THE
LUMINARY
UNIVERSIT Y OF MALTA ALUMNI NEWSLET TER
www.um.edu.mt/alumni
SEPTEMBER 2013
Social Games for Conflict Resolution
Jamie, a boy in Holly’s class, keeps calling Lucy ‘fat’.
Lucy answers back, and they end up getting into an
argument (normally in the classroom). Eventually Mr
Devenish, their class teacher, will tell them off, but they
still keep on arguing, this time more sneakily – sitting
down and giving each other hostile glances. They feel
angry with each other, a bit resentful, and Holly thinks
that they didn’t manage to get their point across and
conclusively finish the argument. This has been going
on since Holly joined the school almost a year ago.
Now replace the names with Yannis, João, Marie or
Olaf and replace the reference to Lucy’s appearance
with reference to cultural origin, social or religious background or athletic ability and you end up with a whole
range of situations that are very likely to happen in any
school across Europe. In today’s multi-cultural and socially diverse Europe, confronting conflicts and coping with
them is part of social life, especially since conflicts seem
to arise in almost every context and developmental
stage of human life, from scuffles in schoolyards, to bullying in the workplace and even to international warfare.
The Siren Project aims to tackle problems by creating a serious game that supports the role of teachers
and helps them educate young people on how to understand and resolve conflicts. World-class research
groups from Greece, Denmark, Malta, Portugal, UK and
the USA and an award-winning game design company
from Denmark worked together to design and develop
an interactive environment which benefits from recent
advances in serious games, social networks, computational intelligence and emotional modelling to create
uniquely motivating and educating games that can help
shape how children think about and handle conflict. The
game developed by the project is able to automatically
generate adaptive conflict scenarios that fit the teaching needs of particular groups of children with varying
cultural background, maturity, technical expertise and
the desired learning outcomes as specified by teachers,
enabling the system to be used by school teachers all
over Europe, without specific technical training.
Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta, describes the groundbreaking innovations of the Siren game as ‘advanced
game technology that recognises the emotional reactions of its players and the conflict level of the game at
any time. Driven by player models, the game’s AI generates automatically the next quest for each player so
that conflict stays within appropriate levels. The playerdriven procedural quest generation in Siren offers personalised learning experiences and player-specific exposure to conflict resolution which results in effective
training of social skills.’ At the moment, Siren researchers are evaluating the social and learning impact of the
game in real school environments, taking into account
social and behavioural information before and after a
month of game play sessions.
Project Information
The Siren project (Grant agreement number: FP7
258453) is funded under the 7th Framework Programme, area: Technology-Enhanced Learning
(ICT-2009.4.2). The project started in September
2010 and will last 36 months, with a total budget
of 2.93 M€ (EU funding is 2.25M€). The Institute
of Digital Games, University of Malta (Malta) participates in the project via a core affiliation with
the project consortium. Contact Prof. Georgios
N. Yannakakis or Prof. Rilla Khaled for more information about the project.
THE
LUMINARY
SEPTEMBER 2013
2
Horticulture Training for Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Since June 2012, the University section of the Argotti
Botanic Gardens was buzzing with a different activity
from its usual day to day running. The HORTES project,
short for Horticulture Training as a Means to Enhance
Skills of Refugees and Asylum Seekers aimed to do
exactly what its title says - this ERF funded project
endeavoured to teach refugees and asylum seekers the
basics of gardening.
The course was spread over three levels, from
beginners’ to advanced, each taking approximately
three months to complete. The first months were
dedicated to intensive preparation for the course. The
refugees and asylum seekers, who came from three
open centres, two in Hal Far and one in Marsa, attended
bi-weekly theory sessions and practical training.
Refugees and asylum seekers staying at open centres
were targeted for this initiative because at this stage
they would be preparing to leave their centre to find
a home and make a fresh start. The acquisition of
new skills enhances their chances of employment and
helps them in their process of integration. Dr Joseph
Buhagiar, Director at the Gardens and leader of the
project, together with his team at the Argotti Gardens,
was actively involved in teaching students different
aspects of plant biology, plant identification for both
ornamental and wild species, plant water needs, plant
nutrition and compost, amongst others.
The bottom line was teaching students how to care
for plants in a local garden environment, how to deal
with different techniques of plant propagation, pruning,
spotting disease and methods of eradicating the
problem. The group participated in different practical
sessions, putting theory to practice in the garden. The
practical sessions were often on a one-to-one basis with
Argotti gardening and technical staff.
Practical sessions included handling garden
equipment and machinery, use of scaffolding to reach
the trees for pruning, watering and irrigation, planting
of ornamentals for display, seed collection, cleaning and
sowing. The students were also given an opportunity
to set up a small garden at their respective centres, to
care for in between lessons. For this purpose, seeds,
seedlings and ornamental plants were given, together
with a set of tools.
The course was formally concluded recently which
also marked the completion of the initiative. In a final
ceremony held at Argotti Botanic Gardens, the students
received certificates of attendance for the levels they
had attained. Representatives of the Argotti team and of
the different open centres were present. This initiative
gave this group of refugees and asylum seekers the
tools and skills to be more successful in finding a job in
the gardening industry.
Monica Beisner Presents Award to Young Competition Winners
An exhibition of illustrations by Monica Beisner of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses was held in August last year at
the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta as part
of Evenings on Campus 2012. After a session in which
Salvu Mallia, artist and TV personality, described the
marvelous tales to young visitors, a competition was
organised in which children were invited to draw, paint
or write about what they saw and heard. The winners
of the competition received a year’s membership with
Heritage Malta and were recently presented with copies
of The Heavenly Zoo, illustrated by Monica Beisner and
presented to the winners by the artist herself.
THE
LUMINARY
3
SEPTEMBER 2013
ITALIAN PHARMACISTS FOLLOW
CLINICAL PHARMACY COURSE AT UOM
The Department of Pharmacy, within the Faculty of Medicine
and Surgery at the University of Malta, recently hosted a oneweek intensive clinical pharmacy course for five pharmacists
following a postgraduate course in clinical pharmacy at the
University of Bari, Italy. The Department has a long-standing
history of collaboration with the University of Bari’s pharmacy
faculty. This collaboration includes student exchanges and staff
mobility.
Digital Libraries for Europe
Minister Evarist Bartolo
and H.E. Dr Joe Vella Gauci,
Ambassador of Malta to
UNESCO, opened the major
conference on digital libraries for Europe - International
Conference Theory and
Practice of Digital Libraries
(TPDL), the 17th edition of
which was hosted recently
at the Hotel Excelsior in
Floriana.
The event was held under the patronage of the
National Commission for
UNESCO – Malta, and was
co-organised by The Department of Library Information
and Archive Sciences of the
University of Malta and
the COST office of the EC
(European Cooperation
in Science and Technology). The opening ceremony included welcome
addresses by Professor
Henry Frendo, Chairman
of the National Commission for UNESCO in Malta, Prof. Joe Friggieri on
behalf of the University
of Malta, Prof. Janet Mifsud on behalf of COST,
and one of the program
chairs, Prof. Trond Aalberg from Norway.
The conference hosted
some 300 delegates.
The Maltese Cheeselet from Sheep’s Milk is Highly Valued
The Maltese cheeselet traditionally produced from
sheep’s milk has been praised by locals and foreigners
for centuries. This local product, once considered as an
important part of the Maltese diet, is seen as a delicacy
nowadays. With time, food safety and hygiene have
been recognised as important factors in the successful
production of agricultural products. The cheeselet is not
an exception and in fact today shepherds collect milk and
produce cheeselets under strict hygienic conditions.
In order to valorise this traditional local product, a
project under the Italia-Malta 2007-2013, t-Cheesimal,
was devised keeping in mind the whole chain of
stakeholders. The partners in the project are the
University of Malta, under the direction of Dr Everaldo
Attard, the Consorzio Ricerca Filiera Lattiera Casearia
(CoRFiLaC, Ragusa) under the direction of Dr Stefania
Carpino and the University of Catania with Professor
Giuseppe Licitra. The production of cheeselets, starts
at the farm with the sheep playing the fundamental
role in the chain. The proper rearing of sheep including
appropriate housing conditions and good quality feed
are essential in ensuring a good final product. The
sheep, like other milk-producing animals, are capable
of converting grasses and fodder that are inedible for
humans into a valuable product, milk. One of the aims
of the project is to identify the feed composition of the
animals, either as fresh cut grasses or concentrates.
Feed analysis is conducted to determine the potential
final quality of the cheeselet. Due to its protein content,
the milk can be curdled into a cheese, in a similar way
that a lamb converts the milk into solid food in its
stomach.
The shepherd today uses modern technology to
produce these cheeselets. Although in the past,
shepherds used ‘summar’ mould to shape the curd into
cheeselets. Today they use plastic moulds. Whether
the shepherd should go back to the traditional mould
is still under discussion. Whichever container is used,
the shepherds adopt hygienic practices throughout
the process. This business is usually run by families, and
everybody in the family has an important role in the
production of the cheeselet.
This newletter is published by the Communications and Alumni
Relations Office within the University of Malta.
All Rights Reserved 2013