My passion for renewable energies was sparked off during my undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Malta. Thanks to ERASMUS, I studied at the University of Strathclyde which had a Renewable Energy course that, at the time, was not offered in Malta.
I spent the last year of my bachelor studies designing and testing part of a wind tunnel to simulate atmospheric wind conditions. This test setup allowed for more realistic wind turbine experiments than previous efforts.
Although I wanted to further my career in wind energy, I opted first to broaden my knowledge in the field of renewables by enrolling for the Masters in Sustainable Energy Technology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in August 2010.
Over the first year, I worked on several projects. They included designing a smart grid which was presented at the European Joint Research Centre (JRC). I also helped develop an innovative thermal energy plant that exploits temperature differences between the ocean surface and deep-water (>1km deep) in tropical waters to generate electricity.
Over the second year, I again carried out research in wind energy. At the famed Wind Energy Research Institute of Delft University called DUWIND, I looked into the effect wind turbines can have on each other. When wind turbine blades cut through the wind they can change its direction. This can reduce the efficiency of nearby wind turbines making them produce less energy. My results showed that a turbine’s effect on nearby systems diminishes when the wind distortion it causes is limited either by the wind’s inherent instability or other by properties like its proximity to the ground. By exploiting these wind qualities, a wind farm’s efficiency can be improved by up to 15%.
After my Masters I worked for a year at Eindhoven as a flow and thermal analyst at Segula Technologies Consultancy. I developed new components for a company’s cutting edge lithography machines and for fuel cell system development for BOSAL engineering. Now I have managed to secure a Ph.D. scholarship in wind turbine blade aerodynamics, continuing the work I started in my Masters at DUWIND. This time I am looking into the influence of small flow control devices on the performance of large (10 MW) wind turbines.
Baldacchino was awarded a STEPS scholarship for his Masters studies, which is part-financed by the EU’s European Social Fund under Operational Programme II — Cohesion Policy 2007–2013.
Today’s world is unforgiving; we cannot slack. Be it students in academic pursuits, or executives in professional ones, the need to create new things and innovate is essential to keep up with ever-changing times. The RIDT believes that University and its students are the cradle of all needed change. Our aim is to continue promoting and stimulating research within our Campus community. We believe that our students carry this important message best.
For this reason, the RIDT has embarked on campaigns and initiatives to gather more interest and feedback from University students and alumni. The RIDT participated in the annual KSU Freshers’ Week. Here we met and greeted thousands of students just starting out their degrees. At the same time, we launched our Facebook page to regularly update and engage with students. We succeeded in attracting nearly 1,000 followers in less than two months from launch. We felt that this was not enough, and in order to further engage our online audience, we enticed them to become closer to University research. With this in mind, we launched a fresh online competition, the UoM Research Challenge, where participants had to answer questions about research happening at University. The competition was sponsored by GO, who donated an iPad Mini for the fastest person to complete the challenge. We have plenty of fresh, innovative concepts lined up for the New Year.
Throughout December, the RIDT is collaborating with KSU and l-Istrina to promote research within the University and the local community. We want to reach out to raise awareness that research is a tool that can make everyone’s lives better. Many people throughout the world suffer from various socio-economic problems, ranging from deadly diseases and famine to poverty and unemployment. Through research, we can truly make a difference to all of these people, and we want to start here, from home. By fostering a sense of awareness and belonging within our students and alumni, we can look forward to a bright future. In this future, we would be proud of a University making a difference in Malta and the rest of the world.
RIDT is the University’s Research Trust aimed towards fostering awareness and fundraising for high-calibre local research. For more information, visit www.ridt.eu or find RIDT on Facebook www.facebook.com/RIDTMalta
Christopher Curmi, winner of the UoM Research Challenge, awarded an iPad Mini by the RIDT CEO Wilfred Kenely. Photo by Edward Duca
Theory says yes; practicality says no. Thanks to Einstein time travel is possible. The easiest way is travelling very close to the speed of light. Achieve 99.5% close to light speed means that in 5 years you travel 50 years. Goodbye friends and family you left behind. The harder way is creating a wormhole, a device that can bend space and time, looping it on itself to go into the future or past. The energy required would rival the energy of the stars. Sorry Sci-Fi fans.
Whatever you inherit comes from your biological family. Unfortunately, this includes disease. Talking about inherited conditions can make people anxious, making them unwilling to discuss the issue with their relatives. After speaking to a number of people my impression is that it seems taboo to discuss these things. People seem to feel that they will be stigmatised or treated differently because of a genetic condition.
A fear of social stigma hinders beneficial research. Research needs the collaboration of patients, since by investigating their condition researchers can in the long run develop a treatment or therapy. Not only that, but avoiding certain discussions means that relatives who might be at risk of developing the same problem would not be aware of it. If a condition is detected too late there might be very little that can be done.
It is very useful to discuss these matters with your family and speak to your doctor together. By building a medical family tree you can easily see who might inherit what. This way, your relatives will learn more about their health and then seek treatment. For example, a cousin might learn that she has an increased risk of breast cancer and would therefore attend screening sessions to catch the cancer before it spreads. Not knowing that something is there does not make it go away but discussing medical matters with your family could save a relative’s life.
“It is very useful to discuss these matters with your family and speak to your doctor together”
Scientific studies need family medical information. Scientific studies using family trees have already shown how useful this information is in identifying families with a high risk for inheritable cancers, like colon and breast cancer. Other research showed that families can benefit from preventative treatments against cardiovascular diseases like diabetes.
Local research has recently used this technique to find new genes, knowledge that can be developed for new treatments. The researchers were studying the genetic background of the protein which carries oxygen in our blood, haemoglobin. This protein switches from foetal haemoglobin to adult haemoglobin 3–6 months after birth. People with thalassemia have a problem with the adult version. Therefore, by studying local families that naturally cope well with the disease, they discovered the KLF1 gene that compensates for the malfunctioning adult protein by raising foetal haemoglobin levels. This was only possible with the help of family trees.
Speaking to a doctor to prepare a medical family tree (pictured) is done in the strictest confidentiality. You may also create your family medical history on https://familyhistory.hhs.gov/fhh-web/home.action to discuss with your family and doctor. I believe that it is in our best interest, apart from being potentially beneficial to the rest of humankind, to help in the creation of our own family medical trees.
If you have any queries when your physician or consultant asks you to prepare a family tree feel free to discuss them rather than avoiding family trees.
The old saying goes: it takes a village to raise a child. In other words, to get it right a community effort is needed, shared by family and friends who pass on their experience and knowledge to the youngster.
The same saying applies to building technology companies. Budding technology entrepreneurs in Malta need plenty of nurturing and guidance to get their innovations off the ground and into the marketplace. A supportive and well-connected entrepreneurial community is what is needed to transform Malta’s innovations into start-up ventures that will expand the economy.
The good news for Malta is that the basic components of a technology start-up community already exist. The University of Malta is a hothouse of world-class scientific, engineering, and creative research that holds the potential to spin out exciting commercial ventures. A new generation of bright, technically-skilled graduates is starting to pursue entrepreneurship as a career path. Malta lacks a professional venture capital investment industry, but does have high net worth entrepreneurs and private ‘angel’ investors. Many of these have valuable experience gained abroad and are hungry to find and fund high-potential technology companies. The government is exploring ways of encouraging early-stage investment by way of tax incentives and seed fund development. Ideas, entrepreneurial energy, and money — the key ingredients for raising technology start-ups — are all here on the island.
“Tucked away in their laboratories, garages, and workshops, Malta’s innovators are not networking”
So, what is holding us back? I recently spoke to Steve Blank, a highly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. I asked him what he thought was missing. His reply:‘much of the Valley’s alchemy lies in connectivity’.
Innovators, entrepreneurs, investors – Malta has got them all. Unfortunately, they are not finding each other. Tucked away in their laboratories, garages, and workshops, Malta’s innovators are not networking. They need skilled and experienced business people to push their technologies past the idea stage. Wealthy angel investors are here in Malta, but they frequently operate ‘under the radar’ and can be hard to access. In the absence of connections, both investors and innovators miss out on potentially rewarding opportunities. Promising young ventures, which might takeoff with a little support and funding, consequently get left to struggle on their own.
The University of Malta Business Incubator will start operations this year and create a platform for new start-ups. Opening its doors to researchers, students, and aspiring technology entrepreneurs, the incubator will provide them with space to plan, launch, and grow businesses. There, a network of seasoned entrepreneurs, business mentors, and angel investors will join them. These ‘parents and village elders’ will be mobilised to concentrate efforts to guide start-ups to create a company, raise capital, and reach the marketplace. We aim to make the incubator a lively hub to create businesses.
Building a company, like raising a child, is a lot of hard work. Bringing the community together under one roof, where it can do the job right, will ease the labour of start-up development, and improve the odds of scoring triumphs.
Ben McClure is Manager at the University of Malta Business Incubator
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a disease that affects over 250 million people worldwide. Many in Malta suffer from the disease because of our high carbohydrate diet and lack of physical activity. Type 2 diabetes arises when levels of the sugar glucose remain very high in the blood. Testing normally involves frequent finger pricks to determine blood sugar levels, or otherwise a patient can take a sugary drink followed by regular urine/blood testing over 2 or more hours.
Alexandra Fiott (supervised by Prof. A. Felice) studied whether the absolute HbA1c levels (the haemoglobin fraction with sugar attached multiplied by the haemoglobin concentration) would provide a better method to describe the link between one’s genetics and diabetic condition. She attempted to reduce the frequency of the testing needed while using a relatively non-invasive test — the withdrawing of one tube of blood, while investigating the genetics of diabetes.
Haemoglobin (Hb) transports oxygen throughout the blood through red blood cells. The HbA1c forms when glucose binds to haemoglobin. This can be used as an indirect measure of average blood sugar concentrations. Measuring HbA1c levels is rapid, but unfortunately the results are influenced by factors that affect red blood cells. With around 5% of Maltese having red blood cell disorders, an alternative measurement would help reduce inaccurate results and unnecessary worry for patients. The absolute HbA1c was used for this study.
The genetics and blood profile of five different patient groups were determined using genetic and biochemical methods: adults with a normal blood profile, anaemics, beta-thalassaemics, pregnant women, and type 2 diabetics (on limited treatment). Statistical analysis did not reveal an improved link, but the absolute HbA1c did help distinguish between the different patient groups.
To improve the reliability of these results, a separate set of experiments was carried out to see whether a known Maltese variation in haemoglobin, with a prevalence of around 1.8% in the Maltese population, has an effect on the amount of sugar that binds to the haemoglobin. This variant was found not to influence the blood glucose levels and therefore the HbA1c.
Taken together these results showed that the absolute HbA1c does not improve the link between the genetics and blood profile of the patients. However, it could distinguish between different groups of patients.
This research was performed as part of an M.Sc. (Melit.) in Biomedical Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Malta.
The deep sea covers 70% of the Mediterranean seabed, with Malta on the boundary of the Sea’s two main biogeographical sectors. Despite its importance in detecting changes in biodiversity, research on what lives in this habitat lags behind. Kimberly Terribile (supervised by Prof. Patrick J. Schembri) characterised the marine life on the seabed in deeper waters around Malta as a first step to find out what lives far beneath our waves.
Terribile studied species by-catch samples that were caught from depths of 72 to 201m during deep sea trawls from 2009–2011. These were part of the Mediterranean International Trawl Surveys (MEDITS), which is meant to assess the state of fish stocks around the Mediterranean. Over 100 samples were analysed, which showed that light and the grain size of the sea bottom greatly influence the species that can live there. The type and number of species found were different from distributions seen in the western Mediterranean. She also mapped which species groups were found where.
Taken together, these results show that the assemblages of species in the western Mediterranean are different from those in the central and eastern areas. The knowledge of these ecosystems is essential to properly manage these areas to maintain the health of fish stocks and for the management of the marine environment around Malta.
Mapping the deep sea holds strong commercial importance. By knowing where important feeding, spawning, and nursery areas may occur, fish stocks and other commercially important species can be properly managed to maximise the catch from the Mediterranean without causing the populations to collapse.
The study attempted to start understanding the deeper seas around Malta. Fish do not exist individually, they need to breed, shelter and feed on other organisms. To maintain commercial fish you need to understand how all species affect each other. The study is a first step in maintaining our seas for tomorrow.
This research was performed as part of an M.Sc. (Melit.) in Biology at the Faculty of Science. This project forms part of a collaboration between the Department of Biology and the Maltese Government’s
Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
Comfortably sitting in seat 3F, John is watching one of his favourite operas. This close he can see all the details of the set, costumes, and the movements of the music director as he skilfully conducts the orchestra by careful gestures of his baton. He is immersed in the scene, capturing all the details. Then all of a sudden, the doorbell rings. Annoyed, John has to stop the video to see who it is. This could be the mainstream TV experience of the future.
This scene is called free-viewpoint technology that is part of my research at the University of Malta (UoM). Free-viewpoint television allows the user to select a view from which to watch the scene projected on a 3D television. The technology will allow the audience to change their viewpoint when they want, to where they want to be. By moving a slider or by a hand gesture, the user can change perspective, which is an experience currently used in games with their synthetically generated content — synthetically generated by a computer game’s graphics engine.
“For free-viewpoint to work, a scene needs to be captured using many cameras”
Today we are used to seeing a single viewpoint. If there are multiple perspectives we usually don’t have any control over them. Free-viewpoint technology will turn this idea on top of its head. The technology is expected to hit the market in the near future, with some companies and universities already experimenting with content and displays. New auto-stereoscopic displays do not need glasses (pictured next page), these displays ‘automatically’ generate a 3D image depending on which angle you view them. A clear example was the promise made by Japan to deliver 3D free-viewpoint coverage of all football games as part of their bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The bid was unsuccessful, which might delay the technology by a few years.
Locally, my research (and that of my team) deals with the transmission side of the story (pictured). For free-viewpoint to work, a scene needs to be captured using many cameras. The more cameras there are, the more freedom the user has to select the desired view. So many cameras create a lot of data. All the data captured by the cameras has to be transmitted to a 3D device into people’s homes, smartphones, laptops and so on. This transmission needs to pass over a channel, and whether it is fibre cable or wireless, it will always have a limited capacity. Data transmission also costs money. High costs would keep the technology out of our devices for decades.
My job is to make a large amount of data fit in smaller packages. To fit video in a channel we need to compress it. Current transmission of single view video also uses compression to save space on the channel so that more data can be transmitted and save on price. Note that, for example for high definition we have 24 bits per pixel and an image contains 1280 by 720 pixels (720p HD standard), that’s nearly 100,000 pixels for every frame. Since video is around 24-30 frames per second the amount of data being transmitted every minute starts escalating to unfeasible amounts.
Popupology – double 3d / 3d squared my first attempt at an anaglyph photo of a paper structure. you will need those red/blue glasses to view it properly.
Free-viewpoint technology would be another big leap in size. Each camera would be sending their own video, which is the same amount of data as we are now getting. If there are ten cameras, you would need to increase channel size by a factor of ten. This makes it highly expensive and unfeasible. For the example above, the network operator needs ten times more space on the network to get the service to your house, making it ten times more expensive than single view. Therefore, research is needed to drastically reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted while still keeping high quality images. These advances will make the technology feasible, cheaper, and available for all.
So the golden question is, how are we going to do that? Research, research, and more research. The first attempts by the video research community to solve this problem were to use its vast knowledge of single view transmission and extend it to the new paradigm. Basic single view algorithms (an algorithm is computer code that can perform a specific function, like Google’s search engine) compress video by searching through the picture and finding similarities in space and in time. Then the algorithms send the change, or the error vector, instead of the actual data. The error vector is a measure of imperfections and how it is used by computer scientists to compress data is explained below.
First let us look at the space component. When looking at a picture, it is quite clear that some areas are very similar. The similar areas can be linked and the data grouped together into one reference point. The reference point has to be transmitted with a mathematical representation (vector) that explains to the computer which areas are similar to each other. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent.
Secondly, let us analyse the time aspect. Video is a set of images placed one after another and run at 25 or 30 frames per second that gives the illusion of movement and action. To make a video flow seamlessly images that are right after each other are very similar. If we have two images the second one will be very similar to the first, with only a small movement of some parts of the image. Like we do for space, a mathematical relationship can be calculated for the similar areas from one image to the next. The first image can be used as a reference point and for the second we transmit only the vector that explains which pixels have moved and by how much. This greatly reduces the data that needs to be transmitted.
The above techniques are used in single view transmission, with free-viewpoint technology we have a new dimension. We also need to include the space between cameras shooting the same scene. Since the scene is the same there is a lot of similarity between the videos of each camera. The main difference is that of angle and the problem that some objects might be visible from one camera and not from another. Keeping this in mind, a mathematical equation can be constructed that explains which parts of the scene are the same and which are new. A single camera’s video is used as a reference point while its neighbouring cameras only transmit the ‘extra’ information. The other camera can compress their content drastically. In this way the current standard can be extended to free-viewpoint TV.
Compressing free-viewpoint transmissions is complex work. Its complexity is a drawback, mobile devices simply aren’t fast enough to run computer power intensive algorithms. Our research focuses on reducing the complexity of the algorithms. We modify them so that they are faster to run, need less computing power, and still keep the same quality of video, or with minimal losses.
“The road ahead is steep and a lot of work is needed to bring this technology to homes”
We have also explored new ways of reconstructing high quality 3D views in minimum time, using graphical processing units (GPUs). GPUs are commonly used by high-end video games. Video must be reconstructed with a speed of at least 25 pictures per second. This speed must be maintained if we want to build a smooth continuous video in between two real camera positions (picture). A single computer process cannot handle algrothims that can achieve this feat; instead parallel processing (multiple simultaneous computations) is essential. To remove the strain off a main processing unit in a computer processing can be offloaded to a GPU. Algorithms need to be built that use these alternative processing powers. Ours show that we can obtain the necessary speeds to process free-viewpoint 3D video even on mobile devices.
The autostereoscopic display techinique without glasses. Depending on the position of the viewer, the filter directs the left image to the left eye and the right image to the right eye.
Since free-viewpoint takes up a large bandwidth on networks, we researched whether these systems can feasibly handle so much data. We considered the use of next generation mobile telephony networks (4G). Naturally they offer more channel space, we wanted to see how many users they can handle at different screen resolutions. We showed that the technology can be used only using a limited number of cameras. The number of users is directly related to the resolution used, with a lower resolution needing less data and allowing more views or users. This research came up with design solutions for the network’s architecture and broadcasting techniques needed to minimise delays.
The road ahead is steep and a lot of work is needed to bring this technology to homes. My vision is that in the near future we will be consuming 3D content and free-viewpoint technology in a seamless and immersive way in our homes and mobile devices. So for now sit back and imagine what watching an opera or football match on TV would look like in a few years’ time.
My passion for renewable energies was sparked off during my undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Malta. Thanks to ERASMUS, I studied at the University of Strathclyde which had a Renewable Energy course that, at the time, was not offered in Malta.
