The global cosmetics industry is a multi-billion euro business that shows no signs of slowing down. A large percentage of this evaluation is attributed to product packaging, which introduces a considerable environmental issue due to the skyrocketing demands for plastic packaging.
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Of all energy resources, solar energy is the most abundant. Harnessed even in cloudy weather, the rate of solar energy that arrives on Earth is 10,000 times greater than the rate at which humankind consumes energy. Solar technologies can deliver heat, cooling, natural lighting, electricity, and fuels for a host of applications.
But how does this technology work? Can the University of Malta (UM) lead the way towards greener energy?
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A spin-out from the University of Malta’s Institute of Digital Games is working on artificial intelligence-run game testing software. The engine would run thousands of low-level testing rounds before humans engage in high-level testing of a game prior to market release. Modl.ai co-founder Georgios N. Yannakakis tells THINK how his team aspires to change the game.
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Cop shows have taught us that grainy photos of a crime scene usually contain clues to a killer in action. By zooming in or running a program, investigators are able to catch critical clues to help in their investigation. In reality, if one zooms in on a poor-quality image, one simply gets pixels. A team of researchers at the University of Malta (UM) are developing software which can enhance images to extract critical details and clues using artificial intelligence. Dr Ing. Christian Galea, one of the researchers in the Deep-FIR project, talks us through his journey.
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There is more to making a building energy efficient than simply installing PV Panels. To create a truly zero-energy building, a holistic approach involving engineers, architects, and builders needs to be taken. THINK sits with Prof. Ing. Charles Yousif and his team to see what such an approach looks like.
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When we study history, we might think of larger-than-life figures such as William the Conqueror and Napoleon or of crucial dates such as the French Revolution of 1789 or the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But it is also possible to look at history through the lens of microhistory and socio-economic processes, focusing on the daily lives of the people or communities that lived through the time. For the team behind the project Playing Maltese History, this lens was the starting point for their video game, Valletta: Streets of History.
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Pacemakers and cochlear implants are wonders of modern engineering. However, these tools need to have their batteries replaced periodically. Over the past six years, Dr Ing. Francarl Galea has delved into the world of microelectronics and developed a new integrated circuit that is promising to solve that and many more problems.
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From the perspective of a student and an academic, how can ChatGPT be used in academia? Nathanael Schembri explores how the AI could be used to aid in assessments as well as scholarly work; such as in writing dissertations and research papers.
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For many of us, video games are a fun way to spend an evening. However, for some, video games are an integral part of our lives. When we’re not playing them, we’re reading about them, trawling through forums and ‘let’s plays’, and making them. The Global Game Jam brings together like-minded people for an intense three days of developing a game from scratch.
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ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. It is a chatbot developed by OpenAI and built on the GPT-3 language model. What sets it apart from other AI chatbots is the sheer amount of data it has been trained on, allowing the quality of its responses to cause waves, leading to headlines such as ChatGPT passing key professional exams. It has also consequently caused concern in academia that it may be used to cheat at exams and assignments. We speak to two academics from the University of Malta, Dr Claudia Borg and Dr Konstantinos Makantasis, to see how academia should adapt. Are such advances a threat to be curbed or an opportunity to be exploited?
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