This talk will focus on the wall painting that Giuseppe Calì (1846-1930) painted in 1903 on the dome of the chapel of the Crucifix in the Cospicua Collegiate Parish Church. The painting is in a very precarious state of conservation. The talk will be an occasion to share interesting details related to the painting, ranging from its history and painting technique to the conservation problems, revealed through a multidisciplinary study carried out for the conservation of the painting.

Marquis N. De Piro, a family relative of Giuseppe Calì will be introducing the speech with family anecdotes.

Roberta De Angelis is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of the Built Heritage in the Faculty for the Built Environment (University of Malta), and shares with Prof. JoAnn Cassar the coordination of the newly-established M.Sc. in the Conservation of Architectural Decorative Surfaces at the Department of the Built Heritage. She studied Conservation of Paintings at the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro in Rome, and developed her interest in the conservation of wall paintings in Malta where she worked and read for an MPhil degree at the University of Malta. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the Conservation of Wall Painting Department at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Following on the success achieved last year, when they raised funds for the University of Malta's Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT), pianist Christine Zerafa and saxophonist Philip Attard, performing under the name Batera duo will this year present another fund-raising recital featuring some of the first important works on the saxophone repertoire. The saxophone is a relatively modern instrument, having been invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adophe Sax in 1846. Needing some time to evolve and immerse itself in the musical society, the first valid pieces for the saxophone came in the 1930s. This concert will highlight four of the most important pieces written in this decade, which are essentially also core works of the saxophone repertoire.

The concert will be held on Thursday, 23 May at 20:00hrs at Sala Isouard within the Manoel Theatre complex. Tickets at €10 can be obtained from the booking office of the Manoel Theatre or by visiting the website  or at the door. All proceeds will go towards the RIDT.

Since their debut as a duo in April 2012, Batera Duo have been invited to perform in major festivals and concert series, including the Emerging Artists Series of the Malta Arts Festival. Individually, Philip and Christine have been regular performers in Malta and overseas and have appeared as soloists and chamber musicians in Spain, France, Austria, Italy, England and Poland. Both Philip and Christine have been recipients of various awards, including the national Young Musician’s Contest (Malta), the 11th Bice Mizzi Competition (Malta) and the RNCM Clifton Helliwel Memorial Award (UK). Both musicians are current students of the University of Malta.

Support your Alma Mater while enjoying the lovely music provided by these two young and talented musicians.

Click here to download the poster. [PDF]

As part of the SCISEM series, on Monday 20 May at 1600hrs, at the Physiology Computer Lab, Biomedical Sciences Building, Prof. Jo Vandesompele, from the Centre For Medical Genetics Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium will deliver a lecture entitled:
'The importance of the implementation of MIQE guidelines for attaining reliable RT-qPCR study data.'

Prof. Vandesompele has a Master of Science in Bio-engineering (1997, UGent), a PhD in Medical Genetics (2002, UGent) and is professor in functional genomics and applied bio-informatics at Ghent University since 2007. He is author of more than 140 scientific articles in international journals, including some pioneering publications in the domain of real-time PCR.

Optimal design and execution of quantitative PCR technology-based experiments for medical research will be discussed during a workshop that will be held on Tuesday 21 May from 0900hrs - 12 noon at the Physiology Computer Lab, Biomedical Sciences Building.

Research staff, academics and students currently working or interested in qPCR technology are cordially invited to attend.

For more information regarding these events please contact Dr Duncan Ayers.

On 21 May the Chaplaincy is organising the last session in the series Faith & Reason. The session will deals with Social Wellbeing and Faith and will be given by Dr Marcelline Naudi. The session will be held at 1900hrs at Dar Manwel Magri (opposite the Mireva bookshop).

The Decline of the Death Penalty in America

Closing round table of the Jean Monnet Module on Agenda-Setting in the European Union - 21 May, 1000hrs
University of Malta, Auditorium of Valletta Campus, St Paul’s Street, Valletta

Round Table:
Several American states punish some violent crimes with the death penalty. For long time, the capital punishment has been supported and opposed on the basis of essentially moral arguments. More recently, however, a different dimension of the problem has come to dominate the debate: the innocence frame. The application of increasingly sophisticated instruments in investigations and trials has uncovered a dramatic reality: the execution of innocence persons. Until the debate was framed around moral positions, arguments against the death penalty met with powerful counter-arguments – to some it is immoral to execute criminals; to others, deterring odious crimes with the strongest possible means is a moral obligation. The innocence frame, in contrast, can hardly be opposed: it is difficult to develop convincing arguments in favour of the execution of innocent persons. Initially supported by a handful of activists, the innocence frame eventually cascaded throughout the political system and became salient to a large number of policy venues. This resulted not only in a shift in media coverage of and public attitudes toward the death penalty, but also in a sharp decline in the execution of capital sentences.

Based on the presentation of an original research, the round table will focus both on substantive aspects and theoretical questions in a comparative discussion of agenda-setting processes in the US, European Union, and European countries.

Participants:
Prof. Frank Baumgartner, Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence (2008, Cambridge University Press)
Prof. Francesca Longo, Jean Monnet Chair of EU Public Policy at the University of Catania
Prof. Roderick Pace, Jean Monnet Chair of International Relations and Director of the Institute for European Studies, University of Malta
Prof. Sebastiaan Princen, Associate Professor of International and European Governance at Utrecht University

Chair: Dr Marcello Carammia, Lecturer in European Politics at the Institute for European Studies and holder of the Jean Monnet Module on Agenda-Setting in the EU.

Participation is open subject to the availability of seats. To reserve a seat please contact Mr Massimo Costa.

Click here to access the Agenda-Setting in the European Union website.

During the next Work in Progress Seminar Series (WIPSS), Dr Marie Briguglio, University of Malta will talk about 'Rubbish Politics: Political motivation and the reluctance to recycle
in Maltese environmental behaviour'.

This paper assesses the determinants of take up of a voluntary waste separation scheme where residents sorted, stored and paid for weekly kerbside collection of recycling waste in the absence of any monetary or legal incentive to do so (indeed in the presence of a financial disincentive). Despite the fact that mixed waste continued to be collected at the kerbside, almost daily, free of charge and without any limits to quantity, the uptake by households was positive, persistent and diverse across localities, thereby offering a rare opportunity to assess the determinants of purely voluntary contribution. We employ a unique panel data set (N=5400) describing the amounts of recyclable waste (combined plastic, paper, and metal) collected across localities in the island of Malta, over the first 86 weeks of the scheme’s operation. Drawing insights from environmental economics and economic psychology, a model is specified and empirically estimated. The results indicate, as expected, that voluntary effort is sensitive to the initial constraints that households may face, as well as to the policy attributes. We also find moral motive, as proxied by pro-government sentiment, to be an important determinant of participation. This corroborates findings from recent studies in other environmental domains, which suggest that political motivation is a potentially important – albeit understudied - determinant of pro-environmental behaviour. We argue that these findings have important implications for the design and communication of interventions for voluntary environmental behaviour.

Marie Briguglio graduated with First Class Honours in Economics from the University of Malta and completed a Master of Science degree in Economics at University College London in 1994 with Distinction.  Having held various civil senior service positions in Malta and worked on assignment for UNEP, the EU and various EU candidate countries, she took up a full-time lecturing position at the University of Malta in 2011. She lectures on Environmental Economics, Behavioural Economics and Social Marketing and is a doctoral candidate at the Behavioural Science Centre of the University of Stirling, where she is conducting research in the field of Behavioural Economics. Marie is also an award-winning screen-writer, producer.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday 22 May, between 1800hrs and 1900hrs and will be followed by a discussion. The venue is Room D, Faculty of the Built Environment (BEN D) - beyond and to the left of the Play School if you are approaching from the Library or the Assembly Hall. At the bottom of the stairs in BEN.

The Department of Health Services Management, within the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta will be organising a presentation of the book published by LAMBERT Academic Publishing Germany entitled: Achieving optimal performance in hospital practice - The relationship to leadership, teamwork and stress by Dr Sandra C. Buttigieg.

The presentation will be held on Thursday 23 May at noon at the South Auditorium, Faculty of Health Sciences, Mater Dei Hospital. Discussion panel: Dr Judy W. Scully, Aston University and Dr Vincent Cassar.

The Italian Culture Institute in Valletta and the Faculty for the Built Environment shall be hosting an Exhibition entitled 'Restoring in Italy: Art and Technology in the activities of the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro'. The exhibition panels reflect the different interventions on monuments such as the tower of Pisa but also artefacts and paintings, with different panels being exhibited at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Valletta and at the Foyer of the Faculty for the Built Environment at the University of Malta.

The exhibition is supported by the Ministero degli Esteri and the Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita’ Culturali, the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, the Italian Embassy and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, with the collaboration of the Faculty for the Built Environment of the University of Malta, Kamra Tal-Periti (Malta Chamber of Architects and Civil Engineers), SBE Malta (Sustainable Built Environment Malta) and SACES (Society of Architecture and Civil Engineering Students).

The exhibition shall be officially inaugurated by HE the Italian Ambassador at the Istuto Italiano di Cultura at St George Square, Valletta on 25 April 2013. The exhibition will be open in Valletta and at the University until the 28 June 2013. For further information contact Ruben Paul Borg at the Faculty for the Built Environment.

Do you want to become a Conference Interpreter or a Translator for EU Institutions?     

The Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies of the Faculty of Arts is organising a careers day on Tuesday 28 May in the M.A. Vassalli COnference Centre Gateway Building Hall B1 from 1100hrs to 1230hrs.

Lecturers from the Department and professional translators/interpreters will address students to raise awareness among final year graduates about new exciting opportunities of employment in these sectors relatively new for Malta.

The Department is offering for Academic Year 2013-2014 One Year Day Post-Graduate Diploma and Masters Courses in Translation or Conference Interpreting.

Applicants must already have a University Degree and excellent command of Maltese and English and/or perfect understanding of one of the following EU languages (French, German, Italian or Spanish).

For more details visit the website of the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies, phone Ms Christine Galea on +356 2340 3387 or contact Prof. J. Eynaud by email.

Professor John T. Kent is head of the Statistics Department at the University of Leeds. He is well known for his influential and wide-ranging research contributions to Statistics and Probability, especially in the fields of Multivariate Analysis, Statistical Inference, Spatial Statistics and Shape Analysis.

Click here to access some conference papers by Professor Kent.

Abstract:
Simulation Methods in Directional Data Analysis
Directional distributions are playing an increasingly important role as building blocks in sophisticated "big" statistical models. Examples include angles (on the circle or sphere) between pieces of a larger configuration and rotation matrices (when matching one configuration to another). Inference in the big model is often carried out by MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) methods.  However, for the directional data component of the model it is preferable to use acceptance-rejection, where possible.  In this talk we review some classic and more recent methods of simulation for directional problems.  In particular, we have recently developed an efficient acceptance-rejection algorithm for the matrix Fisher distribution on the space SO(3) of 3 by 3 rotation matrices.

The School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta is proud to present its first Professional Dance summer school with the renowned London-based company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance. In July 2013 dancers from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance will lead a 5-day residency at the University of Malta Dance Studios in San Gwann, Malta.

For more information on this Summer School that will be held between 13 and 19 July click here. [PDF]

To register fill in the online registration form.