Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/244624
41 Events maltatoday, Sunday, 19 January 2014 GasanMamo employees extend their hand to Piccola Casa di San Giuseppe A group of GasanMamo employees spent a day with the Ursuline Sisters at Piccola Casa di San Giuseppe in Valletta, helping out the children with the general maintenance of the house. The Ursuline sisters care for boys and girls who come from difficult social backgrounds. The home was renovated to offer the children a better living environment. GasanMamo employees were touched by the Sisters' efforts to make the home into a suitable home environment that gives children a sense of community and love. "This was such a rewarding experience that we all want to give more of our time to help make this home a suitable one not just for the children but also for the Sisters," said one of GasanMamo's employees. "The love the Ursuline Sisters give and the work they do to ensure a safe place for the children is exceptional." Sister Valerie Farrugia, Mother Superior at Piccola Casa di San Giuseppe thanked GasanMamo for all their hard work. "We really enjoyed having everyone here amongst us and fully appreciate the interest and great willingness to help us." For more information log on to www.gasanmamo.com The New Hyundai i10 already showered with awards The Hyundai i10 might be a small city car but right from the very start, it has all the ingredients of an award-winning model. And the new generation i10 which rolled off the production lines a few months ago, is fully living up to this reputation. After scooping the 'Best City Car' category during CarBuyer's recent awards, the new generation Hyundai i10 was also named 'Car of the Year 2014'. CarBuyer, a leading car review website, awarded the overall title after the judges praised the i10 for its quality, refinement, style and value. The latest accolade garnered by Hyundai's smallest car was Top Gear's 'Bargain of the Year' award, a coveted prize awarded to the new, more grown-up Hyundai i10 thanks to its "ability to provide customers with small-car buying and running costs without any of the associated compromises to refinement, comfort and build quality". Piers Ward, road test editor at BBC Top Gear magazine said this of the new generation Hyundai i10: "Customers might want luxuries and gadgets, but they expect refinement. The i10 absolutely delivers on the value-for-money premise. It is definitely not a car with the build quality of a biscuit tin. The fit and finish is excellent, it looks great and is comfortable and spacious – for these reasons it stood out as a worthy winner." The new Hyundai i10 is now in Malta and available for viewing at the Hyundai showroom in Valley Road B'Kara. "The 2014 Hyundai i10 is a brilliant car, offering a real grownup feel and plenty of space at an amazing introductory price of €10,500 instead of its set price of €12,000. It is fun to drive and the perfect embodiment of 'modern Dar Qalb Ta' Gesu receives sizeable donation from Lions Club Judith Debono, administrator of Dar Qalb Ta' Gesu (centre), received a cheque of €2,500 from a dinner organised jointly by Lions Club Malta Host and Lions Club Mdina. premium', Hyundai's vision. It is the perfect car for those who want only the best contender in the Segment A ," Francesca Mamo, Managing Director of Meridien Enterprises, importers and distributors of Hyundai in Malta, said. "The 2014 Hyundai i10 is the perfect example of Hyundai's product regionalization strategy where it is constantly seeking to build the right cars for the right regions. The fact that this new model has also just won the 2014 Car of the Year Award in India also goes to show the universal relevance and market approval that this model is gaining at a very impressive pace." "The success that we are expecting for this model in Malta comes from the knowledge that buyers of this new generation Hyundai i10 are being offered the highest levels of comfort and safety equipment, with many features more common to higher segment models. In fact, the Classic version of the new Hyundai i10 comes with standard features such as A/C, power steering, front electric windows, the latest technology in braking system such as Vehicle Stability Management and all round six airbags. Other extras include heated leather steering wheel, smart card with Button Start and cruise control with speed limiter provide bigger-car comfort," concluded Mamo. The sporty and young character of the Hyundai i10 is set to attract young buyers thanks to another feature which offers young buyers the option to choose a colour interior based on either orange or blue. Also in photo, left to right: Lions Secretary Rita Sultana, Lion President Mary Anne Abela, administrator Dar Qalb Ta' Gesu, Lion Secretary Daniel Borg Cardona, Lion Vice President Martin Cheatle. Household finance and consumption survey The Central Bank of Malta will be conducting a second survey on the finance and consumption patterns of households (Household Finance and Consumption Survey – HFCS) between January and May 2014 as part of a Eurosystem project aimed at collecting detailed and harmonised statistical information from households throughout the euro area. The data gathered from a sample of selected households in Malta, as part of the project, will provide important insights into the financial characteristics of Maltese households, such as their consumption and saving patterns. The Bank has commissioned a private company, Economic and Management Consultancy Serv- ices Ltd (EMCS), to carry out this survey. Representatives from that company will shortly be contacting a number of households inviting them to participate in the survey. The Bank strongly encourages households to participate in this project. All data provided to the company will be treated with strict confidence and will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act (Cap. 440). More information is available from the Central Bank of Malta website www.centralbankmalta.org or by calling on 2550 4305/9/2/3, Mondays to Fridays between 08:00 and 16:00 Local researchers build a mind-controlled music player Imagine controlling a music player just by looking at your laptop. Engineers from the Department of Systems and Control Engineering and the Centre for Biomedical Cybernetics at the University of Malta led by Prof. Kenneth Camilleri are doing just that. They have created a brain-controlled music player after having studied the best way to obtain the desired brain response, work which was presented at the 6th International IEEE/EMBS Neural Engineering Conference in San Diego, California by team member Dr Owen Falzon. The researchers developed the system to improve the life of individuals with severely limited motor abilities. Just looking at flickering boxes on a screen controls the music player, no actions are needed. This brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could be the basis of emerging user interfaces for smartphones and tablets, as recently seen in worldwide media attention given to Samsung's development of similar systems. The system works by reading the brain activity of a user. The brain works by sending electrical signals; these are picked up by electrodes placed at specific positions on the scalp through a process known as electroencephalography (EEG). These EEG recordings are then used to convert patterns of electrical brain activity into computer commands. The commands control the music player without the need of any physical movement; the user just needs to look at the right box. The program figures out where the user is looking through his or her brain patterns, allowing the music player to be controlled. The system developed by Rosanne Zerafa (supervised by Dr Tracey Camilleri) reads a unique brain pattern called steady state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs). This pattern occurs when a person looks at a light which is flickering at a certain frequency resulting in their brain synchronising at the same rate. The electrodes can pick up this pattern. By having boxes flashing at different frequencies, corresponding to a play button, up/down button or increase/decrease in volume, the system can tell if a user wants to start a new song, move on to the next one or pump up the volume. The user just needs to focus their attention on a flashing box. The music player is based on typical smart phone app designs. The design is coupled to flashing boxes to trigger the brain's SSVEPs and control the app. The performance of the music player was tested on users at the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (University of Malta). Participants could reliably control the music player after it was calibrated to their brain patterns. The system developed is based around a music player application. The same concept can be extended to various other applications such as for environmental control or assistive living and further research is currently being undertaken with these other applications in mind. These BCI devices are being developed for people with severe movement difficulties, like sufferers of cerebral palsy or motor neuron disease. As they become more commonplace they could revolutionise how human beings interact with the world around them.