways researchers calculate the cost of food waste. That omnipresent $165 billion figure? It was arrived at by assigning a value of $1.49 to the amount of food wasted per American per day, based on estimates from USDA's Food Availability Data System. But since the ERS study doesn't count food wasted by distributors, processing plants, and on the farm, its estimate of the amount of food wasted is probably low.
At the same time, it calculates the cost of wasted food by looking at only the retail price—which the authors of the new study say can inflate the estimate dramatically. They have a point: if a grocery store buys its tomatoes for a buck, but sells them for two, how do we tabulate the dollar amount of food wasted when one goes bad on the shelf? There's a case to be made that we should only include the amount the grocer paid, not the sticker price a shopper would theoretically pay but never did. Furthermore, by adding up the dollar value of all post-retail food that wasn't eaten, aren't we overlooking the financial benefits of diverting food from the landfill? If some of this food ended up as fertilizer on fields, or powering buildings through anaerobic digestion, should we really factor it in to the total?
Flickr/Tim Sheeman-Chase
By some definitions, a tomato that ends up in the compost (rather than the landfill) is not actually wasted
This leaves us in a strange position. The famous $165 billion stat seems to both underestimate and overestimate the financial cost of food, which supports the point the researchers are trying to make: our terms need to be more clearly defined. Which is why the study puts forward its own definitions, ones the authors hope will form the basis of a more straightforward set of standards.
Ultimately, the study concludes, the standard estimates about the amount and value of food squandered are probably greatly inflated.
"What we're trying to do is just be a bit more accurate about what 'food waste' means," says Marc Bellemare, one of the study's co-authors.
The new definition of "food waste" is, at least, attractive in its simplicity: "As long as food does not end up in a landfill, it is not wasted," Bellemare and his co-authors write. By this logic, food that escapes the landfill by being put to any use at all it would not count towards the overall tally of "wasted" food—anything used for animal feed, in consumer products, to power vehicles, to make compost, and so on.
That's not a perfect solution. Certainly, considering the huge amounts of oil and water, pesticides and fertilizer we use to grow food, some uses are more desirable than others. It's probably always better to see food end up in people's bellies than in the pig trough, anaerobic digester, or compost pile. But the authors argue that food repurposed in this way is too valuable to be called "waste."
"We came up with this idea that, look, if you take some of the food on your plate and give it to your dog, that is not food waste," Bellemare says. "There was a productive use for it. Is it the most productive use? We're not saying that it is. But it's not waste, per se. Waste is what goes to the landfill. It's a little heroic to call something that has a productive use waste, even if it's not your preferred productive use."
There's another benefit as well: this terminology reduces food waste by definition, reducing the logical complexity of measuring the vast problem. Counting what's headed to the landfill is much easier that measuring everything that goes uneaten.
The new definition also avoids another layer of complexity, namely determinations about which components of foods are "edible" or "safe." Both FAO and ERS methods mention these factors as determinations, though they don't lay out clear definitions for what qualifies. The Minnesota study makes such quibbling irrelevant. Beet tops and cabbage cores count as food waste, regardless of whether or not society thinks you can eat them. (Hint: you can.) Counting this way makes us more likely to factor in processing byproducts like carrot trimmings into our estimates—and celebrate the companies that are trying to make good use of them.
"We're trying to remove value judgements, for the most part," Bellemare says. "What's 'safe'? What's 'edible'? What's 'nutritious'? It's highly context-dependent. In a context of famine, you will eat a lot of fish-head soup if you can find it. In China, you will eat chicken feet without even thinking about it. In the U.S., you might eat chicken feet on a dare—as I once did—but otherwise not. The same thing goes with ideas about 'safety.' In many parts of the world, people will make vinaigrette with raw eggs—but in North America, we really don't see that very often."
The authors also make a suggestion about how to calculate the dollar value of wasted food: to use only the cost of food at each link in the supply chain. If it costs an orchard 10 cents to grow a pound of organic apples, and a dollar a pound for a distributor to buy them, those are the figures we should use—it doesn't matter if Whole Foods can get four bucks a pound for them later. Using a product's price before a markup is added, according to the authors, is a more accurate way of assessing its real value.
There's probably truth to that. As a product moves through the supply chain, it requires more resources—fuel for transportation, electricity for refrigeration. Food does get more costly as it travels from the farm, and we'd do well to reflect that increase in our research. But measuring all wasted food at the retail price artificially inflates our estimations of the problem.
Ultimately, the study concludes, the familiar stats about the amount and value of food squandered are probably too high. If true, that's a tough pill to swallow. For anyone who cares about this issue (and we all should), it's hard to hear. But the Minnesota study is a reminder that we need transparent methodologies, clearly defined terms, and a shared language with which to discuss the problem. Otherwise, we're not just talking about wasted food—we're wasting precious time.
Wastefood wasteresearch
Joe Fassler
Joe Fassler is The New Food Economy's features editor. His food safety and public health reporting has twice been a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism (2011 and 2018). Contact him on Twitter at @joefassler or by email at joe.fassler@newfoodeconomy.org.
WasteWaste
You can't compost your food waste and eat it too
Wasted food could feed a healthy diet to two-thirds of Americans
Farm WasteWaste
The food waste data gap starts in our fields


text:
2017 financial results
The Tatra banka Group ended 2017 with a consolidated profit of EUR 124.4 million. Loans to customers grew by more than 11 per cent and there was a decreasing percentage of non-performing loans. Deposits from customers also grew by almost 12 per cent.
"I am extremely pleased that we managed to grow in 2017 without exposing ourselves to higher risks. We recorded the highest sales of mortgage and consumer loans in 2017. Nevertheless, we are one of the banks with the lowest risk costs. We successfully acquired the Slovak portion of the portfolio of ZUNO bank and retained an overwhelming majority of its active clients. In cooperation with our parent, Raiffeisen Bank International, we implemented the securitization of a portion of our loan portfolio, a rare process in Slovakia. Despite extremely tough competition and decreasing interest income, we achieved profits of more than EUR 124 million," commented Michal Liday, the CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of Tatra banka.
"The high standard of Tatra banka services is confirmed by awards received from a number of renowned Slovak and international institutions. The British financial magazine, Euromoney, awarded Tatra banka the Best Bank in Slovakia title for the thirteenth time. Last year, Tatra banka also won the title of best bank from EMEA Finance magazine. Moreover, the magazines Global Finance and Euromoney also recognized our innovative approach by awarding us as the "Best Consumer Digital Bank in Central and Eastern Europe". Our website design was recognized as the best in Central and Eastern Europe. And these are just a few of a multitude of awards received last year by the bank and our colleagues," added the CEO of Tatra banka.
Key financial ratios
The consolidated after-tax profit of the Tatra banka Group decreased 1.3 per cent year-on-year, from EUR 126.0 million in 2016 to EUR 124.4 million in 2017. The lower profit was largely due to one-time income in 2016 related to the purchase of shares of Visa Europe Ltd. by Visa Inc. There was a slight decrease in interest income, while on the other hand fee and commission income grew in 2017. The growth in operating income and decrease in operating expenses led to improvement of the cost-income ratio to 56.3 per cent from last year's 60.3 per cent. In March 2017, Moody's international ratings agency increased Tatra banka's rating to A3 with a stable outlook.
Development of income and expenses
Net interest income continued to decrease in 2017 with a 1.1 per cent decrease to EUR 271.6 million. However, compared to 2016 the rate of decrease slowed due to faster growth in the volume of loans. The main reason was the fact that interest rates in EU countries fell to their lowest levels in 2016 and there was limited room for their further decrease.
Compared to 2016, the growth in the volume of loans accelerated in 2017 from 5.0 per cent to 11.4 per cent for three reasons. The first reason was accelerated growth in mortgage loans originated by Tatra banka despite the slowing growth of the whole market. The second reason was the recovery of corporate loans in 2017, which started to grow following a long period of previous stagnation. The third reason was the purchase of the Slovak portion of ZUNO bank's portfolio. On the other hand, in 2017 the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) started to tighten the options for providing mortgage and consumer loans. While mortgage loans had become subject to stricter rules since 2017, this will be the case for consumer loans in 2018. This is why the bank expects a slower rate of growth on the market of loans to individuals in 2018.
Net fee and commission income increased 4.8 per cent year-on-year to EUR 125.2 million. The fee income grew largely due to an increase in the number of clients' accounts and growth in card services. This subsequently translated into higher income from transaction processing. Net trading income rose by 19.3 per cent to EUR 27.2 million.
General administrative expenses decreased by 2.7 per cent to EUR 242.4 million largely due to lower depreciation and lower operating costs.
Development of assets
The consolidated assets of the Tatra banka Group increased 9.9 per cent to EUR 12.50 billion. Loans to customers grew 11.4 per cent to a total of EUR 9.53 billion and were a significant contributor to this growth. The share of non-performing loans in the total portfolio decreased from 3.5 per cent to 2.9 per cent, which is considerably better than the figures for the rest of the banking sector and confirms the very good quality of the bank's loan portfolio. The growth in loans to customers was mainly due to housing loans. The volume of government securities decreased while the volume of funds deposited with the central bank also decreased.
Development of liabilities and equity
Deposits from customers increased to EUR 10.04 billion. The growth was recorded particularly in current accounts in all client segments and to the contrary, term deposits decreased. The consolidated ratio of loans to deposits was 94.9 per cent as of December 31, 2017. As of December 31, 2017, the consolidated capital adequacy ratio was 17.74 per cent, which is substantially more than required by the National Bank of Slovakia and the European Central Bank.
Zuzana Žiaranová, Spokesperson
zuzana_ziaranova@tatrabanka.sk
Inovatívne bankovníctvo
Ekonomické analýzy
Nákupy a bývanie
Mesačník: December 2012
https://www.tatrabanka.sk/en/about-bank/press-releases/2017-financial-results/


All kinds of insurance are available to consumers and whether its car-, life- or home insurance, it will protect consumers when things such as loss or damage occur. Here we will have a look at one of South Africa's largest financial service providers in this Metropolitan review.
When you're looking to invest in insurance, you've got lots of choices, and it will pay to do research and to compare the different insurance providers. You'll find that Metropolitan Holdings is one of these that are worth having a look at.
Metropolitan is one of South Africa's largest financial services companies.
They essentially serve the lower- and middle-income market in Southern Africa.
One of the most recent South African Customer Satisfaction Index's for life insurance tells us that customers are the most satisfied with Metropolitan's offerings.
With more than a century in the market, Metropolitan believes in empowering their customers to confidently shape their financial future.
They offer a range of insurance and investment products. They provide asset management services, managed healthcare and medical scheme administration.
Metropolitan and Momentum merged to become known as MMI Holdings. This combination has strengthened the company's position as one of the leading cost-driven insurance providers in the market and further developed the brand in terms of confidence.
You'll have enough cover to keep your family financially secure. Life cover takes care of accidental- and natural death. If you pay all of your premiums, after 5 years you can get 10% of your premiums back with the CashBack benefit. This is cover that will pay out lump sums to those people left behind after your death. Through these life products, you can be sure your loved ones will lead a decent life once you're gone.
For less than R40 a month you can look at the Metropolitan Funeral Plan and accompanying benefits. You can get some interesting benefits that complement the basic funeral insurance. You can cover up to 20 family members and also get cover from R5 000 to R50 000.
Under the Metropolitan Life Cover umbrella, there are many life cover products for you to compare before you buy.
Imagine if your ability to earn were removed from you because of a critical illness. How terrible if your family was left destitute. Metropolitan offers tailor-made solutions that will help you benefit from financial security if you unable to work. Cover starts from R150 000 and there is a limit of up to R5 000 000 for occupational disability and R1 500 000 for critical illness.
A hospital stay can bring about huge financial strain. Save yourself the stress of a stint in hospital with Metropolitan's HealthCare CashBack solution. With this CashBack cover, you can get a daily cash benefit amount of up to R3000 every day.
We're living in troublesome times where nobody knows what tomorrow might bring. Certainly, nothing is constant and our health, our jobs, and our possessions can all undergo changes in the twinkling of an eye.
One day you're riding the wave of happiness and success and the next there are dark clouds on the horizon that threaten to turn your world upside down. Everything is risk-prone, but with insurance from Metropolitan, you can at least drastically minimize the risk.


Growing Up in New Zealand has warmly welcomed today's announcement from the Minister for Social Development, the Honourable Carmel Sepuloni, that it will restore funding of more than $1.9 million to the child development study.
Growing Up in New Zealand Research Director, Associate Professor Susan Morton, says the new funding will make it possible to invite every participant family and child to take part in the study's current Eight Year Data Collection Wave.
Last year the study's funding was reduced, creating uncertainty about the number of children and families Growing Up in New Zealand could interview for the current Eight Year Data Collection Wave.
More than 6,800 families make up the study cohort and their ethnic diversity makes the study internationally unique.
Dr Morton says the cohort is broadly generalisable to the New Zealand child population and the announcement has come at a milestone stage of the study.
Last month marked ten years since the study's inception. Over that time, New Zealand's contemporary longitudinal study has conducted more than 90,000 interviews and collected more than 50 million pieces of data, helping inform government policy to give children the best start in life.
Growing Up in New Zealand has provided information across areas as diverse as paid parental leave, immunisation, poverty and material hardship, family housing and mobility, household safety, bullying, participation in Early Childhood Education, and pre- and post-natal depression among fathers.
As well as forging ahead with the Eight Year Data Collection Wave across the full cohort, Growing Up in New Zealand will work with the Ministry of Social Development to make the study's data more accessible and useable to a wider range of researchers. This will help realise its full value and support policy to improve the lives of New Zealand children and families now and into the future.
The study's Eight Year Data Collection Wave started in July last year and, to date, around 2000 children have participated. With the newly available funding, interviews will now continue with the remaining cohort children until the end of 2018.
Growing Up in New Zealand's newest report will be released mid-year, and findings from the Eight Year Data Collection Wave are due to be released around the end of 2019.
The ultimate intention of the study is to follow the cohort until the age of 21.
What is Growing Up in New Zealand?
Growing Up in New Zealand is a contemporary longitudinal study of child development. It has been specifically designed to reflect the diverse lives of children growing up amidst the cultural, economic, societal and technological complexity of 21st century New Zealand.
The study is following a cohort of more than 6,800 children from approximately 12 weeks before birth until at least the age of 21. The study is particularly interested in finding out what works to confer resilience and optimise child development.
Growing Up in New Zealand is headed up by Research Director Associate Professor Susan Morton and Associate Director Professor Cameron Grant.
Who is the Growing Up in New Zealand generation?
The children who comprise the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort were born in 2009 and 2010 (with a 'Leading Lights' group born in 2008) and were recruited from within the greater Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waikato District Health Board areas. Children and families generously give their time to the study for free, with face-to-face data collection waves taking place every two to three years.
What is a data collection wave?
A data collection wave involves gathering information from the participant children and families. Growing Up parents were first interviewed before their children were born.
Societal context and neighbourhood environment.
What has the study found out so far?
Information from Growing Up in New Zealand has provided insights into a diverse range of areas such as paid parental leave, immunisation, poverty and material hardship, family housing and mobility, household safety, bullying, participation in Early Childhood Education, and pre- and post-natal depression among fathers.
Growing Up in New Zealand reports, policy briefs and scientific papers are available to view on the website.


"We didn't lose sight of the ones who had missed their chance at a better life, or maybe even lost their way and landed in jail. In Florida, we didn't want to fill prisons with non-violent offenders. So we expanded drug courts and prevention programs. I took the view—as I would as president—that real justice in America has got to include restorative justice."
The Context: Speaking before the National Urban League, Bush focused most of his remarks to issues seen as particularly urban in nature including anti-poverty programs, drug offenses and use, and opportunities for minorities—centering his remarks around policies implemented in Florida during his governorship. Many of them converge in this statement on rethinking how drug-related offenses are prosecuted and considered within the criminal justice system.
What proportion of arrests are related to drug abuse? And, of those, what percentage involve arresting minors?


Researchers and PhD students discussed what encourages citizens to volunteer taking part in scientific research.
The project is coordinated by the Berlin Museum fur Naturkunde's Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science Research Director Dr. Katrin Vohland. Lithuania is represented in the management committee by MRU's Dr. Loreta Tauginienė and KTU's Dr. Eglė Butkevičienė.


Please see the below a selection of our current Bar vacancies.
Chambers are seeking practitioners for their Family and Civil teams.
Chambers are seeking practitioners for their Family team.
Chambers are seeking practitioners for their Crime and Immigration teams.
Chambers are seeking practitioners for their Crime and Civil teams.
Chambers are seeking Practitioners of any call for their Family Team.
Chambers are seeking applications for at least two Senior Criminal practitioners to help maintain the high level of service provided to its clients.
Chambers are seeking applications for General Civil and Insurance counsel across the UK.
Chambers are seeking practitioners to join their Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence teams.
Civil Juniors required: 5 years plus.
PI Juniors to join their expanding team: 5 years plus.
Expanding team requires Juniors of all levels.
Juniors required to join their busy care team.
All levels required to cover the existing work load.
Established practitioners to cover growing workload.
A number of opportunities exist on the western circuit for those wishing to relocate or expand their practice.