THINK BIG: Can Malta produce a Nobel Laureate?

Nobel Medal

by Prof. Godfrey Baldicchino

Iceland (population: 320,000) is proud of writer Halldor Laxness; the even smaller Faroe Islands (pop: 50,000) celebrates its physician and scientist Niels Ryberg Finsen. The combined population of these countries is smaller than Malta’s, yet they have each managed to secure Nobel Laureates: Laxness in Literature in 1955; Finsen in Medicine in 1903. Small size may be a handicap, but—as the Iceland and Faroe examples attest—it is not an insurmountable obstacle. Small size should not prove to be a cheap excuse. So the question is: can Malta produce a Nobel Laureate?

Thinking big can be a powerful motivator. Grand ideas can push publics, enterprises, and governments to achieve the unthinkable. Believe in the impossible, advised the historian Max Weber, and then the possible might just become true. Landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade inspired the US Space Programme in the 1960s. The Live Aid Concerts in 1985 delivered £150 million in famine relief. And the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Initiative has equipped 2.5 million children, and counting, across the world.

Malta needs ‘think big’ projects to galvanise the nation. Securing a Nobel Laureate could be one. Developing an underground subway system (and linking Malta to Gozo in the process) could be another. Such projects need not be mutually exclusive. Their trademark would be their ability to engage public opinion, foster national pride, and raise the game to the next level. Naturally, people will continue to talk about politics, the weather, the traffic, the guy or gal next door… but also about these grand accomplishments. Of course, these projects will be controversial; they will have as many sympathisers as dissenters and critics. So? What’s new? That is how it should be.

Securing our political independence was one such dream for the 1960s. Bringing an end to our fortress economy was another aspiration for the 1970s. Joining the European Union was a third. Valletta Capital of Culture for 2018 may be a fourth and is an active project. What’s cooking in the Kitchen of Big and Bold Ideas for Malta for the next few years?

We need to think ahead. Apathy is dangerous, and we need big ideas to keep it at bay.

By the way, St Lucia (population: 150,000) has not one, but two Nobel Laureates: Arthur Lewis for Economics in 1979 and Derek Walcott (born in 1930, still alive at the time of writing) for Literature in 1992. 

That amazing Baroque world

St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta (Photo by Michal Szymanski / Shutterstock, Inc.)

By Professor Denis De Lucca

The Baroque period was a time of great upheaval. Monarchs believed in the divine right to rule, a notion continuously threatened by the relentless spread of the Ottoman Empire. Civilisations clashed like never before, opposing religious ideals stoking that vicious fire. Curiously, this was also the age when science, technology, and art were making their own grand strides. The cannon and the musket altered military landscapes. The studies of Descartes, Kepler, and Newton revolutionised thought. Borromini, Bernini, Guarini, and Caravaggio altered the artistic world.

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Road to resilience

Hardships do not befall us all in equal measure. Cassi Camilleri talks to Prof. Carmel Cefai about his work at the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health and the dedicated curriculum that seeks to impart the skill of resilience to those who need it most.

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Time to go

Kristina Mifsud
Kristina Mifsud

The start of a new scholastic year can bring about feelings of excitement to some and dread to others. After the relatively quiet summer months, children need to start making their way to school in the mornings. The result is traffic, an ugly monster that brings Malta to a standstill every morning. One solution could be the grouping of school trips to and from homes.

Kristina Mifsud (supervised by Ms Amanda Borg) decided to investigate the issue of traffic congestion caused by school transport by studying a hypothetical scenario in which the free school transport policy for government-run schools was extended to church and independent schools. First she conducted a survey: parents who have children at church and independent schools answered a questionnaire. These parents drove their children to school using their private vehicles. The results were very promising with more than 70% of mothers indicating that they would switch to the government-provided school transport if it was implemented. Those who said they would not take up the service gave three main reasons for this: mistrust of minivan drivers, their children being too young, and that the drive to school was a distraction-free time with their children.

Then Mifsud estimated the benefits and costs for the service using the take-up percentage from the questionnaire. The list of benefits was plentiful; time and fuel would be saved, while air pollution and environmental costs would be reduced. The costs included the initial investment (minivans), fuel, maintenance, and staff payment. When compared, the total estimated benefits far exceeded these costs! For every €1 invested by the government into this school transportation system, society would reap €2.66 in benefits. Additionally, the direct cost (time and fuel) of individual school runs per child per year amounts to €993.22, based on the average time taken per child of 48.8 minutes per school day. Given that the average fee by minivan drivers for a year worth of school runs is around €600, the minivan school transport option is much more sensible, economically speaking, and all the more so with regards to protecting our environment and solving the traffic headache.

This research was carried out as part of a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics at the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, University of Malta.

Where is the crowd?

Athletes who are cheered on during sporting activities are likely to perform better than athletes who don’t. The HeartLink project is investigating how to remotely cheer athletes while they are participating in sporting events. Dr Franco Curmi writes about his work for the HeartLink project.

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1565 – Was it that great?

A historical discovery does not always equal the unearthing of new documents or artefacts. Sometimes it’s about re-evaluating what we already know. Prof. Victor Mallia-Milanes tells Tuovi Mäkipere more.

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Counting pennies for creativity

Crowdfunding has proven to be a revolutionary business-financing phenomenon. From an A to Z list of every indie game, record or publication imaginable, to rebuilding homes, rehoming puppies and sending people to the Olympics, crowdfunding platforms have shown they can be just the right kind of push to get hatchlings to fly the nest. Having a local crowdfunding platform gives entrepreneurs and communities in Malta a unique edge.

Crowdfunding is a place where local ideas, concepts and projects meet and can receive public support. But, in a world of large crowdfunding opportunities across the globe, what does Malta actually stand to gain by having a platform with a local focus?

Financing options on the Maltese Islands are notoriously limited. Over 70 per cent of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) resort to traditional lending services like bank loans and overdrafts. Getting a new business off the ground is a daunting task, and 30% of local entrepreneurs admit to finding difficulty in securing investments.

Enter Zaar, the donation and reward-based crowdfunding platform set up by the Malta Business Bureau and the University of Malta [UoM]. The idea initially was to help bridge gaps in the market when it comes to financing for start-ups, innovation, and research projects. A local crowdfunding platform helps local companies by bypassing the legal and bureaucratic obstacles that come with using international platforms. While projects targeting Maltese recipients benefit from local context and backing, backers need not be based in Malta at all. By giving local creators the space to attract funding in the most efficient way, Zaar aims not only to fuel dreams, but to fulfil them.

That being said, Zaar is not just about financing, and one of the company’s core values is about getting good ideas out in the open. In operation for seven months, the platform has managed to fund everything from album launches to charity events. Some of the most successful offspring to date include: a soon-to-be launched Pet Cabin at Mater Dei; eeMod—a modular and multi-functional platform for makers, engineers, and students; funding for the UoM student racing team to build a new formula style car; and a project to bring graphic novels to Malta’s Public Library. Without a little push from Zaar to get public interest going, none of these projects may have made it.

Local crowdfunding also opens up new avenues for researchers and their projects. Governmental and EU funds are becoming harder to come by, but Zaar ensures that every researcher who has ever been told that their field lacks the appeal for funds, at least has the opportunity to try. For the first time, people have the chance to fund studies that they want to see done, and the thought of that is genuinely exciting.

Crowdfunding is going to be a game changer for innovation, and Zaar has the first pin down on the local map.

matthew@zaar.com.mt

zaar.com.mt

Attacking the silent epidemic of diabetes

 Diabetes prevalence is burgeoning on a global scale. In 2012, 1.5 million people worldwide died as a direct result of the disease, cementing it as an epidemic. By 2030, diabetes is expected to become the world’s seventh leading cause of death. With 12% of the Maltese population suffering from the disease, a research team has come together looking into new methods of detection to stop the disease in its tracks. Words by Yasmine Gatt.

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Politics, policy and risky business

As a child, Prof. Noellie Brockdorff was fascinated by the robots that inhabited the world of Isaac Asimov’s novels. She wanted to know why humans are different to robots. So why are human beings not perfectly rational creatures like robots? Dr Claude Bajada finds out more.

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PORN: How Do We Feel About It?

Around 13% of all internet searches can be linked to keywords related to erotic material, while by 2017 it is estimated that about a quarter of a billion people will be accessing pornography on mobile devices. While by far not a recent phenomenon, the widespread use and growth of the internet has made pornography common and easy to access. So why pornography? What more do we really need to know? And what is the point of such research anyway? From a psychological point of view, the visible increase of use needs to be studied, particularly in Malta, since very little research has been conducted.

Nicola Falzon (supervised by Dr Nicholas Briffa) focused her undergraduate research on the attitudes towards pornography; she looked into the literature regarding the effects of addiction, among other psychological implications. Despite the grave implications the field may imply, this study showed that not all effects are necessarily detrimental. University of Malta (UoM) students were found to have a fairly relaxed and liberal attitude towards it.

Raw data was collected through online surveys, of which 261 UoM students participated. The data was analysed using SPSS and data sets were compared between males and females, older and younger adults, and then compared to previous local and international research. Similar to information obtained through literature reviews, the results showed significant differences in the attitude towards pornography between men and women. Males were shown to watch pornography more frequently and had a more positive attitude, while females considered pornography to be harmful. However, both males and females answered similarly on the majority of survey statements.

Attitudes towards porn might be more similar than previously assumed. There were no significant age differences in the frequency of use or views of porn as harmful. Younger adults displayed a more positive attitude to porn than their older counterparts. Finally, while most female respondents agreed that access to pornography should be restricted, a strong majority did not agree it should be illegal.

So, what is the point of such research in the first place? Primarily, further studies into pornography can contribute towards the field of psychology, first by deepening the understanding of the phenomena, and secondly because it directly effects how treatment can be improved when porn causes a negative effect. Also, new methods of therapy and counselling could be developed to help with addiction that can cause relationship issues. Other problems include excessive masturbation that can lead to isolation from real life relationships and sexual practice. Research can also help influence changes in social policy, for example by including ‘Porn Literacy’ in sex education—currently absent. In Malta, 41% of 16- to 18-year-olds are sexually active; many learnt about sexual practices and pleasure from the internet, films, and video. It is no longer convenient to remain naïve at the expense of public health.

This research was carried out as part of a Bachelor in Psychology at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta.
by Nicola Falzon