SUMMER 2012 • ISSUE 2
I D E A S
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M A LTA
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R E S E A RC H
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P E O P L E
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U N I V E R S I TY
21ST CENTURY WOMEN
Juggling research and motherhood
THE TANGLED BRAIN
Treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
RESEARCHERS MEET ART
UNDERWATER ROBOTS
Exploring a 4,000 year old temple
Transforming Valletta this September
LOOKING UP TO THE SKIES The largest telescope ever built
DIGITAL EDITION
THINKIDEA SMALTARE ARESEARC HPEOPLEU EUNIVERSI THINKIDEA MALTARE RESEARCH HPEOPLEUN Cover photo
Artist’s impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO’s very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed.
ASMALTA ESEARCHP CHPEOPLEU UNIVERI ITY ASMALTAR ESEARCHP HPEOPLEU NIVERCOVER STORIES
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A balancing act Motherhood and research: how to make them work?
Research matters reborn!
n the December 2011 issue of Research Matters, did I promise you that the University will continue to blow its trumpets? Well here we are again albeit piping a new tune. After only one issue, Research Matters has rebranded and is now Think! This rebirth heralded by our resident editor has created more space for a broad spectrum of articles illustrating what it is that we get up to on campus, but, this time the articles do not only feature one research project after another; they open a window on the experiences and challenges of our researchers, students, alumni, and professors. You will find, moreover, some short features covering interesting challenges, discoveries, and phenomena taking place around us. In short, Think is now more fun, human, and hopefully more appealing than ever. So take a journey from cocaine addiction, to how MEMS devices are deployed in microsystems that we use on a daily basis; from the impact of chatting on spelling, from dancing with the economy to the tune of market bulls and bears; from capturing the wind for energy generation, to the experience of a researcher juggling studies, work, and kids; from our participation in the creation of the largest telescope ever built, to our work on moving objects with our thoughts; from research on new compounds in the Mediterranean diet that can combat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, to the creation of routine monitoring techniques to continuously test computer systems to ensure that they work when needed and as intended. Just flick through the pages and read all about it, and more! I hope you find this issue interesting and if you wish to contribute to the growing research activity at the University of Malta, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are always pleased to explore how we can collaborate to expand our horizons.
Juanito Camilleri RECTOR
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Looking up to the skies
How Malta is taking part in the continent spanning telescope: the Square Kilometre Array
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Targeting the tangled brain
Dr Neville Vassallo is finding novel treatments for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease
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Maps, Bots and a Neolithic site American and Maltese scientists use underwater robots to explore Tas-Silġ — a 4,000 year old site
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Researchers meet art this September
How Valletta will be transformed with a science and art festival 3
CONTENTS OPINION
Attention, research ahead! 13
Dr Ernest Cachia imagines a world without technology
FEATURE
Trusting the machine
One surprise after another
Computers are everywhere and so are hackers, so how can we build safer systems?
T
he University of Malta is full of stories. Within these pages be prepared to discover a handpicked selection of our best and brightest researchers. I have sat down with people whose eyes lit up when recalling being lowered into a 13-metre hole (pg. 40) and others full of passion while sharing their big idea (pg. 34). With Think, we are building on the solid foundation of the first issue called Research Matters to bring our readers more access, more insight, and more engagement with the University of Malta — blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts are in the pipeline. Apart from in-depth articles, we’ve sneaked in a fun section with reviews about Super Mario 3D and Elephants on Acid, fact or fiction questions, and a 100-word idea to change Malta (pg. 54–55). Please contact us to share your thoughts. We hope this magazine will inspire more stories from University. If you’re a University of Malta student, alumnus, or staff, come talk to us about your work — there are many ways to contribute. For the next issue, we have a few surprises, a hint: laughter is the best medicine.
Dr Edward Duca
EDITOR
edward.duca@um.edu.mt Twitter: @DwardD
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CULTURE
Visible, virtual, visceral Imagine culture, imagine Valletta 48 in 2018
ALUMNI
Alumni talk
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Four stories from four graduates: punk, gender, stars, and cells
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CULTURE GENES
Meme
From Darwin to cats, some jokes and cartoons trending on the internet
CONTENTS
6
STUDENTS
Students' thinking About: cocaine, smartphones, offshore wind power, online chatting, economic turmoil, and even keeping an eye on government
FEATURE
Moving objects with your thoughts 21
Never lift a finger again; brain patterns can be interpreted by computer programmes to move curtains, wheelchairs and more
THEORY 34
Why did humans develop a large brain? Dr Yves Muscat Baron shares his theory, a hint: gravity
THINK I D E A S
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M A LTA
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R E S E A RC H
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P E O P L E
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U N I V E R S I TY
SUMMER 2012 - ISSUE 2
EDITORIAL
Dr Edward Duca EDITOR
PRODUCTION
Jean Claude Vancell
Supporting University research... it pays Making research matter through the RIDT
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PRINTING
THINK is a quarterly research magazine published by the University of Malta.
RESEARCH
Gutenberg Press, Malta ISBN: 978-99957-0-277-9 Copyright © University of Malta, 2012 The right of the University of Malta to be identified as Publisher of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Act, 2001. University of Malta, Msida, Malta Tel: (356) 2340 2340 Fax: (356) 2340 2342 www.um.edu.mt All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of research and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
TRIBUTE
Peter Serracino Inglott
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this magazine are correct and active at the time of going to press. However the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Ranier Fsadni gives us a fresh perspective 56
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent issues.
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STUDENT
students’ THINKing
From why prices are remaining stable to how drugs affect the brain, students at the University of Malta have been finding answers to local and international problems. Here is a selection of the best and brightest.
Better, cheaper smartphones MICRO-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are about the width of a human hair. They can tell a smartphone which way is ‘up’, enable inkjet printers to eject ink precisely, and are even found in high definition displays. These chips have sensors that detect a physical quantity such as temperature or direction, which is then converted into an electrical signal. The signal can be passed on to a customised computer chip designed for a specific use, called an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). A MEMS device operating through an ASIC is called a microsystem, commonly found on handheld devices. Students at the University of Malta are currently researching ways to crucially improve these devices. Over the past years, research into MEMS has developed sensors for temperature, pressure, inertial forces, chemical properties, magnetic fields, radiation, and more. These tiny microsensors outperformed their larger counterparts at a lower price. Recently, they were adapted for gas and liquid flow control, optical switches, and mirrors found in video projectors. Locally, the Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics is collaborating with STMicroelectronics, which is funding postgraduate studies in both MEMS and ASIC design. They are investigating accelerometers that, for example, enable a smart-
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Ansel Briffa, Jean Marie Darmanin and Kristian Grixti using a probing station to test novel microsystems to improve smart devices. Inset: A 3D model of a 2-axis accelerometer, found in smartphones.
phone or a gaming console to know how the device is being held. The Department is using the latest manufacturing techniques to test its research innovations. Accelerometers have two main functions: sensing direction using an MEMS chip, followed by processing the information using an ASIC. Both chips are placed on a single package. The research focuses on reducing power consumption and cost, which will enable smartphones to perform better at a lower price. “Training in this field will hopefully entice industry to develop research and design teams focused on this rapidly expanding
field,” says Dr Ivan Grech, senior lecturer at the Faculty of ICT. The development of microsystems is an attractive and exciting area of study, which provides new and innovative ways to use smart devices for everyday applications.
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Research in this area was carried out by Ansel Briffa, Jean Marie Darmanin and Kristian Grixti, as part of their Master of Science in Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics at the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology. They were supervised by Dr Ing. Edward Gatt, Dr Ivan Grech, Dr Ing. Owen Casha and Prof. Ing. Joseph Micallef.
THINK STUDENT
Cocaine leads to information overload COCAINE CAN HIJACK the brain. Once taken, recovery for a user is a long and difficult road, with life threatening risks and ruined social interactions hindering their ability to stop taking the drug. Research from the University of Malta has now revealed a possible explanation for cocaine relapse. Around the world, 21 million people take cocaine. Unfortunately, even one-time or occasional users can become addicts. This makes recovery a lengthy lifelong process with numerous challenges. Regardless of how tough a user is or how hard they try, relapsing after detoxification or rehabilitation always remains a sombre possibility. To discover why cocaine addicts are prone to relapse, Roderick Spiteri
(supervised by Prof. Richard Muscat) compared 19 cocaine users to 19 average individuals. Using methods developed in Bordeaux, both groups were tested on their ability to filter out useful information from a torrent of noise. For people to function they need to extract information by blocking irrelevant clatter. This prevents sensory and cognitive overload. When an individual attempts to deal with too much information it leads to errors and poor choices. The research shows how cocaine users lose their ability to block irrelevant information that leads to cognitive overload. This is like a virus causing a computer system to crash, leaving only one
choice: restart. Sadly, the same cannot be done for a cocaine addict. Cognitive overload leads to an inability to choose, usually leading to bad decisions. Integrating this new knowledge to psychological treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy might help addicts on the long road of recovery and social integration. If everyday situations are likely to overwhelm a cocaine user’s brain, they may need more frequent breaks between tasks in order to cope.
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This research was performed as part of a Masters in Biomedical Science from the Faculty of Medicine & Surgery.
Banking sectors that bounce back IN 2007, THE BANKING sector collapsed. Today, several banks are still struggling to stand on their own two feet. To help shore them up against recurrent catastrophic collapse, the world’s top Group of Twenty economies has proposed a new set of regulations called the Basel III regulatory framework. Local analysis of this framework hints that while beneficial, it would not prevent another bust. Governments needed to bail out banks in 2007 because banks could not pay back their loans. Banks must make sure that they maintain a ratio of capital (some form of money ranging from property to shares) to the amount of money they lend, called capital ratio. The minimum currently stands at 4% (Tier 1), meaning that banks only need
to hold less than one in twenty of the money they are lending, which does not leave much of a ‘cushion’ if things go wrong. A bank’s liquidity can quickly dry up damaging other banks. The Basel III framework introduces a new set of standards that amongst other things raises the minimum Tier 1 capital ratio to 6%. Marica Bonavia (under the supervision of Mr Michel Said) assessed the impact of the new framework on the American and European banking systems. Her work reveals how the largest American banks already conform. On the other hand, the position of European banks ranges from German banks that are raising new capital, to Swiss and British regulators who want higher capital ratios.
The dissertation suggests that the real impact of Basel III still needs to be seen and although the new regulations are a big step forward, further efforts are needed.
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This research was performed as part of a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy.
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STUDENT
On Bulls and Bears HEDGE FUNDS ARE pooled money that has few investment restrictions. The money usually comes from pension schemes or university endowments and their flexibility allows good hedge fund managers consistently net high returns. Hedge funds always beat the market, or so states economic theory. Simon Psaila (supervised by Mr Joseph Portelli) analysed markets from the 1990s up to the recent financial crisis finding a much more complicated scenario than is generally perceived. The 1990s were a bull market, so called for having a consistently upward trend. In this confident atmosphere, it was found that hedge fund managers did not outperform other market indices, such as the Standard & Poor 500 — an index of 500 stocks of companies in the USA. The same was evident for the bull market of the mid 2000s. Only when the markets dipped into a bear market (downward trend) in the early 2000s did hedge funds perform better than other strategies. The reverse occurred during the recent recession starting in 2007, which proved problematic for hedge funds and many investors pulled out of the industry. Taken as a whole, this analysis shows that hedge funds do not consistently perform better than other strategies and depend on the market environment.
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This study was performed as part of a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) at the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy.
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Online chatting and spelling ability: myth, speculation and reality THE GUTENBURG printing press revolutionised the world in 1455. It brought the written word to the masses, though in its day critics thought it would corrupt language. Today, text and instant messages are the new technologies that critics are accusing of degrading writing. Research from Coventry University shows that online chatting can improve spelling, questioning the popular mythology spread by the media. Building on this foundation, Lara Vella (supervised by Professor Sandro Caruana) studied online chatting extracts by Maltese secondary school students. She found some evidence which shows that students who chatted online for several hours had a lower spelling ability. To measure chatting behaviour, she distributed a questionnaire to 205 Maltese secondary school students (95 males and 110 females, who were about 14 years and 5 months old). These students were assessed on their spelling by two different tests and an analysis on extracts of online conversations. In Malta,
it seems that chatting might be linked to a lower spelling score in both Maltese and English. Chatting and instant messaging is normally assumed to be dotted with spelling errors and abbreviated words, like: u, lol, abt, c, msg, tks, rofl and others. Her study showed that only 16.21% of the words used included such alternative spelling. Stereotypical beliefs did not hold true and were clearly outweighed by normal spelling. Taken together, the study clearly shows that the relationship between spelling and online chatting is not clear-cut. Vella cautions that other factors affecting spelling need consideration. Speculation about the effect of online chatting needs to be replaced by research aimed at separating fact from fiction. Research will allow strategies to be developed that help improve literacy for Maltese students in the online world.
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This research was performed as part of a Masters in Education at the Faculty of Education.
THINK STUDENT
Government to the rescue THE ECONOMIES of small states are vulnerable. Their size and open nature leaves them exposed to economic shocks. William Gatt (supervised by Dr Gordon Cordina) from the University of Malta and Central Bank of Malta modeled an economy to study the effects of government policies in limiting economic turmoil. The researcher used a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model of a small, open economy to simulate an economy similar to Malta. The model could study an economy over time, determine its reaction to random shocks, and the effect of changes in policy. Mr Gatt compared a government policy which directly shored up ‘at risk’ households to another policy with which government boosted economic activity by directly buying goods from the market. Direct transfers to households accelerated a faster economic recovery after drops in foreign demand. Further studies showed that government intervention is more beneficial when more ‘at risk’ households exist. The downside to this policy is a requirement of a large eco-
Imports Private Savings/Debt
Households Optimising | Rule-of-Thumb
Labour
Transfers
Wages
(including Central Bank)
Private Consumption
Firms
Public Consumption
Public Savings/Debt
Government
Exports
Domestic economy
‘Rest of the world’
nomic surplus. Government would need to save when the economy is strong to buffer in times of distress. In this light, the role of government is as a saver, meaning that it should ensure precautionary savings adjusting policy targets for a budget surplus.
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Europe, inflation, interest rates, and a financial crisis THE WORLD IS currently going through the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. To reverse the economic crunch, central banks lowered the rate of interest to reverse the slowdown in credit availability, a popular economic policy. Such approaches are based on solid economic theories. However, the unique crisis could have really changed how economies react. Stephen Piccinino (supervised by Professor Josef Bonnici) analysed the relationship between inflation and interest rates in the euro area between 1999 and 2011. The
Rest of Union
Income Tax
economic theory called the Fisher effect defines this relationship, and assumes that if a central bank injects money too quickly into an economy it would simply raise the rate of inflation. From January 1999 to August 2008, the Fisher effect held true and the rate of inflation increased with the rate of interest in a one-to-one fashion. While between September 2008 and March 2011, this relationship fell apart due to intervention by the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB lent retail banks large sums of money at favourable rates. It also removed limits on how much
This research was undertaken as part of a Master of Arts in Economics from the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy. Opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Central Bank of Malta.
banks could borrow and reduced interest rates. These changes influenced the relationship between interest rates and inflation. During this period, inflation rose faster than interest rates, which meant that money held in bank accounts had a lower return than in previous years. These findings mirrored the Federal Reserve’s policy interventions in the US between 1979 and 1982.
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This research was undertaken as part of a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in Economics.
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STUDENT
Price persistence in Malta PRICES REFLECT economic information. However, some prices reveal more about the health of an economy than others. The most indicative prices are those for goods that do not fluctuate greatly, which exclude fresh food, energy, and a few others. Changes to prices of stable, core goods (insurance policies, some services, and others) should ring alarm bells with policymakers who need to consider them when setting targets for inflation. For an in-depth analysis of the local situation, Reuben Ellul (supervised by Dr Gordon Cordina) estimated core inflation using an unconventional approach, called a trimmed mean index, which allowed the pinpointing of pressures within the Maltese economy. Local inflation is susceptible to international price changes, especially for energy and food. From 1999 to 2010, (particularly
between 2005 and 2010) Maltese inflation rates fluctuated more than in euro area countries. The Maltese economy responds poorly to sudden price changes and shocks appear to last longer. On the other hand, the prices of certain locally provided services tend to be more stable. These sectors might be unable to negotiate new prices quickly, or reflect conditions in an unliberalised market. The author suggests that, taken together, these findings help to more accurately iden-
tify the pressures in an economy. Similar approaches could aid policymakers, as core inflation rates may portray a more realistic picture of an economy.
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This research was performed as part of a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) at the Faculty of Economics, Management & Accountancy. Opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Central Bank of Malta.
Assessing government PUBLIC SERVICES should be audited. Their financial reports need to be reviewed by agencies independent of government (external audits), while government itself has to assess its own operations to maximize efficiency, minimize fraud, and comply with the law (internal audits). Despite their importance, most studies on the Maltese situation have focused on the private sector, neglecting the public sphere. To analyse the degree of communication between the internal and external auditors, Sharon Zammit (supervised by Mr Peter J. Baldacchino) interviewed officials from the National Audit Office (NAO: external) and Internal Audit and Investigations Depart-
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ment (IAID). She concluded that effective communication between these departments is still in its infancy, leaving lots of space for improvement. She identified four main barriers. The first is an ingrained culture promoting a lack of cooperation for investigating fraud and irregularities. The second is overreliance on informal communication that affects their cooperation in audit planning and internal controls. The third is mutual misperceptions that limit sharing of reports. The fourth is a lack of resources that limits time for communication between the offices. Such ‘walls’ prevent the organisations from reaping the benefits of cooperation.
To change this situation the author recommends an official written agreement between the two entities (NAO and IAID). This would support a programme of regular meetings, decentralisation of internal audit function, sharing expertise to prevent duplication, and when appropriate combined auditing of government activities. Ms Zammit hopes that both organisations can come to be “seen as complementing each other, rather than as treading on each other’s toes.”
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This research was performed as part of a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honours) at the Faculty of Economics, Management & Accountancy.
THINK STUDENT
The making of Offshore Wind Energy MALTA HAS a problem. It relies heavily on fossil fuels such as oil to meet its energy needs. Whenever oil prices increase, either the people or the government take the brunt of the cost. The country also faces a strict deadline: by 2020 it needs to supply 10% of its energy needs from renewable sources such as wind, solar, or wave. To help reach this goal, a new project at the University of Malta is custom-designing offshore wind turbines. Malta’s territorial waters are quite extensive but deep. The Hurd Bank area is the most suitable site at a depth of 50 to 70 metres. These depths are beyond the reach of current commercially available technology and the latest project in the windy, turbulent North Sea reaches 45 metres (The Beatrice Project). To construct a wind turbine for the Maltese region, Thomas Gauci (as part of a team consisting of University academics and industrial partners) is designing a structure specific to Malta. Seventy-metre deep waters will increase costs. On the other hand, the Mediterranean is relatively calm compared to the North Sea, so the support structure keeping the wind turbine in place can be lighter, which shaves off tons of raw materials and reduces the final price. An offshore wind turbine needs to resist waves, corrosion, and storms. The design process of an offshore support structure is essential to keep it in place and starts
with determining exactly where the turbines will be embedded and how they will be supported. After these questions are answered, the turbines’ exact specifications need to be determined, such as material, height, width, and what forces it can resist over a number of years. Speed of blade rotation also needs to be checked to make sure it does not cause discomfort to nearby humans and animals. Mr Gauci’s concept design meets all of these needs in compliance with international and EU standards. At this stage, the design needs to be costed, right down to the installation and maintainance of the turbines. If Malta builds these offshore wind turbines it would easily meet the 10% baseline set by the EU. Undeniably, such a large project will face numerous challenges, but perhaps Mr Gauci said it best: “not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new.”
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This research was performed as part of a Masters of Science from the Faculty of Engineering and is supported by MCST (Malta Council for Science and Technology).
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OPINION
A balancing act
I
am writing this in a sports complex cafeteria, waiting to pick up my daughter from her ballet lesson. In the meantime, my eighteen-month old son tugs persistently at my sleeve — he wants to lick the froth off my capuccino and bang on the keyboard to make the screen respond. If this sounds familiar to you, then you may be one of those researchers who are juggling studies, work, and kids. I am on the eve of submitting my Ph.D. dissertation. Since I started, there has not been a single birthday, Christmas, or ‘sick’ day when I was not at my laptop, working on my research. During the first year I found it difficult to concentrate. I was alone at home, with a lot of time on my hands, and there were days wasted on Facebook and eBay. Thankfully, I was brought back to my senses and managed to start focussing on my work. As the first year rolled into the next, my son was born. Perhaps this was irresponsible, but then again, one cannot put life on hold to achieve a degree. The pregnancy was not easy and even necessitated hospital admission for a short time. To complicate matters, I had an important exam in the week my son was meant to be born, so I spent many sleep-
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Ms Michelle Attard Tonna less nights to complete my work in advance and take the exam earlier. Pregnancy even complicated flights, since I was refused airtickets when 33 weeks pregnant. I usually work during the night, when the world is asleep, although this is not always guaranteed when babies share your habitat. I plan my work around their schedule, intensively writing while they sleep, and performing simpler tasks while they are running around the house and destroying every piece of furniture in the process. Being a mum keeps me grounded. I now respect deadlines religiously, finishing early means I am able to spend more time with my loved ones. Kids can be very unpredictable — they fall sick at the eleventh hour, just before you are expected to email a chapter to your supervisors. A mother needs to attend school open days and sports days, stick holy pictures to Religion project books, and keep their hair free of lice. I either work on my research in every waking hour after I have satisfied mummy duties, or else have to compromise between family and studies. As far as possible, I do not let this happen. I do not have any superpowers and have never reached a
work-life balance. I just make priorities. I may have laundry baskets overflowing with clothes waiting to be folded, but I prefer to take my kids to the playing field or watch a movie. I can do much more, of course, as a mother, and I do sometimes fail. When time is tight, to finish writing I can spend hours at my laptop with little interaction with my kids. Otherwise, it would be difficult to focus and to regain the thread of my thoughts. For my studies, I need to visit campus abroad and to present at conferences. I usually take my son along with me. He’s too small to leave behind for more than a couple of days. Last summer I took him to Portugal for a conference and had to board three planes, a train and a bus. I am sometimes met with pitying glances, but very often people are helpful and understanding. I may not be inspiring my kids to become researchers when they grow up. Indeed, my daughter wishes that I had taken up something more ‘glamorous’, but I believe and hope that my sense of diligence will rub off on them. That it will motivate them to chase their own dreams, as I am chasing mine.
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THINK OPINION
Attention, Research ahead!
T
he word research can conjure images of people in lab coats busy with baffling devices. The research community has contributed to this perception by being inactive in promoting and explaining their work. What follows is perhaps some insight into the world of research. Research is an essential human endeavour. It uses in-depth study, experimentation, construction, and evaluation of conceptual or real-world physical processes. For example, in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), research is needed to provide the key ingredients that drive innovation and creativity. Those ingredients include new technologies, standards, approaches, and concepts that come together to form the right research atmosphere. Imagine a world where research ceased to exist. Industry, and therefore society, would be forced to redeploy existing technology for other uses without ever inventing anything new. For example, without research in video data compression, online video streaming
Dr Ernest Cachia
would stop; one of the possible effects is no improvement in modern home entertainment systems — forget video on demand. 3D Game graphics would also stop evolving without research into the mathematics behind object rendering and transformation. If this stopped, game graphics evolution would suffer, limiting the realism of future games and other virtual environments. The list is open-ended: research is vital. The above examples show how technological progress needs support from a healthy and active research community. Successful organisations tend to find their competitive edge through an ability to innovate, brought about by their ability to
“We can compete in terms of research capability, flexibility, ingenuity and creativity.”
invest in and carry out research. It is not surprising to note that some of the most successful and renowned companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and Apple, have a strong Research and Development (R&D) arm. Malta is starting to recognise the competitive niche that research can enable us to occupy, even on a global scale. The economy of numbers is definitely not in our favour. We cannot compete in terms of sheer graduate output. We can however very effectively compete in terms of research capability, flexibility, ingenuity, and creativity. On these attributes, we are on equal standing with far larger countries. That is why researchers welcome the interest being shown by both local industry and government. Hopefully, the right funding framework will follow this interest. After all, research in ICT has become as important as, say, research in healthcare. Interesting times lie ahead.
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The author is the Dean of the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta.
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Looking
up to the
Skies
The Square Kilometre Array 14
THINK FEATURE
Malta is involved in the creation of the largest telescope ever built. The telescope will be composed of 10 million antennas, process petaflops of data per day, and cost 1.5 billion euros. When built the array will peer deep into space to see how the first stars were born and attempt to solve the riddle of our origin. Words by Dr Kris Zarb Adami and Dr John Abela. ESO’s VLT reveals the Carina Nebula’s hidden secrets. Image: ESO/José Francisco
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FEATURE
The Square Kilometre Array core, showing the different receiver technologies, from antennas to dishes, depending on the frequency of observation.
Dr Kris Zarb Adami Dr John Abela
S
ince the dawn of civilisation we have been fascinated with the sky. From worshipping the planets as gods and using the stars to navigate, to more esoteric applications that attempt to predict our romantic and financial endeavours. What is seldom reflected upon is how the first planets, stars, and galaxies in our universe were formed. Over the past 12 billion years galaxies have formed from congregating stars. As stars form, dust circling around them binds together forming planets. On some of these planets there exists life. Life that is as complex as the universe itself. Most human beings question where they come from. The query might seem straight forward but is challenging to answer, while the outcome could help the human race. To tackle this age-old concern, humans have been developing techniques and instru-
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ments that allow them to look further and deeper into the night sky. So how far back can we actually see? With today’s equipment we can observe the universe a few micro-seconds after it burst into existence, some 13.7 billion years ago. The first few seconds of its existence were extremely turbulent and it took approximately 2 billion years for the universe to cool from this hot, dense primordial state to a somewhat cooler, peaceful environment. When things cooled down, gravity brought together the simple atoms formed at birth, namely hydrogen and helium, with enough force to start off a nuclear fusion reaction, which powers stars. Exactly when the first stars formed has been a bone of contention amongst scholars for the past sixty years. By building the largest telescope the world has ever seen, we shall actually be able to see these stars and resolve the debate. The telescope would pick up the explosive signature of the first stars. Being so far away, these stars are so faint that it would need an aperture of at least one square kilometre. The aperture of a telescope is the area capturing the radio waves passing through the middle of the telescope. A giant, single one square kilometre telescope is impossible to construct.
The Largest Telescope ever built Enter the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the world’s largest telescope fifty times more sensitive than anything ever assembled. It is capable of surveying the entire sky one hundred times faster than any other existing instrument and spans an entire continent (Pictured). SKA’s location will be shared between the African and Australian continents. The telescope will have the capability of resolving and more importantly recognising the signature of the first stars in the universe. If this behemoth were to be pointed towards Mars it would pick up a mobile phone signal. Pointed towards a nearby star, let’s say 50 light years away (a light year is how far a beam of light travels in a year, or around 9 x 1015 meters), it would detect an airport radar on its fiery surface. Our sun is only 8 light minutes away. The price tag for such sensitivity is 1.5 billion euros. SKA consists of thousands of antennas picking up enough data every day to fill ten million iPods. These technological feats are driving the next generation of High Performance Computing technology by the likes of Samsung, IBM, CISCO and Nokia. The companies are working with the SKA consortium, using it as a testing ground for
THINK FEATURE
the next generation of computing and technology platforms. Coming up with feasible designs for this telescope will change the face of technology forever. SKA will be built over the next eight years by twelve countries, including Malta, and over fifty institutions. The EU has already pledged millions, while South Africa and Australia, who will both host SKA are promising around one hundred million euros. The siting of such an instrument is currently a hot issue, since it will attract massive foreign investment and change the host country’s landscape. The reason is the extreme sensitivity of this telescope. Since it operates in frequencies used by terrestrial TV and FM radios, the telescope needs to be placed in very remote areas to minimise human interference. Otherwise, rather than the signature of the first stars we will be listening to ‘Dejjem tiegħek Becky’! Location is not the only challenge - another problem is size. The SKA is unlike an optical instrument, which usually uses a few large mirrors (Very Large Telescope, VLT, pictured). SKA will be made up of around 10,000,000 antennas (rather similar to roof-top TV antennas) and each one of these antennas will produce data at a rate of 10-gigabit(s) per second (that is how you fill up so many iPods). Each of these antennas needs to be carefully placed and »
An image of the strange asteroid Lutetia from the ESA Rosetta probe. Image: ESO/José Francisco
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linked to a central processing system. The fibre optic cabling needed to connect everything could wrap the world twice over. The system required to process the data is equivalent to 100 million home PCs. It needs to handle the equivalent of approximately 1000 times the entire world’s internet traffic every second, a mind boggling 1018 operations, or the number of stars in three million galaxies. The cherry on the cake is that SKA must be isolated and built smack in the middle of a desert.
Malta’s Role In 2007, Malta became involved in SKA through Dr Zarb Adami (University of Malta and Oxford University), who coauthored this article. I left one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies (STMicroelectronics) to develop engineering and ICT solutions for SKA. These answers will keep the telescope within budget and maintain its high technical specifications. I am involved in designing the antennas and the digital processing systems needed to crunch the massive data produced by SKA. To make sense of the data, fast and efficient algorithms are needed to de-blur the images and extract maximal information from scans of the night sky. SKA is not just about physics. To solve some of its challenges, I collaborated with the computer engineer Dr John Abela (the second co-author) to solve the problem of optimally locating 10 million antennas. It is nearly impossible by classical brute-force methods to consider all the possible solutions and choose the best one. Instead, we employed some ideas from biology to computer science. We used biological evolution to ‘evolve’ a
solution to the problem, by using so called genetic algorithms. The method starts off by randomly choosing a number of candidate solutions. These telescope placements are called the ‘initial population’. Each configuration in the initial population is represented by a
An example of the Square Kilometre Array realisation in the southern Africa site. Each dot represents an SKA-station, each containing 11,000 antennas. Fingers crossed, there might be a white dot on Malta in the future!
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The VLT in Chile, the world’s largest optical telescope with its four mirrors. Note in comparison the SKA will have ten million receiving elements.
digital code, or ‘chromosome’ – essentially a string of characters. For the following explanation replace the word ‘chromosome’ with telescope arrangement. The genetic algorithm mates the different chromosomes to come up with new offspring. Each progeny relates to a new placement. To add some random fun the algorithm processes the ‘chromosomes’ to ‘mutate’ the offspring. The hope is that the babes will have better ‘chromosomes’. If, for instance, one parent is clever but ugly and the other parent is beautiful but dumb then one of the offspring will be clever and beautiful and the other will be ugly and dumb as (sometimes) happens in nature. After the chromosomes are mated, the children are screened to decide which should survive and which should die. The cycle then starts all over again with a new initial population until, after many generations, a near optimal solution emerges. For SKA, genetic algorithms helped optimise the layout of the 10 million antennas. Dying stars sometimes explode as supernovae, although they usually only last one or two milliseconds. To be able to find them, the sky needs to be scanned continuously. The Maltese team developed fast computer algorithms to process these scans using ALBERT,
“...such challenges are the very essence of humankind. The quest for answers to these fundamental questions is central to our very being” Malta’s very own supercomputer. The algorithms were fast enough to process the data on the fly as the sky is observed. The researchers solved the problem by using Neural Networks (similar to the structure of our brain). Through these efforts, Malta is now being considered to host a prototype SKA-station. This station would consist of a Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) station of two hundred antennas that form a part of an EU wide initiative with the same aims as SKA. Malta’s role is important because it will be the furthest station from the main computing facility of LOFAR, which is located in the Netherlands. It is an ideal test-bed for long distance, fast data links, while helping to improve the resolution of both LOFAR and SKA.
People often ask, why in the midst of such a financial crisis should governments line up to support such a lofty goal? Cynically people might think that it shows, yet again, how removed government is from the thoughts and concerns of its citizens. The reason in my opinion is simple. Such challenges are the very essence of humankind. The quest for answers to these fundamental questions is central to our very being. Through deductive logic and rational reasoning these scientific endeavours harness, humans will learn to live together more harmoniously. These projects inspire technological leaps that will help us live healthier, longer, and enriched lives.
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with your thoughts Decades-long research into the field of brain to computer interface (BCI) devices seems close to bearing fruit. These devices could provide communication tools to Malta’s growing number of older people and the disabled, while local gaming companies could exploit a new niche entertainment market. Words by The Editor.
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Prof. Kenneth Camilleri Mr Owen Falzon Ms Tracey Camilleri
es, this is the ability to control objects with your thoughts,� confirmed Mr Owen Falzon. Such phrases were previously the domain of witch doctors and madmen; this situation has changed since the 1990s, when the concept started to come under intense scientific study. It is also attracting economic interest from companies ranging from healthcare providers to game developers. The technology offers a new way to navigate the web, play games, and give new ability to the elderly and disabled. Mr Owen Falzon forms part of a team at the University of Malta led by Professor Ing. Kenneth Camilleri, which studies brain to computer interface (BCI) devices. In other words, brain signals are translated
Main photo by Edward Duca. Profile photos by Darrin Zammit Lupi, courtesy of The Sunday Times.
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into commands using computer software. Those commands perform specific actions depending on the setup, for example, to move a wheelchair. For BCI devices to understand commands the computer needs to distinguish between different brain patterns. These commands are then identified by the computer by interpreting different brain patterns, such as imagining moving your arm left or right, thinking of a square or circle. When the computer detects that you are imagining moving your arm to the left, it performs the command, such as turning a wheelchair in the same direction. To identify different brain patterns first the computer detects brain activity. Detection is nothing new, Hans Berger discovered it in 1924 by sticking silver wires under the scalps of his patients and hooking Âť
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An example of the sleep EEG data (black line), labelled as either a sleep spindle or K complex by an algorithm adapted by Ms Tracey Camilleri. The lines below compare an expert’s labeling (red line) with the computer programme (blue, green, and purple). Spindle
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EEG setup that measures brain activity, University of Malta. Photo by Darrin Zammit Lupi courtesy of The Sunday Times
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them up to a voltmeter, which let him detect the brain’s electrical activity. Our brains are filled with neurons that carry messages through electrical pulses from one part of the brain to another. What Owen uses for his research to measure brain activity is a bit more sophisticated and much more comfortable. A scalp cap is attached to the user’s head and electrodes are screwed into the cap which touch the wearer’s skin. Not the most attractive device, but these electrodes detect the electrical activity in the wearer’s brain and display it on a screen, called an electroencephalogram (EEG; sample data pictured). It lets researchers study brain patterns.
The brain speaks to itself Research into brain to computer interface devices tend to study locations individually, Mr Falzon’s latest work aims to make BCI devices more accurate by “focusing on interactions between different parts of the brain.” The brain is split into different areas specialised for specific functions. The occipital lobe, for example, translates the 2D image on our retina into the sophisticated 3D image we live and work in, while the temporal lobe processes visual information and lets our brains make sense of it all. Both areas of the brain are needed to look and remember. For human beings to function, multiple areas of the brain need to interact together to complete a single task. Mr Falzon’s research “developed an algorithm [a sequence of instructions that carry out a task, similar to what Google uses to search the web] that can automatically discrimi-
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nate between different mental tasks.” The algorithm takes advantage of a phenomenon called phase locking, which occurs when two parts of the brain are synchronized with each other, or interacting. Phase locking involves two sets of neurons in different parts of the brain firing at the same rate as each other and synchronized together like instruments being played in an orchestra to achieve a pleasant harmony. The electrodes can read the electrical signals, while the computer can recognise the phenomenon. By finding out which parts of the brain are phase locked, Mr Falzon’s algorithm can “identify the best interactions of the brain.” By looking at more than one brain area at the same time, the computer programme should be better at figuring out whether a person is thinking about moving left or right, and can be used to control the direction of a motorised wheelchair. Unfortunately, this new approach was not very useful for interpreting movements. Al-
Phase locking occurs when different parts of the brain are active simultaneouly. The brain patterns are synchronised at the same time and frequency.
though, “it was still a good exercise” said Mr Falzon, since it gave insight into which parts of the brain were communicating with each other, but it did not make the system more accurate. For left and right hand movements, taking simple brainpower is enough. This approach can identify minute differences between brain signals, making it more useful for deciphering higher level thoughts, like speech.
Since at least 2009, reports have leaked from the Pentagon about DARPA’s (the US military’s outlandish research arm featured in the film “men who stare at goats”) research into BCI devices that could let soldiers speak to each other only by thinking about it. The brain generates specific patterns before it vocalises speech, if they manage to turn these patterns into »
Through assistive living technology one can control devices through special equipment and one’s thoughts. In the example shown above, a television set is switched on by a person simply looking at a flashing LED light. The person’s brain signals synchronise with the LED. Brain activity is then read by a specialised headset which connects to a computer. The computer programme interprets the signal and sends the appropriate command to switch on the TV. This phenomenon is called SSVEP (Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials) and could allow many devices to be controlled using one’s thoughts.
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EYE GAZE TRACKING FOR VISUAL IMPAIRMENT Assistive eye tracking technology at Mada (Qatar Assistive Technology Center) in Doha. Infrared light tracks eye movement allowing users to control a cursor on a computer screen. Using this technology, individuals with impaired movement can use a computer. Stefania Cristina, a student of Prof. Camilleri, is developing a system with a similar function. Her approach uses computer software to track eye movement with a simple and inexpensive webcam. Once fully developed, the technology would be cheaper and available on any computer. Photo by Edward Duca
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words efficiently: telepathy could be within reach with some simple headgear. Mr Falzon’s algorithm might be applicable to interpreting these signals.
Unlocking new commands The human brain has a strange property. Parts of the brain respond to a flashing light by oscillating at the same frequency. Like a pendulum swinging and hypnotising a person, a set of LED lights flashing at 20 times per second (20Hz) force the brain to flash in sync. This phenomenon is called SSVEP (Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials), an easy brain pattern for researchers to identify, pick up, and interpret. This approach could allow them to expand the vocabulary of commands that a brain could give a computer (Pictured). One of the major problems of BCI devices is the reliability of brain pattern interpretation by a computer. Currently, most applications are restricted to one or two commands. In gaming, only one or two degrees of freedom exist, a game of Pacman is still too complicated. With assistive devices, a wheelchair can simply move left or right. Fine-tuned movements are problematic. More ambitious projects to move cursors around screens with thoughts, ear, and eyebrow movements take hours to train on, which makes current eye-tracking technology superior. SSVEP technology could reverse this trend. Prof. Camilleri’s team can use this phenomenon to figure out where a person is looking, a powerful ability. So how could it work? Imagine a room with flashing lights, a light flashing at 10 Hz is connected to blinds, 15 Hz curtains, 20 Hz a door leading to the kitchen, 25 Hz for a door leading into the bedroom and 30 Hz switches on the TV. With simple headgear to read a person’s brain pattern, a computer can easily work out if a person is looking at curtains and can thus close them darkening a room. This can be followed by a quick glance at a TV switching it on to watch a favourite series. For someone with mobility problems
or wheelchair bound, these advances could be revolutionary to their quality of life. As the example above highlights, SSVEP can be connected to many more commands than other methods. It allows a huge degree of freedom; one of the best examples is its use in keyboards, they are constructed with flashing lights to allow people to type. Mr Falzon emphasised, “it is one of the most reliable methods that exist.” The opportunities this approach could unlock are mindboggling. As might be expected, the spanner in the works is that flashing lights can cause discomfort and trigger serious conditions such as epileptic fits. The solution is a more limited frequency that does not cause these problems and can be adjusted to the user’s comfort zone. Limiting the frequency reduces the number of commands, so to get round this problem researchers can use flashing lights that have different time delays. For example, a time delay of 0.025 seconds could be introduced between two sets of lights flashing at 20 times per second. A computer algorithm would then distinguish between the time delays — a phenomenon called phase differentiation. Prof. Camilleri and his team have developed one of the best algorithms currently available. With the right push, the above scenario could become a reality and help those who need it most.
Making them faster Mr Falzon’s research is linked to Ms Tracey Camilleri’s, another member of Prof. Kenneth Camilleri’s team working at the Biomedical Engineering Laboratory of the Department of Systems and Control Engineering. Her latest work builds upon the research of Prof. Ing. Simon Fabri (from the same department) who developed an algorithm that detects when a machine changes its mode of operation, and learns the new mode’s characteristics. She adapted this system to interpreting brain signals. The aim was to use less computer processing power to identify brain patterns making it faster than conventional approaches — so fast »
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that patterns can be labeled as they are read with no appreciable delay. Professor Fabri’s work is applicable to situations where abrupt system behavioral changes occur. For example, airplane sensor-failure detection technology, or for tracking fast-moving objects, like drone aircraft. In her latest work, Ms Camilleri adapted this algorithm to sleep patterns in the brain. When a person is asleep their brain passes through different phases of activity. The brain continuously has some background activity, but it can also give bursts of activity, such as a sleep spindle or K complex. A sleep spindle is thought to inhibit brain processing keeping a person asleep, while a K complex seems important for sleep-based memory. The algorithm labeled the sleep patterns by continuously applying three models on every data set, known as a Switching Multiple Model approach. Each model was ‘trained’ on either background, a sleep spindle, or a K complex. The model which best matched the data ‘won’. Her programme did this every one hundredth of a second. Fast enough to capture the signals they were interested in, while not too fast that the signal was swamped with noise. After being trained the programme could also learn new additional patterns, so called adaptive learning. The speed and accuracy of her labeling algorithm was just as good as other more computationally intensive (and complete) approaches or an experienced clinician. The benefits of her approach were that it could “label the data on the fly” and in real-time “reducing the time lag”, she explained. This technology could save a clinician valuable time. Labeling brain sleep pattern data is nothing new. Abnormal patterns have been linked to mental diseases from schizophrenia to epilepsy. In epilepsy, it is a common procedure. Ms Camilleri’s advance was to do it in real-time using little computing power when compared to what’s out there already. Prof. Camilleri envisions how in the future such labeling could be used in other medical
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“Imagine a wheelchair user is trying to move left or right with thoughts alone. The person would want to move it quickly and reliably, especially while avoiding obstacles like an oncoming car.” applications, such as the early detection of an epileptic fit. In this case, the programmed algorithm could be linked to a wireless device that sends an early warning signal to the epileptic sufferer and loved ones. Even better, “ you could also have a system that may inject the user with a drug when the onset of an epileptic fit is detected.” Obviously, this is still in development. Before such radical advances, Tracey would “like to put this into an application”; to use more complex data like brain patterns that can move a cursor on a screen. She hopes that “if a person is totally paralysed you can at least give him, or her, a source of communication.” Her algorithms could make this technology work conveniently in real time.
Vision for Malta Qatar is a small gulf state awash with gas reserves. It has used its wealth to become one of the most influential and progressive of Middle Eastern Arab states. It is the home of Al Jazeera, the Qatar Foundation (a multi-billion educational and research institution), and a leading assistive living centre. The centre is flush with devices that can help disabled people and paraplegics communicate and become productive. The centre works by sourcing the latest assistive technology and offering the devices at a subsidised rate: 50% off. Malta is not sinking in fossil fuel gold, so we couldn’t afford this approach. So what form of assistive centre would work? Prof. Camilleri’s suggestion needs both government and industry support. The Centre for Biomedical Cybernetics is a good first step. “The University has invested
in and placed itself in a very strong position to grow in this [BCI] area. ... As a University, our main priority remains research and transfer of knowledge to students and other people.” He can easily see how other stakeholders outside the University can work together with the Centre to create a similar assistive technology centre. It would “provide short courses and an advisory and technical assistance role to agencies and institutes in Malta.” The next step would be for research funds to be funneled towards developing the technology. Working together with the elderly and disabled, they could make a site-specific prototype for companies to turn into products. Researchers could also reengineer the product for local needs. Some form of assistive technology centre would help the Health, Elderly and Community Care Department within Government to achieve its goal to treat more people at home and maintain their dignity. To fulfill these roles this centre would need “to create a practical team of clinicians, engineers and care workers — [that] needs some funding infrastructure on the ground,” continued Prof. Camilleri. In his opinion, “University cannot drive this alone… there is a missing link locally between the research and the commercial aspect. That [structure] which makes [such collaborations] feasible does not exist”, a situation which needs to change.
Problems for Commercialisation The market for BCI devices is ripe. It has been ripe for many years and startups are already present in most imaginable applications. Companies abound in health, sci-
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entific research, digital art, gaming, military applications, edutainment, ICT and even economics is not left out. In 2008, the world saw the first commercial headgear initially priced at $300. This BCI device was marketed for gamers; it could respond to a wearers emotions and insert emoticons (J, L) for a player’s character or whilst chatting. It could even make objects in a game move, but this is highly limited to up or down movement. Not the most exciting gameplay! Right now the technology is limited. Two major problems are the reliability of interpreting users’ brain commands and the rate of communication. Mr Falzon’s work will help increase reliability, while Ms Camilleri’s method could identify patterns in real time. Imagine a wheelchair user is trying to move left or right with thoughts alone. The person would want to move it quickly and reliably, especially while avoiding obstacles like an oncoming car. There are more invasive approaches that would add commands and reliability. However few people want electrodes stuck under their skin or bored through their skull just
to play a computer game. Such invasive procedures also spiral costs beyond the reach of those that need it the most: the aged, disabled or wheelchair bound individuals. The best solution seems to reside in perfecting the physical devices and the computer algorithms needed to interpret the brain patterns. Once these are developed, people with limited movement could wear a cheap headset and navigate the web easily. They could open doors and curtains by looking at them. Change TV channels without needing to press a remote. Or, move an online avatar, like in Second Life. Simply put, they could lead an easier and better life. Inevitably these technologies will enter the commercial market. Who wouldn’t love to play puzzle games simply by looking at a door, or thinking that it should open? Mr Falzon finished off by saying that “for healthy users within 5 years we’ll see reliable systems” — I cannot wait for that future.
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A shorter version of this article first appeared in TechSunday, the technology supplement of The Sunday Times.
Braille laptop being used by a visually impaired person at MADA (Qatar Assistive Technology Center). Photo by Edward Duca
FURTHER READING • The first developer of a commercial BCI device: http://www.emotiv.com/ • Good articles on the assistive benefits of BCI devices: Science daily: http://tinyurl.com/braincompint AND The economist: http://www.economist.com/ node/21527030 AND BBC (Video): http://tinyurl.com/bbcbrainpower • Slideshow on “The marketability of brain to computer interfaces”: http://tinyurl.com/prezimarket • Prof. Kenneth Camilleri’s team latest scientific articles: http://tinyurl.com/sleepeeg AND http://tinyurl.com/motorimagery
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Targeting the
BRAIN Local research is finding new compounds in the Mediterranean diet that can combat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Words by Dr Neville Vassallo. 28
Dr Neville Vassallo
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n a dull November day in 1901, Dr Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), senior psychiatrist at the Asylum for the Insane and Epileptic (Frankfurt am Main), sat down and greeted his new patient. “What is your name?” “Auguste.” “Family name?” “Auguste.” “What is your husband’s name?” “I believe Auguste.” “Your husband?” “Oh, my husband…” “Are you married?” “To Auguste.” So began the conversation that was to change medical science forever. Auguste D. would become the first patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia worldwide. Dr Alzheimer was known as “the psychiatrist with the microscope”, since he spent years peering down a microscope looking at slides of brain tissue to find the origin of brain diseases. Five years after interviewing Auguste D. he connected the deposition of “plaques” in the brain to dementia. The microscope lab he set up at the University of Munich had borne fruit. Amongst Dr Alzheimer’s students was the young Fritz Heinrich Lewy, who in 1912 made another major discovery. He described the neuronal “tangles” found in the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients. Parkinson’s disease is the most common movement degenerative disorder, a relentless condition found in the elderly leading to tremors, muscle rigidity and slow movements. Today, we know that these tangles are clumps of sticky protein called amyloid, which cause both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The protein clumps kill dopamine neurons over many years, long before any effects are seen. The protein is toxic to nerve cells, so understanding this protein could lead to developing a powerful new class of medicines. At the University of Malta, I lead a group whose ambitious goal is to develop new treatments to cure these diseases. Our ap-
Auguste D. The first patient to be diagnosed with dementia by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1901.
proach is to identify small-molecule druglike compounds and natural extracts, which hinder the initial aggregation of sticky amyloid or keep their stickiness under control. Such therapy would delay Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. But where to look for these vital compounds and extracts? The answer: in Mother Nature’s ‘drug cabinet’. Over the past decade, several studies have shown that a healthy Mediterranean diet helps stave off many age-related conditions. These epidemiological studies involve observing thousands of people and their habits. They have linked a high consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, together with a glass of red wine (not more), to a lower risk of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Risk can even be reduced by 40%, nearly cut in half. The Mediterranean diet is particularly rich in naturally occurring compounds called polyphenols. Dietary polyphenols form a large class of compounds being the most abundant antioxidants in our diet. Their health benefits include helping prevent cardiovascular disease, cancer, and brain disease linked with the amyloid protein. In the lab, my team first replicate the formation of the sticky amyloid aggregates to simulate the initial disease process. »
“Over the past decade, several studies have shown that a healthy Mediterranean diet helps stave off many age-related conditions”
Amyloid plaque deposition (blue) in the brain of a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (neurons in green).
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Figures shows effect of black tea extract on formation of amyloid aggregates that can lead to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Protein aggregates are shown as yellow dots in top-right figure. In the presence of black tea, very few aggregates are formed (lower-left). Moreover, addition of black tea to pre-formed aggregates results in their destabilisation and disaggregation (lower-right).
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FURTHER READING • Vassallo, N. (Editor). (2008). Polyphenols & Health: New and Recent Advances. Nova Publishers, New York, USA. • Caruana, M., Hoegen, T., Levin, J., Hillmer, A., Giese, A. and Vassallo N. (2011). Inhibition and disaggregation of alpha-synuclein oligomers by natural polyphenolic compounds. FEBS Lett. 585, 1113–1120. • Gauci, A. J., Caruana, M., Giese, A., Scerri, C. and Vassallo, N. (2011). Identification of polyphenolic compounds and black tea extract as potent inhibitors of lipid membrane destabilization by amyloid beta-42 aggregates. J. Alzheimer’s Dis. 27, 767–779.
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compounds all prevent toxic amyloid clumps from forming, which means they could be useful for treating these brain diseases. The same five compounds could also neutralise the inherent stickiness of amyloid clumps to structures within cells called membranes. Protecting a nerve cell’s membrane is essential for its survival. We published these results in several top international scientific journals including the Biochimica Biophysica Acta (one of the 100 most influential journals in Biology & Medicine). These publications helped us attract the attention of the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity of Munich, whose researchers are helping us expand the research project into animal disease models. Testing our compounds in these models is essential to find out if our compounds will help combat the disease in human beings. Data from our project has also helped the national Department of Health favour our traditional Mediterranean diet. All of this research has only been possible because of funds from the University of Malta and the Malta Council for Science & Technology (MCST). Natural products from the Mediterranean diet and marine plants are providing exciting new directions in medicinal discovery. Although useful, these findings still need translation into therapy by further testing in animal models. Our final goals remain in sight: preserving the function of the human brain into old age, so that memories and movements will no longer be Our research project: neurons (left), polyphenols (centre) and lost with dying nerves. extracts (right).
• Högen, T., Levin, J., Schmidt, F., Caruana, M., Vassallo, N., Kretzschmar, H., Boetzel, K., Kamp, F. and Giese, A. (2012). Two different binding modes of alpha-synuclein to lipid vesicles depending on its aggregation state. Biophys. J. 102, 1646–1655. • Caruana, M., Neuner, J., Högen, T., Levin, J., Schmidt, F., Kamp, F., Scerri., C., Giese, A. and Vassallo, N. (2012). Polyphenolic compounds are novel protective agents against lipid membrane damage by alpha-synuclein aggregates in vitro. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. (Biomembranes) doi:10.1016/j.bbamem.2012.05.019
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Next, we use innovative, robust molecular screens to identify Mediterranean diet polyphenols and extracts that inhibit and/or destabilise protein clumping. Such screens use technology like fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, which uses a laser beam to detect single molecules. This technique is ideal for studying the clumping of proteins and allows us to directly visualise the aggregation of proteins that lead to the disease. By applying different compounds on the proteins we monitor how effective a drug is over time. My team also developed a method (lipid vesicle permeabilisation) to assess how sticky amyloid clumps are to structures within a cell. Using this technique, we could tell whether certain compounds reduced stickiness. These agents are known as anti-amyloid and can help treat disease. By partnering with the Institute of Cellular Pharmacology (ICP) Ltd, we have access to technology that can produce high quality vegetal extracts on a large scale. Extracts are made from the produce of Maltese farmers and from a Mediterranean alga harvested by local divers. ICP Ltd. provide us with extracts from the Mediterranean prickly pear and pomegranate fruits, and an extract from the marine alga Padina pavonica. These readily available supplies allow us to test for anti-amyloid agents, in our hunt for new treatments. Results obtained over the past four years are highly encouraging. We have identified three polyphenols (apigenin, baicalein, nordihydroguaiaretic acid) and two plant extracts (black tea, Padina pavonica) that repeatedly show a striking anti-amyloid activity in all the assays described above. The
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Trusting the machine
Prof. Gordon Pace Mr Christian Colombo
As the 21st century unfolds, computers are becoming a natural part of our lives. Children are now growing up with a computer always within easy reach. This raises the need for secure and consistent computer systems. Runtime monitoring is a technique to continuously test systems to ensure they work correctly. This approach is being used in areas from astronomy to online casinos. Words by Prof. Gordon Pace and Mr Christian Colombo.
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omputers are everywhere, in phones, fridges, airplanes, and cars, which leads us to take them for granted. Only when they stop working do we realise their importance. As users, we expect computers to work: reliably, correctly, consistently, and quickly. Fail-
ure to meet these expectations carries a high cost. Disappointed customers quickly turn to alternative software packages and services. Computer software loopholes allow malicious users to gain access to confidential information, sometimes for a profit. Disgruntled users have even sued companies
for damages. History is riddled with such stories; patients were over-radiated by the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine when software failed, while the Ariane-V rocket was lost because of malfunctioning software. Some lower profile incidents include phone software bugs allowing Wi-Fi password theft, and online store backend Âť
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programming errors permitting fake financial transactions. Computer science focuses on the development of techniques that support the construction of large, reliable, and efficient systems. Software development needs rigorous testing during which a system’s behavior is checked against questions such as: Do the financial accounts controlled by the computer system always balance at the end of the day? Is the system response fast enough when processing up to 100 concurrent users? Before the system is deployed and used, it is tested against various user inputs and situations. This allows developers to discover errors in their code and fix them before the system is used. However, no matter how thoroughly tested, it is impossible to check every single scenario and errors will always crop up. A complementary technique to testing is runtime verification. Using this approach, the software continues checking for errors even when the system is being used. If anything goes wrong while the program is running, the code monitoring the system
notices the error and raises an alarm. For example, if the system has stored client credit card information in a location which is accessible to outside users, the information is moved to a secure location or deleted. By using actual user input, the system bypasses the need to create hypothetical user inputs — the main difficulty in testing – while also guaranteeing that if something goes wrong it can be fixed immediately. The approach may seem straightforward but is actually full of challenges. The authors and Dr Adrian Francalanza form
“…more than a million transactions have been verified…”
a local team addressing these challenges aimed towards practical solutions. One major challenge is the monitoring costs inbuilt into this approach that eat computing power and storage. Reducing computer usage is crucial to allow its adoption to reallife applications. Another challenge is how to monitor systems that are physically in different locations. For example, a doctor might use a laptop to access and modify a patient’s medical records that are kept in a hospital’s database, while medical test results are kept in the laboratory’s database. We are currently trying to address how all data is kept synchronised and correct, while ensuring that the system does not expose private information. We have built and provide several software tools to other academics and developers. LARVA is the most widespread tool since it can monitor Java-based systems ( Java is a programming language) used all over the Internet and on Android smartphones. It has been used in projects with various industrial partners, and applied to real-life software, from checking financial transactions to detecting intruders on file-transfer servers. We have also released other tools to handle other programming languages and special customised settings. What follows are some examples of how runtime verification is applied in the real world.
Financial transactions Financial transactions need high security. Flaws in financial transactions result in loss of user trust and direct losses through fraud. Financial systems support so many different services (different currencies, payment methods, user types, promotional offers and so on) that testing all possible real-life scenarios is virtually impossible. To make matters worse, a minor financial error or fraud like the loss of one cent on every transaction, might go undetected. To immediately detect errors, software can continuously monitor transaction validity as they are happening, which provides an added security layer.
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THINK FEATURE
Computing at ESO, controlling the very large telescopes. Image: ESO/José Francisco
In Malta, we have applied this approach at Ixaris Ltd, an international provider of virtual credit cards and payment services. To date, more than a million transactions have been verified through runtime monitoring.
Online Betting Online betting companies are important for Malta’s economy. They share similar problems to companies carrying out financial transactions, with two additions. Firstly, online betting needs to be fair to all players. Local authorities need to check this fairness quickly to uncover abuse. By using runtime monitoring, online betting companies can continuously monitor their own operations and prove that they play fair. Secondly, the same online betting company can host different casinos run by external parties. For every casino, the company forms a unique contract and partnership agreement. For example, for licensing reasons, the betting company may restrict a casino from making certain games available in particular countries. To ensure that contracts are being followed, the casino can use runtime monitoring to continuously check on the providers. We are trying to solve these problems by developing new contract languages and tools for betting companies.
Gaming Games are serious business and errors have major consequences. Unexpected errors tarnish a user’s experience, while allowing other players to cheat. In games with multiple players, cheating is a long running problem. Especially when money is involved, it threatens the trust of players in the fairness of the game. Cheat detection is very hard because there are too many real-life situations to simulate, a laboratory environment would never catch them all. Constant monitoring of a gaming system through runtime verification is the best approach to try and detect cheats. Runtime verification lets companies easily observe users and cheats. By detecting abnormal behaviour, this approach can harvest rich game information without any changes to the game’s structure.
Astronomy Scientists scan the skies with radio telescopes which keep getting bigger to look deeper into space. The largest telescope in the production pipeline is the Square Kilometer Array (for a feature on SKA see pages 12–17), which uses areas covered by hundreds of radio telescopes to observe stars with phenomenal clarity. The large number of telescopes generate data at an enormous rate that needs super efficient
processing to ensure quick results. For this application, runtime verification helps detect objects in space while minimising data processing costs . Our team has detected astronomical phenomena called pulsars using runtime monitoring. Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit a beam of radiation detected by the telescopes. The beam has a highly regular time interval making it easy to pick up. Its predictable properties make pulsar detection similar to software error pattern recognition. With this in mind, we could modify our techniques to detect pulsars from telescope data with great success. Computers will continue integrating themselves within our lives. More research is needed to make them work better, simpler, and more reliably. The more trust we hand over to computers the more secure they need to become. Because of increased complexity, computer scientists need to design solutions that are more intelligent. Like never before, users will forget the computer behind their devices.
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FURTHER READING For more about this group’s research see: http://www.cs.um.edu.mt/svrg/
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Dr Yves Muscat Baron
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THINK THEORY
Homo sapiens
Why did humans develop a large brain? “Of all animals, man has the largest brain in proportion to his size” — Aristotle. Dr Yves Muscat Baron shares his theory on how humans evolved large brains. The theory outlines how gravity could have helped humans develop a large brain — the author has named the theory, ‘The Gravitational Vascular Theory’.
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he tension in the secondstage delivery room is palpable. “Now push Mrs X, push, puSH, PUSH”, I urge on. The baby’s breech starts to appear and with every push it advances a little bit more out of the birth canal. It is a slow process. The foetal heart holds out, but a close eye and ear are kept on the baby’s heart monitor. This is the worst time for the baby’s heart rate to give out. At this point, it is crucial that the birth proceeds naturally. Intervention could disturb the natural manoeuvres the baby’s body needs to make to negotiate and gain safe passage through the birth canal. The baby’s breech slowly appears and slips out as I disengage its lower limbs. With another “PUSH”, sluggishly the baby’s body follows.
Thirty minutes after the mother started pushing, the tip of the shoulder blade emerges. At this moment, the baby’s body is gently rotated in harmony with the mother’s pushing. One shoulder is freed, delivering
the upper limb and the whole process is gently repeated in the opposite direction to free the other shoulder and arm. The tension in the delivery room rises a notch. Now the baby’s head needs to be »
Breech Births: During pregnancy breech presentation at birth is when a baby’s legs are delivered first, rather than the baby’s head.
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THEORY
clotron. Breech presentation at the end of a singleton pregnancy only constitutes 3% of all deliveries. Is it natural and moreover safe to deliver a baby in this manner? The word natural directed my thoughts towards Darwin’s mechanism for evolution – Natural Selection. Charles Darwin in the final words of his “Descent of Man” (1871) said: “[…] it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” The words “god-like intellect” worry an Obstetrician. Would a child delivered by breech still have a “god-like intellect”?
Delivery of foetal abdomen and thorax.
Foetal ankles elevated by assistant
Direction of traction of obstetric forceps Obstetric forceps for the delivery of the foetal head.
delivered. An assistant takes hold of the foetal ankles and gently raises them. Carefully, I apply the Obstetric forceps (that resemble a pair of tongs; Image 3) parallel to the baby’s head. “Now give us a final PUSH”, Mrs X is egged on and with gentle traction on the Obstetric forceps, the foetal head is gently delivered. A 3.8 kg baby girl (normal weight is around 3.2 kg) is born. The paediatrician assesses the baby’s condition and quickly tells us, “the baby is bradycardiac and pale” confirming that the baby’s heart is slow and oxygen levels dwindling. The baby is at risk of brain damage or death. After sucking out fluid from the baby’s mouth, the team supplies oxygen and a gentle heart massage to try and save her.
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Silence pervades the delivery room and we all start to get a sinking feeling. My hands go through routine motions, I swallow hard and inwardly start to count. Then, after 15 long seconds, the baby tenses up and emits a shrill cry. I carried out this breech delivery at 2.00am in a hospital in the U.K., way back in 1990. That same night a colleague of mine in a hospital 12 miles away also delivered a breech baby. The outcome was not favourable. After the breech delivery, I staggered back to my rest room exhausted by the overwhelming, conflicting emotions of fear and elation. As I start to relax, I reflect on the whole sequence of events. One thought swirls around my brain and gains speed like a beam of protons in a cy-
“...trying to give birth to a breech baby without the intervention of doctors has a much higher chance of complications, even death.” Ten years later, the results emerged from the much-awaited Term Breech MultiCentre Trial in singleton pregnancies by Dr Mary E. Hannah and co-workers. The trial confirmed that it is safer for a breech baby to be delivered by Caesarean Section. Foetal death or serious damage could be prevented by a planned caesarean section rather than a normal birth (17 of 1039 Caesarean births [1.6%] versus 52 of 1039 normally deliv-
THINK THEORY
Age of foetus and relation to breech presentation Gestational Age of Foetus
Breech Presentation %
21–24 weeks 25–28 weeks
33 % 28 %
29–32 weeks
14 %
33–36 weeks 37–40 weeks
9% 7%
Taken from Tunde-Byass et al (2003).
ered births [5.0%] suffered complications). For the mother, there were no large differences between the groups (41 of 1041 births [3.9%] versus 33 of 1042 births [3.2%]). While reliving the events surrounding the breech delivery, I recalled my experience and the research I had read on breech births. In 2003, Dr Modupe O. Tunde-Bypass and co-workers from Sweden showed that breech presentation becomes progressively less common from the middle to later on in pregnancy. After 40 weeks pregnancy, babies are delivered legs first only 3% of the time. There seems a clear link that the later a baby is born the more likely for the birth to be normal and born headfirst. It is very tempting to suggest that natural selection may have had a decisive role in this phenomenon. As my personal experience suggests, trying to give birth to a breech baby without the intervention of doctors has a much higher chance of complications, even death. Natural selection would be ruthless in such cases, and that baby girl may not have survived in more primeval circumstances. Following the breech delivery, I recalled three key words that may guide the hidden hand of natural selection and led to modern humans. Those factors are, cephalic (headfirst) births, bipedalism (the upright gait), and the high encephalization quotient (high brain to body ratio, or large brains). In the vast animal kingdom, all three are uniquely human, making them unlikely to be present by coincidence. These three qualities could easily have influenced the evolution of each other, fuelling human development. I continued to mull over the three key words trying to eek out any linkage. The solution to this puzzle could lie hidden within natural selection, with a sequence of events unravelling in humanity’s evolution. In human evolution walking upright was an important initial step. ‘Our’ descent from trees in the African savannah of Eastern Kenya was gradual but crucial in determining the particular direction human evolution would take. »
Cephalic presentation occurs in 97% of births.
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POSSIBLE SEQUENCE IN THE EVOLUTION OF HOMO SAPIENS
THEORY
BIPEDALISM
INCREASE IN BODY SIZE
INCREASE LENGTH OF PREGNANCY
CEPHALIC PRESENTATION
HIGH ENCEPHALISATION QUOTIENT
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Anthropological studies show that our predecessors first walked upright then gained size and height. One of the first upright, bipedal primates named “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis), was only three feet tall. An improved diet, rich in high protein meat could have helped these hominids gain stature and a longer duration in the length of pregnancy. Subsequent hominids including the first Homo, Homo habilis, started getting taller. Coupled to height, brain size seems to have followed. It is unlikely that brain size grew before body weight and height since this would lead to a “top-heavy” species! For the last three million years, brain size has been steadily increasing. Then, around 200,000 years ago, suddenly, abruptly, brain size shot up by 30%. Our predecessors had much smaller brain sizes, take Homo erectus with a brain volume of 909cc, and compare that to modern human brains at 1,350cc. Oxonian neurobiologist Colin Blakemore suggests that genetics had a role to play. He postulates that the intelligence of early hominids arises from a macromutation in a single human being 200,000 years ago. Human beings could have been a freakish genetic accident. Yet, scientific evidence does not support this theory, since no single genetic mutation linked to big brains has been found. More reasonable theories suggest that environmental influence such as diet
could have switched on latent mutations. The interaction between genetic make-up and environmental factors is called epigenetics, and it could have kicked in leading to a jump in brain size. Another possibility is that the increase in brain size is linked to a headfirst presentation at birth. As the physical size of the hominids increased, so did the length of pregnancy. As pregnancy increased in length, early delivery became rarer since it leads to death and birth defects, two factors which easily lead to natural selection. Moreover, breech births became rarer with a longer pregnancy. Breech births at the end of singleton pregnancies, are linked with brain deficits. Studies from Denmark led by Dr Lone Krebs and his team, have shown how language problems are more frequent in breech births rather than normally delivered infants (10.6% versus 3.2%). Further studies by this team highlighted increased social and language disabilities in children born by breech. These abilities are intrinsic human traits, which may have been crucial in the process of natural selection. As headfirst births became more common in hominids, another variable may have kicked in: gravity. Was it possible that headfirst births coupled to an upright gait increased blood supply, which supplemented more oxygen and nutrition to the head helping increase brain size? A clue may lie in the
THINK THEORY
Twin 1
Twin 2
FURTHER READING • Darwin C. 1871. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray.
Twin 1 is larger than twin 2 in the majority of multiple pregnancies, possibly due to gravity.
results of multiple pregnancy (twin) studies. Both body weight and brain volume in twin births are significantly larger in the lower, first-born twin, compared to the higher second born twin. Imaging studies of newborn brains by Dr Hulshoff and co-workers, suggest that second born twins have a smaller brain volume. In triplets a similar pattern is seen, with a progressive decrease in brain and body weight from the first to the third baby. Gravity has a powerful effect on the body. Varicose veins appear in the legs of people as they age. Loss of gravity in space makes the facial veins of astronauts bulge. Their faces tend to become plump, while thinned out legs become “bird-like.” Blood supply can also control organ size: the higher the blood flow, the larger the organ. A prime example is the kidney, with blood supply clearly correlating with size. The brain is no exception, the size of the left and right hemispheres are influenced by blood supply. In the frontal brain areas, greater blood flow in the right hemisphere enhances its size. The opposite applies to the posterior brain areas, with the left hemisphere becoming larger than the right. The
size of the brain is linked to blood supply. Once the human brain gains an edge at birth, the “head”-start is sufficient to outstrip all other species. Gravity’s effects on brain blood supply have a part to play until at least the first year of life. At birth, the human brain weighs, on average, 450 grams. In contrast, newborn chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) of a similar body weight have a brain weighing only 150 g. When a human infant is one year old its brain size doubles in weight to around 1 kg. The great leap could be linked to a baby’s inability to walk upright. By six months, most human babies would just about be able to sit up. Spending more time lying prone could assist gravity in supplying more blood to the nutrient hungry brain. The enlarged human brain attains the largest brain volume to body size amongst all life forms. My thoughts go back to those early hours in the delivery room, rekindling the emotions surrounding the breech delivery I had performed. Those thoughts and emotions in the early hours of the day may have shed light on the dawn of the greatest attribute in humanity’s evolution — the human brain.
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• Hannah ME, Hannah WJ, Hewson SA, Hodnett ED, Saigal S, Willan AR. 2000 • Planned caesarean section versus planned vaginal birth for breech presentation at term: a randomised multicentre trial. Term Breech Trial Collaborative Group • Lancet;35:1375-83. • Tunde-Byass MO, Hannah ME. 2003 Breech vaginal delivery at or near term. Semin Perinatol. 27:34-45. • Costandi M. 2010. Blakemore: Plasticity Made Us Human. DANA Foundation Report . • Krebs L, Langhoff-Roos J, Thorngren-Jerneck K. 2001. Long-term outcome in term breech infants with low Apgar score— a populationbased follow-up. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 100(1):5-8. • Hulshoff Pol HE, Posthuma D, Baaré WF, De Geus EJ, Schnack HG, van Haren NE, van Oel CJ, Kahn RS, Boomsma DI. 2002. Twin-singleton differences in brain structure using structural equation modelling. Brain.; 125:384-90
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The underwater world beneath Tas-Silġ
Maps, Bots, and a Neolithic Site
FEATURE
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A team of American and Maltese scientists has recently mapped the water system underneath the Neolithic temple site at Tas-Silġ. No picks and shovels were involved; instead, high-tech wizardry let the team create a 3D picture of this underground world. Words by The Editor.
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he VideoRay Pro III dipped and slammed into the pool wall. I cringed and hoped I didn’t break the robot, I quickly realised how tricky it is to manoeuvre these machines in murky water. I was clumsily driving an American robot in the University of Malta’s pool. This machine had just mapped the underground water cisterns at Tas-Silġ, a
Neolithic temple around 4000 years old with a rich history that includes the Punic and Roman periods until around 400 AD. A team of American computer engineers is currently collaborating with Maltese archaeologists to explore Malta’s underground wells and cisterns. The number of people working on this project and the breadth of disciplines is remarkable. Here are their stories.
THINK FEATURE
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t all started five or six years ago when Dr Christopher Clark (California Polytechnic State University [CalPoly] and Princeton University) met Christopher Olstad (Marine Resources Development Foundation) at a conference in America. Olstad was showing some gritty filming of an underwater site by robots, which Clark knew he could improve. Then, Olstad introduced him to a Maltese archaeologist called Timmy Gambin, who quickly arranged for a one-week trip to Malta. In that first year, they explored eight underground water cisterns in a week. This year they are on their fourth visit and brought 11 students to map over 30 cisterns and two caves. For Dr Clark, using robots to map these underground places is a challenge. Before this collaboration, he used to map swimming pools, which are neither fun nor have much real world application. Mapping ancient cisterns is useful for archaeologists and helps him push robot technology to its limits. The researchers usually have no idea how large an underground space is. Above ground, all you will see is a small hole or two, when they lower the robot “you have no idea what it’s going to be like […] this is the exciting part” said Dr Clark. Exciting, but it poses many challenges. The most obvious problem is the water itself. Everything is waterproofed. Dr Clark usually buys off-the-shelf equipment, “I want to buy the best stuff that doesn’t break so often.” He travels around the world and transportation tends to break robots. He does not want to fix broken equipment in a country whose language he does not understand and with little idea from where to source spare parts. Industry built robots have been tested repeatedly, they tend to last longer than lab-built ones. Water also scatters light. Land based robots use lasers to quickly and efficiently scan an area. Underwater, lasers would not work since debris scatters light quickly. Instead, roboticists use sonar. Sound waves travel further and faster underwater, although “it’s the speed of light versus the speed of sound.” The robot has to move much slower to gather the same detail. »
DR CHRISTOPHER CLARK Mr SharkBot “I’m just the robot guy” Students using robots to explore Tas-Silġ, a site under the care of Heritage Malta.
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FEATURE
SharkBot
Image: Flickr/joncrowell
Dr Chris Clark collaborates with the shark expert Dr Chris Lowe (California State University) to track sharks with robots. Clark uses a torpedo-shaped robot made by OceanServer called the Iver2. The process involves catching a shark, attaching an acoustic tag, then releasing it. The robot can now use the tag to track the shark using sonar. Tracking sharks helps researchers know where a shark’s location is to learn more about its behaviour. Biologists have traditionally followed sharks around for hours on a boat keeping their receivers within range, or had stationary receivers in areas they knew were visited by sharks. Neither solution is ideal. “A robot can last longer and follow the shark in a better way” said Chris Clark, the researchers just picks up the bot, collects, and interprets the data. The next step is attaching more sensors on the robot like salinity, temperature, and so on. These will help “see if there is some correlation between the environment and what the shark is doing.” The robots also need to last longer, move faster, with more manoeuvrability, “something super small, quick and with a long battery life” — that’s Dr Clark’s ideal SharkBot.
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as-Silġ is one of the most complicated cisterns Dr Wood and her team has mapped. “We never know what they [the cisterns] will look like. It’s always very exciting. Is it a single chamber or a large complicated chamber like Tas-Silġ?” This neolithic site simply has three large entry points above ground. When they lowered the robot through these holes they discovered multiple chambers, tunnels and an immense networked area that could provide water to multiple areas on the temple site. An incredible early example of convenient water “on tap.” Being underwater complicated mapping, “on land they can do things they can’t quite do in water.” For Dr Wood to create these 3D maps, her team needs to take the sonar data collected by the robots and turn it into a geometric model. “Sonar is much less accurate than laser […] there are problems with noise, gaps in the data and aligning everything.”
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The data they handle is essentially a number of dots surrounding the robot. The dots represent the distance between the robot and the nearby wall as determined by sound waves. As the robot is controlled around the chamber it gathers a bunch of other dots, by knowing the robot’s location a computer programme can then join the dots to make a 3D map. The programme they use is called the marching cubes algorithm that was originally developed for medical data to “create 3D surfaces of the brain.” This is a very novel application but means that the raw data needs to be filtered and adjusted to fit the model. The computer-generated map also needs smoothing and data gaps are filled using probability theory (pictured in red) to make everything look as it should. On top of this skeleton a texture is applied (usually camera images of the actual site), which gives an even closer approximation to the cave’s actual appearance — they can even fill it up with water. ■
The biggest research challenge is for the robot to know its location. Without this knowledge, “there is no point in taking a scan.” “There is no GPS down in the Cistern”, so the researchers need to develop techniques like SLAM (Simultaneous localization and mapping) that help the robot scan and map itself at the same time. In a cistern, the robot can do this in two ways. One is a smart tether that links the robot to the joystick control (manual manoeuvring). Sensors along the line’s length take measurements that can locate the robot. Another method uses computer algorithms to figure out location. The robot can send sound waves in multiple directions and use the overlapping waves to pinpoint itself. There are many different ways a robot can do this, but the result is the same: the robot measures where it is and where the walls of the cistern, well, or cave are, so how does this get transformed into a 3D map? ■
Top: Cisterns of private homes in Gozo. Below: Water system under Tas-Silġ.
THINK FEATURE
I
suspect it is a well,” said Keith Buhagiar nonchalantly. “What do you mean, are you saying that Tas-Silġ is a well not a cistern, should I change the title of my article?” I replied naively (previous title: Using Underwater Robots To Explore The Cistern Under Tas-Silġ). “Cisterns and wells can be confused,” he replied. “Tas-Silġ has the appropriate geology” for a well, which could explain its ancient nature. Trying to recover from my confusion I simply asked for definitions. “A cistern would be a subterranean or above ground reservoir, a water storage tank. […] The first form of waterproofing was simply a mixture of cement with ground pottery and lime, which could retain water. […] A well should be a shaft that taps an underground source,” which is what they think occurred at Tas-Silġ. More sensors on the robot would help Mr Buhagiar be certain. In particular, “an analy-
“Being in the space would help me better detect the evidence” sis of the actual water,” would help identify the difference between a well and a cistern, since one collects rain runoff, while the other directly taps the water table. The tests would identify the water’s source, for example, detection of high levels of chemicals like nitrates and calcite deposits identify wells. Apart from robotics, Mr Buhagiar believes that he will only be certain after going down there himself. “Being in the space would help me better de“I identify which is which” tect the evidence, give me a better idea of the clay deposits […] these clues would be difficult to detect eras, which suggest that the well was exusing the [robot], for now human access panded to its current size from those times. should back up the data.” Timmy Gambin also suggests that “the comThe Tas-Silġ well system is also one plexity of the tunnels aimed to keep a flow of the most complex structures the of water throughout the system. […] It must team has ever seen. The team has theo- have been necessary to make them intricate, ries but does not have all the answers. […] to efficiently feed different areas, every“It is still a work in progress […] one of thing boils down to efficiency.” the concerns must have been to secure Advanced robotics and 3D mapping a water supply,” the inhabitants could made this possible, but further sensors, have tapped water from multiple loca- high-definition photography, and sampling tions. The well’s entry points are from might give the archaeologists all the answers areas built in the Punic and Roman they need. ■ »
MR KEITH BUHAGIAR The Water Expert
DR ZOE WOOD The 3D Map-Maker “I do all the computer graphics” 43
FEATURE
DR TIMMY GAMBIN The Maltese Connector “I act as a catalyst”
Marine Biology and Robotics “Another wonderful story of collaboration. We worked with Dr Joseph Borg from the Department of Biology and under his guidance we are starting to formulate a plan to go back to marine caves to gather data that he and his students could use. […] The caves can be 100 meters deep with narrow entrances. It would be extremely difficult and dangerous for a diver to reach the inner depths of a cave. The robot is safer and more economical,” explained Gambin. The potential is incredible. If they manage to retrofit robots to measure oxygen levels, salinity, temperature, and so on, then merge the data with the marine life present, the researchers could have a 3D picture of cave ecology.
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r Timmy Gambin initiated the ‘Ancient Cisterns Exploration Project’, which brought this team of people together to explore the wells and cisterns of historic buildings around Malta and Gozo. He believes that “the archaeologist and roboticist can work on their own, but why reinvent the wheel when you both stand to benefit? […] Dr Clark brings in the technological firepower. For him it was much more interesting and much more tangible because he was seeing the practical use of his computer codes. […] Now he was working in a real environment.” Dr Gambin is also a researcher and collaborates with Keith Buhagiar. His research interest is on how to merge technology with archaeology. “Not just technology for the sake of technology, but how we can merge technology with a practical research use. […] It is essential for technology and archaeology to move ahead together.” Dr Gambin’s out-of-the-box thinking has driven this innovative project. Apart from bringing everyone together, Dr Gambin helps the US team hit the ground running. “I took care of logistics, daily transport, timetables, things that may sound trivial but are absolutely essential. They find two vans waiting for them with their project name, the vans take them to the apartment, the apartment has everything even grocery shopping, they find the timetable, I meet them at the apartment, I brief them as to what the timetable is […] everything is taken care for them. I also need to organise access to the sites, requests for permits, and so on. We plan months ahead” ■
THINK FEATURE
The Research Question and answer “In a nutshell, one of the research questions that we asked was: do the water management systems existing in modern day Rabat or Mdina reflect the architectural shell that surrounds them. What does that mean? Does a baroque palace in Mdina have a well or cistern that dates to the baroque period, or could it have something older? The only way to find out is to go into these wells. Some of these wellheads are too small, some of them are too dangerous. So we chose robots.” “The robots took videos and generated 3D maps. On the basis of these data, together with Keith Buhagiar, we were able to start deducing the different typologies.
You have the standard bell-shaped well which is omnipresent in most houses that predate the 1950s, but then you have other shapes, you have rectangular, rectangular with tunnels, and shafts that tap straight into the water table. Some are recent, some are ancient” — Dr Timmy Gambin. Mr Keith Buhagiar explained how before bell-shaped wells and cisterns there existed structures shaped like a bottle of wine or like a square, since they were converted from disused quarry sites. “The most impressive site is at Tal-Kaċċaturi close to Borġ In-Nadur in Birżebbuġa”
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he most unexpected part of this project wasn’t the age of the site, or complexity of the tunnel, but Dr Jane Lehr, a researcher in ethnic and gender studies. What did she have to do with robots and temples? “I study ways in which graduating engineers can be best prepared to interact in an international context, […] by developing training specifically focused not only on cultural differences but also how these cultural differences might matter in a technical context.” At a conference on Engineering Education, a director from Boeing, which employs over 150,000 people, emphasised how “we need to tear down the walls of the disciplinary silos, so that the students can be prepared to work in agile organisations, where they can interact with engineers, customers, sales staff, accountants, and so on,” reflected Dr Lehr. By teaching students skills to work with people from other engineering disciplines, backgrounds, and cultures, they are helping them get a job. That is why Dr Lehr ran a module on Maltese history for all the American students on this project. In Malta, the students had to juggle learning about a new culture, a technical project, and conduct research on the Maltese education system, attitudes towards climate change, or strategies on its water resources. Within three months of graduating, eighty-two percent of engineering students at CalPoly find a job. ■ »
DR JANE LEHR The Cultural Wizard “What it means to be a global engineer” 45
FEATURE
Robot used to train students at the University of Malta.
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obotics in Malta has historically focused on making land machines more intelligent and less dependent on humans, “on this level we are at par with international research” emphasised Professor Simon Fabri from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Malta. The department is industry focused, and till now there is no industrial demand for underwater robots. Robots might be able to do much more than divers, but the initial capital investment has been offputting for companies. By collaborating with the Americans, Maltese researchers might finally have a good reason to invest in underwater robotics explained Prof. Fabri. Timmy Gambin shares this vision. He hopes that this collaboration will “kickstart a process of funding applications” for Malta. Prof. Fabri and Dr Clark are also eager to apply for funds together. Dr Gambin continued, “having our own robot would enable us to become more autonomous; autonomy not to isolate us, but for further collaborations.” Gambin sees two possibilities, “one, we can collaborate with people who are already established. Look, we’re building an ROV [remotely operated vehicle], you built one five years ago, but can we better yours? Two, hooking up with [for example] the University of Benghazi and saying: we have five years experience in geoscience, let’s collaborate. They need geoscientists to see where mud is, where sand is, where underwater springs are” he clearly sees Malta taking a lead in this field. Apart from the hardware, collaboration has also helped Maltese students. This year Maltese students from the Faculty of En-
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gineering joined the expedition and were taught how to manoeuvre the robots. Attracting funds would also help fund muchneeded Ph.D.s and postdocs, who usually do the bulk of research in science. As Prof. Fabri said, “you need to employ someone who is working full-time on research. […] My role is that of mentor.” Malta recently got over half a million euros from European Union ERDF funding to train the next generation of roboticists. After they graduate these students need to find research jobs. The applications for robots, and the researchers that accompany them, are endless. The “technology starts in the lab, developing the algorithms, making them perform better,” explained Prof. Fabri. “But, if it stops there I’m not happy, I would like to see them applied to real-life situations.” Roboticists can collaborate with health practitioners using robotics for rehabilitation, or aiding physiotherapy, cleaning, or transporting goods around a large building. “In Malta, we rarely get this opportunity,” normally industry buys its technology from abroad and does not research. “University could help specialise the robot for them and improve on it.” When Simon saw this “new application in archaeology, [he was] all for it.” ■ Next year, should see the American team bring an even better robot, with better cameras, sensors, and software. It will help explore new underwater worlds and solve more research puzzles. I am really looking forward to driving the improved robot, hopefully not into a wall but into an unknown ancient cistern, or well.
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PROF. SIMON FABRI Robots ‘r’ Us “Making the machine more intelligent”
FURTHER READING • The Malta Cistern Mapping site: http://tinyurl.com/maltamapping • The CalPoly and Princeton students’ blog: http://tinyurl.com/gozocisterns • The Aurora Trust: http://auroratrust.com • Some stunning pictures of the new Engineering Lab at UoM (Warning: includes cute robots): http://www.um.edu.mt/eng/ sce/facilities/control • The American scientist’s talk details: http://tinyurl.com/exptechs • Dr Chris Clark’s Robotics Lab: http://lair.calpoly.edu/ • Smart Tether technology tested to localise robots underwater: http://www.smarttether.com/ • If you want to buy your very own yellow robot: http://www.videoray.com/
THINK FESTIVAL
Researchers meet
art
this September
I
magine passing by the National Library of Malta in Valletta and seeing a giant brain hanging between its arches. Imagine watching five-foot tall fruit flies sitting on benches, sipping coffee, or playing the guitar. Imagine an old Maltese bus built as a circle. On 28 September, all of these ideas will become reality. The installations are part of ‘Science in the City’, a festival filled with scienceinspired art, music, dance, and theatre. The festival will be launched on 28 September as part of Researchers’ Night, an EU-wide event that celebrates researchers, placing them on centre stage. From 18:00hrs onwards, activities will run from St James Cavalier, through Merchant’s Street, past St John’s Co-Cathedral, into Republic Street, and end in St George’s Square. Two satellite events are located in Strait Street and Sappers Street. The main event is a live science TV show packed with entertainment giving a memorable night for all the family. Pawlu Borg Bonnaci will host the show, guiding the audience through live experiments, comedy, and games. Families will also be treated to a science themed carnival parade. Maskri Grotteski will be carried, pushed, or driven down Valletta’s main streets bringing robots, characters from the game Angry Birds, and Malta’s own beloved Temi Zammit to life. For the following month, St James Cavalier will be transformed into a science discovery centre. The Upper Galleries will
host a science and art exhibition by some of Malta’s upcoming as well as established artists (Raphael Vella, Elisa Von Brockdorff, Norbert Francis Attard, and others). The theatre will run plays including the acclaimed QED, a play about a day in the life of the eccentric Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman. This scientist wrote several novels, took part in the Manhattan project, and died of cancer in 1988, aged sixty-nine. It will also run a kids area, film festival, science cafés, and more. Many of these activities will run during Notte Bianca, bringing science for the first time to Malta’s largest all-night cultural initiative. Apart from the EU FP7 Programme, Science in the City is also supported by the Malta Arts Fund. The event is coordinated by the University of Malta with the participation of the Malta Chamber of Scientists, Valletta Local Council, PBS, AP (Architecture Project), MEUSAC, Lily Agius Gallery, and MARes (Where’s Everybody).
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The full programme will be available nearer the date at www.scienceinthecity.com.mt and Facebook (search for Science in the City Malta).
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CULTURE
culture:
VISIBLE,
VIRTUAL,
VISCERAL I
Imagine Valletta in 2018
f you thought the year 2018 was a long way off, think again. Preparations are already underway for Valletta to win the title of European Capital of Culture 2018. To win the title, the Valletta 2018 Foundation is preparing a Cultural Programme filled with some of Malta’s best ideas. The V.18 bid includes all of Malta and Gozo, supporting the development and promotion of every form of cultural activity. V.18’s vision is to set in motion a process of culture-led regeneration. Maltese citizens will engage through a creative forwardlooking evolution set within a broad European and Mediterranean context. Through this, V.18 aims to create an Environment of Exchange, which allows for ideas, dialogue, and creativity to flow freely within Valletta and the Maltese islands. V.18’s mission is to develop the conditions for a Visible, a Vir-
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tual, and a Visceral Culture to develop in Valletta and Malta; a Visible Culture by sustaining a cultural infrastructure to support a long-term legacy; a Virtual Culture through nurturing technological structures that enhance communication; and a Visceral Culture that enables a debating society. V.18 recently held the second edition of Imagine 18, a two-day public conference and forum, where artists and cultural operators came together to develop the Cultural Programme for 2018. The foundation has already received hundreds of proposals from artists, creative professionals, and the public at large. From these projects the foundation will create a Cultural Programme that will be finalised over the next few weeks for an August submission. In October, Valletta will hear if it has won the title of European Capital of Culture
2018. The title will give a huge boost to arts and culture in Malta. V.18 hopes it will also create a positive ripple effect felt throughout all sectors of Maltese society, in the run up to 2018 and far beyond.
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THINK RESEARCH
Supporting University research… it pays
Images: Tufigno.com
A
growing number of talented researchers are quietly making this world a better place to live in. More often than not, University researchers work behind the scenes, in their laboratories, in the library, or in their office, steadily developing new ideas that improve technology, enhance public policies, nurture a healthier and happier community, and quietly change the world. From time to time, one will make news with the announcement of a major discovery. The Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT) of the University of Malta was established in 2011 to create a supporting structure that sustains and expands this research, by providing additional funds that supplement the existing modest resources. The future of the University’s research activities will rely heavily on funding resources. Government has provided the initial seed capital of €500,000 for the RIDT, but now this trust needs the support
of other stakeholders so that research activity prospers. The University of Malta belongs to the whole community and serves this community. University research helps businesses in their technological advancements and product development; it helps civil society in its pursuit to resolve social, political, and environmental issues; it helps government improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public policies. University research helps students by bringing them closer to where innovation is happening. In a world that is constantly changing, research is becoming even more crucial to so many issues. Researchers are committed to do the work that makes it possible for business, government, and community leaders to make smart, informed decisions about the issues that matter most in our daily lives.
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For more information about RIDT log onto www.ridt.org.mt
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ALUMNI
ALUMNI talk Life after University: four stories from four graduates.
Stopping inflammation DR JESMOND DALLI talks about his journey from Malta to Harvard MY RESEARCH STARTED in a completely different discipline: rays and sharks. I studied these animals during a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Biology, and a Masters of Science in Biology at the University of Malta. I saw how these fish lived, where they were found, how they developed and the affect of local human pressures on their survival. The data was needed to help get to know these species and figure out how best to protect them from fishing impacts. An important achievement was finding the Portuguese dogfish (Centroscymnus coelolepis) — a first in Maltese waters. When I continued my studies abroad, I changed my specialty to immunopharmacology. For my Ph.D., (Queen Mary University of London), I worked in the laboratory of Prof. Mauro Perretti exploring the therapeutic potential of a protein called Annexin A1. We made small proteins based on the structure of Annexin A1 that reduce inflammation and helped return the tissue to its pre-inflammatory state. Inflammation is usually a normal bodily response, but over a long time it can cause disease ranging from heart disease and obesity to arthritis and cancer. My research focused on treating rheumatic disease like arthritis. The findings were promising, so we applied for a patent on these small proteins, which might help treat disease. Al-
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Laser microscopy image of an experimental model to determine how white blood cells interact with blood vessels. Blue: DNA, green: capillary wall, magenta: microparticles.
though it will take years, it would be really satisfying to see this research actually curing people. At the same time, I studied certain immune cells called neutrophils that regulate inflammation. These cells release microparticles that control swelling and prevent bodily harm. I helped pinpoint how the particles work and because of these findings, in 2010, I won the William Harvey Young Investigator Award. After my Ph.D., I moved to America to continue researching inflammation through a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr Charles Serhan’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School.
This lab has discovered a specific family of fatty acids, which are enriched in fish oils, that protect tissue by controlling inflammation, pain and promote tissue regeneration. We are now identifying new members of this family and working out exactly how they work.
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Ed: I first met Jesmond during my undergraduate studies at University when he introduced me to numerous fishermen at the pixkerija. We met on the docks of Marsa at 2 a.m. to the smell of dead fish and the sea — an unforgettable experience and my first research project.
THINK ALUMNI
Punk,
Shakespeare, and Stand-up Comedy
MS KRISTA BONELLO RUTTER GIAPPONE talks to us about the punk in Shakespeare I GRADUATED from the University of Malta with an undergraduate degree in Law and English, and went off to study Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. I emerged with a Masters in Shakespeare Studies. My dissertation was on tragicomedy, metacomedy (where characters realise that they are living in a comedy), and parody in Early Modern Drama. I focused on the poets and dramatists John Marston and Thomas Randolph, as well as Shakespeare. While researching, I took a little detour through punk
productions of Shakespeare, which soon became the springboard for my Ph.D. proposal. I received AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funding to research the interrelationship between punk performance and alternative standup comedy. Under the supervision of pioneering academic and stand-up comedian Dr Oliver Double (University of Kent), I am looking at the traces of music hall theatrical entertainment in punk performance and punk’s influence on comedy. My argument is that early 1980’s alter-
native comedy is infused with a punk attitude — from the way these comedians interact with audiences, to their reinvention of stand-up comedy, with an emphasis on ‘honest’ obscenity. Through punk, they have even returned to certain music hall values. Punk kindled a renewed sense of political responsibility in alternative comedy. Yet, I have not abandoned my passion for the Early Modern, and a part of my thesis is dedicated to Johnny Rotten’s declared reappropriation of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
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ALUMNI
First Light MR JOSEPH CARUANA talks to us about his love for astronomy I FIRST BECAME interested in astronomy as a child. The sight of a starry night sky got me hooked and I knew right then that I wanted to become an astronomer. The ensuing fascination with science led me to read for a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Malta. During this time, I participated in astrophysics summer projects with Dr Kristian Zarb Adami and Dr Victor Debattista. In my fourth year, I did my dissertation under Dr Debattista’s supervision, investigating how stars migrating ‘horizontally’ in disk galaxies affect galaxy thickness. I also analysed computer simulations of galaxies and compared them with what we observe in reality. At the University of Oxford, I started my doctoral studies as a fellow of ELIXIR, which is a European network of scientists involved with the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This telescope is the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). My research is on the early universe and involves identifying the most distant galaxies from data obtained with the HST. The light from these objects has travelled billions of years to reach our telescopes. Therefore, our observations are a snapshot in the Universe’s early history. This light can show how some of the first galaxies formed and their effect on the infant universe. I use observatories located on remote mountaintops (like Mauna Kea, in Hawaii) to carry out spectroscopic measurements, which allows for confirmation of galaxy distance and gives us clues about their properties. This research helps us understand the “Dark Ages”, a time when the universe was permeated by a “fog” of neutral hydrogen, the lightest atom in the Universe. We think that this “fog” was cleared by radiation emanating from the first objects. My doctoral studies provided opportunities to travel widely for meetings, conferences, and workshops related to the JWST, enabling me to receive additional training on space instrumentation from NASA and ESA project scientists. During this time, I remained involved in science outreach activities and taught General Relativity and Cosmology at Christ Church in Oxford. Later this year, I shall be moving to Berlin to start postdoctoral research on the early stages of galaxy formation and evolution. At the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, I will be working on MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer), a state of the art spectrograph for the European Southern Observatories’ Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. MUSE brings together a consortium of seven major research institutes and more than a hundred scientists and engineers. At the end of the year, research will get very exciting when the instrument goes online.
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THINK ALUMNI
Teachers never stop learning MY JOURNEY STARTED in 1994, when I read for my first degree at the University of Malta, a Bachelor of Education (Honours) degree within the Faculty of Education. Together with a friend of mine, I researched how gender identity develops in primary school children. A few years later, I read for a Diploma in Library and Information Studies. These studies were followed by a Master of Arts in Comparative Euro-Mediterranean Education Studies, when I researched the organisation of the teacher training scheme INSET (in-service education and training) in Malta. I interviewed teachers and ran focus groups to gauge their past experiences. After interviewing key stakeholders and policymakers, I concluded that teachers learn in very unique and individual ways. They have different learning methods and can be faced with constraints that may restrict their professional development. INSET provision needs to be sensitive to these needs.
Image courtesy of worldarchitecturenews.com
MS MICHELLE ATTARD TONNA talks to us about her long interest in teacher learning and development.
The library at the University of Aberdeen.
I am currently completing my Ph.D. studies at the University of Aberdeen on teacher training. I gathered data from teacher interviews and private online forums, then analysed it in an interpretive manner, generating my theory from the data itself. In this way, the text itself helped me construct meaning. The texts were also analysed in their social context. My investigations strongly suggest that teachers’ dispositions and perceptions
of professional learning impact on their degree of training. Teachers who eagerly pursue their career development thrive on collaborations and social interactions. Schools need to foster a positive environment to encourage these teachers to engage the company and support of their colleagues.
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For the author’s experience as a mother and researcher, see page 12
For a related project on astronomy, see our feature on page 14
Opposite page: Joseph Caruana in Christ Church Upper Library in Oxford. Above: Some of the observatories located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
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BOOK REVIEW by The Editor
FUN
. 99. 100
6. 4 7. 4 . 51. 50. 49. 4 8. 4
4 5. 4
41. 40. 3 42. 9. 3. .4
98
.9 . 93. 92 1. 90. 8 . 94 9. . 95 8 96 7. 9 .
. 76. 75. 74. 73. 7 . 77 2. 7 78 1 .7 9. 0. 69 . 6 8. 67, 66 65, 64. 63. 6 2. 38. 37 9 . 36 61 . 1. . 25 .6 . 34. 33. 32. 31. 30 .
. 83. 82. 5. 84 81. 6. 8 80 .8 .7 87 8.
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.2
28. 27. 26. 2 5 , . 4 . 23. 22. 2
.
56. 55. 54.
53. 2
20. 19. 1 8. 1 7 . 16
. 1 5. 14. 13
. 11. 10. 9. 12
8
. 7 . 6. 5. 4
0. 59. 58 .5 2. 1 7. 3.
100 WORD
Elephants on acid Alex Boese
ideas to change MALTA
An Artlab for contemporary visual production by DR VINCE BRIFFA Global cultural production has in recent years expanded far beyond any previous phenomenon in visual arts history. At the same time, the humanities have lost exclusiveness over image production. In fact many scientific fields indulge in lavish image-making as potential thinking and working support tools. A merger between the artist’s studio and the research laboratory is perhaps now called for. This place would encourage research; produce and disseminate the contemporary image; bridge the sciences and the humanities and address the totality of the image in the full spectrum of contemporary culture at the intersection of art, science, technology, and society.
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WHAT DO YOU think would happen if you were to inject 3,000 times the human dose of LSD into an elephant? The answer is at the end of this book review. Alex Boese’s Elephants on acid is the perfect bathroom read. He has collected short snippets of bizarre and sadly entertaining experiments. They will make you laugh out loud, cry, and learn. The book is split into 10 chapters. Each chapter is themed as a collection of short stories on a topic. You will be horrified by Frankenstein’s Lab, a section that talks about real life mad scientists who created zombie kittens and two-headed dogs. Apparently, when in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered that electricity caused a frog’s muscles to contract moving its limbs, others decided to try it on pretty much everything, including humans. Electricity was seen as part elixir of life, part public demonstration. Thankfully, human demonstrations were eventually banned due to public outrage, but might even have inspired Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein. Other experiments have less shock value, yet are still incredibly interesting. Take Chapter 4, Bedtime Stories, when Boese writes about sleep experiments. In one story, the author sheds light on how the myth of sleep-learning came about. In 1942, Professor Lawrence LeShan kept reciting the phrase, after his gramophone broke down, “My fingernails taste terribly
bitter” to 20 young sleeping boys. They heard it over 16,000 times and the Professor concluded that this stopped them biting their nails via their subconscious. It didn’t cross his mind that having an old man talking whilst you’re trying to sleep biased the results. By the 1950s, carefully controlled studies dispelled this myth, although it still keeps cropping up — every crank likes a good story to spin, and sell. I wish it were true, it is such a shame I cannot learn quantum physics in my sleep: shoot! By chapter 5 (Animal Tales), Alex Boese visits the book’s title. In 1962, animal ethics hardly existed; injecting LSD into an elephant was definitely a poorly thought out experiment. But, it didn’t stop Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West and Chester M. Pierce from trying it out on an adult male. After nearly two hours of charging, collapsing, and panting, the elephant met its maker. Perhaps this is how the term pink elephants became linked to the drug. This book will interest anyone who likes bizarre scientific facts. Inside its covers are the perfect party stories. It is a very entertaining read, though I could not read it for long periods. It’s the type of book you pick up, read a few stories, and then put down. Expect to learn a fun fact or two, a bit of science, and lots of entertaining history. One of the most entertaining books I’ve read this year, highly recommended.
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GAME REVIEW by Costantino Oliva
Super Mario 3D Land delivers the Mario heritage to a new generation GAMES SERIES continuously repeat concepts, content, and mechanics. Nintendo’s idea of digital gaming consists largely in establishing franchises and expanding endlessly. The most famous series is Super Mario, and its main character has appeared in more than 20 games. The Italian plumber has confirmed some reassuring notions: you kill goombas by jumping on them, mushrooms make you bigger, and yes, the princess has been kidnapped. As you might expect, Super Mario 3D Land does not do much to destroy our ex-
pectations, but builds on top of them to construct an experience carefully aimed at both veteran players and newcomers. It successfully hits both targets. With an intelligent use of 3D space, the game keeps you running frantically for your life while keeping an eye open for that last golden coin, hidden thanks to an astute perspective trick. The attention is constantly shifted through 2D and various interpretations of 3D, constructing dozens of minor levels, each with a different experience. Many Mario classics are brought back for a true nostalgia-fest: the tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros 3, spooky ghost houses, and even the classic boss fight from the original Super Mario Bros — with a twist. Such homages and citations are used to bring back memories in Super Mario 3D Land, a joyful
ride topped with new perspective innovations. Newcomers are going to find one of the most carefully balanced Mario games ever: frustration is calmed by power ups appearing only when you seem stuck on the same level. Originality in games is a problem and massive franchises can bar new gaming concepts, but there is a deep heritage, history and culture connected with series like Mario. In Super Mario 3D Land, these aspects have been tastefully reconstructed and reinvented. The future of videogames seems bright.
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FACT or FICTION? SITTING ABSOLUTELY STILL «»
Everything moves. Our galaxy rotates with our sun spinning in its arms. The Earth zips round the sun at 107,300 kilometers per hour, while its surface rotates faster than a rocket. Even atoms constantly vibrate. However, when we close our eyes it still seems as if the Universe has stood still.
ARE WE ALL MADE FROM
STARDUST? «» Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction:
yes, we all are made of stars. The oxygen we breathe, the calcium found in our bones, the carbon that forms the core of all our molecules, they were all once in the heart of a giant star. Less than a second after the big bang, the simplest elements (hydrogen and helium) formed. Four hundred thousand years later, matter started to cool down and more complex atoms took shape. The drop in energy let particles coalesce and stars begin to form. At the heart of a star, temperature, pressure, and density are high enough to form iron (found in our blood). It requires a supernova, a star exploding, to form the heavier elements. From this mix, our sun, the Earth and then we were formed.
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TRIBUTE
Peter Serracino Inglott the one and the many Mr Ranier Fsadni
T
here is a widespread public image of Peter Serracino Inglott as an absent-minded professor, lost in the jungle of thought and learning, spell-binding in explaining and interpreting what is seen and unseen in his listeners’ all too human life, but himself somehow oblivious to important aspects of the world of practical action. There are good reasons why this image of Fr Peter is so prevalent. It’s simple, it’s familiar and, yes, there are plenty of true anecdotes that might count as corroborating evidence (such as the one that begins with Fr Peter rowing a small boat on Lake Victoria to contemplate alone the splendour of the African dawn, oblivious to a family of baby hippopotami, and which ends with Fr Peter swimming frantically for the shore after the protective mother rammed his boat and chomped one end off ). But it’s also a misleading image. It does not make sense of some fundamental choices he made. It’s based on a certain understanding of mind and knowledge that Fr Peter strongly rejected — both in how he lived and as a description of what makes a good thinker and of how true knowledge is created out of information. Fr Peter was many things to many people — a friend, a priest, a teacher, a mentor, an administrator, a philosopher, a strategic thinker
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and advisor, a counsellor, and confidant. He was sought out by people who had virtually no connection to the world of higher education and research. He was truly multifaceted. So, rather than substitute one overly simple image for another, I will focus on some choices he made concerning his research and academic life, and how these choices related to his idea of knowledge and truth. What follows is a preliminary reconnaissance exercise. Any person’s life can be read in multiple ways; Fr Peter led an eventful one that requires long discussion for its lineaments and surprises to come into focus. Currently, any overall shape that can be given to his works is necessarily premature, since the papers he left at his death still need sifting and include several unpublished works. My starting point is the peculiarity of Fr Peter’s academic distinction. In the history of the University of Malta his career is probably unique given the sheer number of offices he held. At one point or another he served as Librarian, Head of Department of Philosophy, Acting Head of the Department of Economics, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Chairman of the Mediterranean Institute, and Rector in two non-consecutive periods; the subjects he taught included literature
Fr Peter at the opening ceremony of the academic year 1995/1996.
(both criticism and creative writing), philosophy, and Mediterranean Studies. None of these roles were held as pure formality or without consequence. In teaching literature he helped cultivate the talent of some writers who went on to become leading poets; his headship of the Economics department coincided with the student years of several men who later took leading roles in government and economy; his teaching of Mediterranean Studies led to the founding of a journal. He was not a dabbler. He edited and annotated two anthologies of contemporary
THINK TRIBUTE
Reading Mediterraneo II: Coltrane & Caterina/ The Pursuit of Transcendence — closing night of Evening on Campus 2011. Photo by Daphne Pia Kelleher
Maltese poetry that remain standard works of reference. His published analysis of the 1970s Cold War in the Mediterranean is a model of its kind, bringing together developments in military, food, and mineral technologies to shed light on the arms race’s economic dimension; Prof. David J. Attard, a world authority on the Law of the Sea, openly thanks Fr Peter for sparking his initial intellectual interest in maritime affairs. Meanwhile, in philosophy, Fr Peter’s published articles on the rights of future generations eventually led to an invitation to lecture on the philosophy of law at the Sorbonne; while his work on philosophical and theological aesthetics led to and was fuelled by his editorship of the Milanese journal, Arte Cristiana. Despite being committed to working in a research-oriented university, he chose not to follow paths that were surely open to him. He studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford (1955–58) and theology in Paris (1958–60) and Milan (1960–63), distinguishing himself in all three places when each institution was enjoying a golden age in his chosen subject. His teachers and good friends included some of the most celebrated 20th century names in philosophy and theology. However, he didn’t use his networks to embark on a professional career abroad. He did not even use to the full all opportunities: in the 1990s, when the Sorbonne invited him to be a visiting professor for a whole semester — it was an opportunity to write and discuss in a world-renowned centre of scholarship and culture — he accepted to go for a much shorter period. Fr Peter spent 60 years of his life associated with one university or another, acquiring various promotions and honours along the way, without quite pursuing academic life as a career. He committed his life to research and imparting knowledge, and published prolifically on several subjects, as various as the philosophy of language, ethics and law; aesthetics (film, music, literature, paint-
ing, and the plastic arts, architecture, and myth); the philosophy of Maltese prehistory, history, and myth; the consequences of changing modes of communication for society, polity, and Church... But he never published an extensive work of fundamental research. His two books on philosophy — a general introduction and an introduction to the philosophy of language — had to be torn out of his hands and taken to the publisher; other books — one on the philosophy of food, another a study of Homer’s Calypso, yet another a study of the Maltese nun Adeodata Pisani, and perhaps others — remain unpublished.
“his career is probably unique given the sheer number of offices he held” Naturally, some friends thought that he was spreading himself too thinly, that he needed a narrower and more focussed programme, and he did sometimes entertain the question. Was there a unifying coherence to the work of the man of many parts? Considering two factors, a certain coherence does emerge. First, Fr Peter subscribed to the Aristotelian idea that knowledge and intellectual excellence should lead to action. A man of knowledge is a man of energy. He rejected a strict separation between theory and practice; neither did he believe that pure research should be dismissed as ‘mere theory’. Reflective research and energetic action, knowledge and project, were different necessary phases of a fulfilling human
life. For example, he studied the arts — but he also composed libretti for opera, helped establish an art school in Burundi, and coproduced audiovisual materials for liturgical renewal. Throughout his life he combined reflection with practical action, making significant contributions to the development of several institutions and projects. Second, he spoke with warm respect about the ideal of the medieval Muslim philosopher, whose duties were to include those of court theologian, musician, and physician: the combination of roles was meant to lead to a holistic understanding of humanity’s physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions. Fr Peter subscribed to the view that the body was the best picture of the soul, the retina of the mind’s eye. He thought of himself primarily as a priest — someone whose life was given shape and identity not by a career but by heeding the call to be ‘all things to all men’ (1 Corinthians 9: 22), that is, to meet all challenges where one’s talents are needed. The most striking aspects of this ethical commitment were two. He believed faith should free the mind of prejudice, not gag and bind it, and he treasured experience. Fr Peter professed to be a member of the learning Church, eager to see how new knowledge might deepen one’s experience of life’s mystery. Every country, every city, the remotest village, any person encountered was an occasion to discover human fraternity; how a shared remote past converged in the present; how nature coevolved with language and culture; how the universal aspects of human experience shaped the most particular of episodes and how life’s kaleidoscope expanded understanding of our very own, deeply personal possibilities. He had a gift for communicating this spirit, at once archaic and modern, to those who sought his advice, who often entered his room with many entangled thoughts and emerged feeling they had discovered fire.
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MEME
culture genes
MEME THINK
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ISBN: 978-99957-0-277-9
www.um.edu.mt
I D E A S
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M A LTA
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R E S E A RC H
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P E O P L E
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U N I V E R S I TY