Professor Jim Greer, the Head of Electronics Theory and Graduate Studies at Tyndall, and Dr. Paul Hurley, Senior Staff Researcher and Head of High-k Research at Tyndall, were both recognised by Intel for their excellence in research.

Dr. Hurley and Professor Greer are the only two researchers outside the USA to receive this inaugural award, according to an official press release from UCC..

The award was created to recognize truly outstanding contributions by researchers funded by Intel’s Semiconductor Technology Council and associated Strategic Research Sectors (SRS).

Dr Alastair Glass, chairman and acting CEO, Tyndall National Institute, said that it was very important that UCC continued to foster its longstanding commitment to excellence in research, particularly within the scientific, hi-tech, and life-sciences sectors.

Ireland’s Largest Educational Engineering and Innovation Event, featuring 190 Stands in total opened today at the Student Centre Nexus (Hall), Cork Institute of Technology.

This year’s theme is “Chemical Engineering – Universal Engineering”. The exhibition is free and open to all.

One of the centrepieces of the exhibition is a Munster Rugby / CIT Mechanical Engineering Student Developmental Project of an Advanced Scrum Machine, Lineout
Training Aid and Gym Motion Tracking System Design/Development

The Chemical Engineering theme is central to the planned participation of over 190 Industrial and Research and Development Stands including projects in conjunction
with Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly SA, Novartis Ringaskiddy, Janssen Pharmaceutical, Bord Gais, Stryker Orthopaedics, MSD, Astellas Ireland, Millipore Ireland, GE Healthcare Ireland, WWS, Holfeld Plastics, Abbott Ireland, Stryker Ireland, ERAS ECO, SR Technics, PM Group, Medical Engineering Design and Innovation Centre, (MEDIC), Cork University Hospital, Munster Rugby, Dalmar Ireland, Mycrosports, Bol Chumann na hEireann, Leisureworld, The Naval Service, EEG/TEC Nimbus, Dairymaster, Zimmer, SchuF Valve Technology GmbH, Mark Eire, O’Donnell Engineering, RadBoost, CIT Engine Test Cell Centre and a large number of Multi-Discipline Start-Up Innovation Projects.

2012 Centrepiece Exhibits also include the Clean Technology Centre CIT, the Energy Engineering Group, Wind Energy Group, Vintage and Classic Vehicles of Yesteryear
Display Mizen to Malin Fund Raiser Drive for Suicide Aware, the Rubicon Centre – Cork Institute of Technology Enterprise Ireland Innovation Incubation Centre, Engineers Ireland, the Medical Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (MEDIC), Nimbus / TEC Centre,
the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Management Systems (CAMMS) and a major display of International / National CIT
Student Awards in Engineering Innovation, Design & Entrepreneurship.

The annual Cork Mechanical, Manufacturing and Biomedical Engineering Exhibition takes place on Thursday 26th April – Opening Times 2pm to 9pm – in the Nexus Hall, CIT Student Centre, CIT Bishopstown Campus. The Exhibition is FREE and open to the public.

Dr Elmer Morrissey, a postdoctoral student who completed his doctorate at UCC, was employed as a research scientist in the Building Technologies Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Alan Cahill has been named as the other Irishman missing.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is liaising with its consulate in San Francisco to provide assistance to the families involved.

Dr Dominic O’ Sullivan, of the Department and Civil and Environmental Engineering in UCC, did his PhD in the University at the same time as Dr Morrissey. This morning he said: “Elmer is a very popular guy who enjoys all outdoor activities. Our thoughts are with him and his family.”

A spokesman for the US coastguard told RTÉ this afternoon that the “window of survivability” has passed, meaning that further search efforts would not be undertaken.

One body has already been recovered from the water, while four others — including the two Irish men — are still missing at sea.

Air units from the coastguard and California Air National Guard lifted off after receiving an emergency transmission from a satellite beacon on the Low Speed Chase, as well as a mayday radio call from a nearby yacht, officials said.

Mulrooney (above) was found dead last December after sustaining a 30 foot fall from a wall with no warning signs.

Mulrooney died tragically late last year after sustaining a 30 foot fall onto an open area.

The inquest today heard how there were no warning signs that such a precipitous drop lay on the other side of the wall.

The wall’s sheer face was called “deceptive” and “dangerous” by local residents at the time, after the body was discovered by a member of the public who had heeded Gardaí’s call for persons in the area to check their premises for the corpse.

The inquest today returned an official verdict of accidental death.

The student was last seen outside Cubin’s Nightclub, where he was captured on CCTV camera. A fellow student of Mulrooney’s said that Mulrooney seemed “drunk” at the time, but that he wasn’t staggering about, and said that she and the deceased had left the popular city centre night venue together at approximately 1am.

Mulrooney’s father called today for society to evaluate drinking among the youth, while welcoming the announcement that the City Council would carry out a safety review of other potentially dangerous sites, such as the one Mulrooney fell from.
“That’s our requirement to them as a society.

“The challenge for us (is) how do we create a society where young adults can go out on a night and enjoy themselves socially… in order to get a good, mature drinking habit.”

“We’re asking ourselves that question and we don’t know the answer,” he said.

Book boffin: Cleary scoops top Accenture prize for reshelving invention. Photo: LinkedIn

The bibliophile Master’s student stayed true to his roots by inventing a product designed to assist library staff with reshelving books, and landed himself a top Leaders of Tomorrow prize from multinational firm Accenture in the process.

Cleary was followed up by five runners up for the big prize, including Masters’ students from DCU, one of whom had invented a sporting invention.

Another Corkonian runner up was Kieran Desmond of UCC, who created Minerva, an emergency service dispatch and location system enabling stricken users to communicate their exact location to the emergency services operator via mobile technology.

“We are now in the fifth year of this award scheme and what started out as an initiative to find the brightest and best talent has also turned into a search for individuals with the most innovative and commercially viable business concepts, who are a shining light for all this country has to offer,” a representative of Accenture said.

Showdown: "anything but rosy" financial realities could see the Arts degree officially discontinued at governing body showdown tomorrow evening.

Sources within the college point to an increased drive for university-wide efficiency as the likely impetus behind the surprise move which has reportedly has the backing of a number of key decision-makers within the university.

University President Michael Murphy has gone on record as saying that increased student numbers but declining Exchequer-derived finances are combining to force an untenable financial situation on third level institutions like UCC, although it is not known whether or not he supports the latest, and most savage yet, bid to make the books balance.

A relentless drive for efficiency and cost-saving has already seen a raft of unpopular measures forced on students and the academic community, including a scaling back of tutorial and lecture hours at some courses as well as increased demands on academics’ time.

However tomorrow’s emergency motion, if carried, would mark the first time that UCC has decided to discontinue a major programme with an annual intake of thousands of students in the name of streamlining overheads and boosting efficiency.

“It’s a significant and brave move on the part of those pushing for it [the motion to be carried] to save costs,” an anonymous source affiliated with a separate college within the university told StudentNews.ie this evening.

“There’s been a rising tide of harsh rhetoric emanating from the HEA [Higher Education Authority] about saving costs, seeking voluntary pay reductions, but few would probably have foreseen a motion like this being tabled at such short notice.”

“It will prove unpopular with some, but given the backing the move reportedly enjoys I think the Arts degree may face a real test of its worth tomorrow,” the source said.

The Arts programme, delivered by the College of Arts, Celtic Studies, and Social Sciences, is one of most enrolled within the university, and allows students to study, and major in, a relatively wide variety of academic subjects. The programme counts thousands of alumini among its previous students.

A spokesperson for the UCC Graduates Association was not available for comment this evening.

Rabbitte: reaching full broadband potential remains an achievable possibility

Despite acknowledging that progress lagged behind targets in several key areas, Rabbitte expressed confidence that full broadband coverage and accessibility remained a feasible goal for government:

“The Programme for Government commits to state investment in high speed Broadband roll out and, despite the challenges facing the exchequer, I am confident that we will find the resources necessary to bridge the gap,” the Minister said.

“I am sure that every one of you here today can access some form of always on broadband internet connection.”

“We have spent many millions of tax payers’ Euros ensuring that this is the case. However, you may be unhappy about the speeds you are getting. The challenge now for the Government is to ensure that even remote areas can access high speed broadband by 2014. It is a necessity for competitiveness – for the careers every one of you aspires to follow,” he concluded.

Victorious: former Fianna Fail youth chairperson wows judges with "world class" political electioneering app

The phone application – initially being tested for the Android phone platform – will combine GPS technology with political savvy by allowing teams on traditional door-to-door canvassing to co-ordinate house-to-house calls and strategize their visits strategy.

A host of other features are detailed on the application’s Facebook page and include a quick-press utility to contact the election candidate, as well as the ability to check voter registration.

A political source contacted for comment by StudentNews.ie yesterday evening described the idea as “world class”, saying it could see application in diverse election fields around the world.

Five other projects feature

Kieran Nestor, founder of planned startup StudentConnect.ie, scooped second place on the night, landing himself a prize of €1,000 and summer access to UCC’s IGNITE business incubation programme in the process.

The planned project, set to launch later this year, is a service that aims to connect students currently in academic study with small to medium enterprises or start-up organisations for work on college projects.

Other participants on the evening include Mark Moriarty, whose Frinect project allows users to break down barriers of separation and connect with people once removed from their original social circle, as well as a student buy and sell website, StudentBuyAndSell.ie.

Judges on the panel included a series of well known local entrepreneurs picked from local enterprise boards and business organizations.

The scene at the Western Gateway Building this afternoon as the evacuation ensued. Photo: SNIE Photo.

A false alarm sounded shortly before 4pm this afternoon , prompting a frantic evacuation of college students, businesses, and academics.

Some, however, questioned whether evacuating the building was even necessary in light of the recent false negatives, prompting fears that the evacuations could provoke a ‘boy who cried wolf’ style situation in the event of a real emergency.

Although the source of the fire detection issue has not yet been pinpointed or confirmed by the security staff administering the building, it’s believed that ongoing construction on the unfinished fourth floor could be the cause of the repeated warning sirens sounding throughout the largest building by square footage in UCC.

Today’s evacuation, like others before, it, triggered a massive cacophony of fire alarms and warning systems throughout the building, while a team of voluntary fire marshals ensured that nobody was left in their offices and classrooms while the hurried evacuation ensued.

The alarm follows on from a previous false alarm recorded just this January, which resulted in an estimated evacuation of 1,000 persons, many of whom had to wait for as long as 15 minutes before returning to their offices and complexes.

A series of fire drills and alarm testings are also planned throughout the year, meaning that many workers inside the complex have had to evacuate their offices as often as once a month while the fault remains unfixed.

Local man questions: “is this safe??”

Local BIS man Conor Hinds said that he was tonight calling on UCC authorities to investigate the cause of the false alarms and to ensure that that the matter is brought to a “swift and decisive resolution”.

“I think for visitors’ and for academics’ safety, this is a situation that needs to be brought under control quickly,” the US-bound commented from is home in the north of the city this afternoon.

“The real danger lies not in the persistence of a series of unnecessary false alarms, but in the very real possibility that one day a real alarm will go unheeded,” he said.

Phone reception, however, improves

Although the building is also notorious for its lack of phone reception, the situation has recently improved thanks to a hi-tech Vodafone booster antenna installed on the building’s roof, workers report.

The booster was installed after many workers reported it difficult to conduct business due to the lack of phone reception.

A popular poster on the popular UCC Memes Facebook page parodied the situation, captioned: “State of the art IT building; no phone reception.”

Customers of other networks, however, report that the situation remains difficult, with many enclosed areas of the multi-million complex labouring under the effects of a near blanket absence of phone coverage.

Canvassers: student's app project could take political electoineering into the digital age

The canvassing app will initially be available on the popular Android platform, but plans to bring iPhone and Blackberry apps to market are also purportedly already in the works.

Advanced Google Maps APIs are fed into a centralized database where canvassers are able to ‘check off’ individual houses, while other members of the team move seamlessly onto the next one.

A secondary tool allows canvassers to check the voter registration at each household, while still adhering strictly to existing privacy and data protection legislation.

A postgraduate software student contacted for comment late this morning said that the app had the potential to make waves in the political sphere.

“This is something that could prove beneficial and useful to an almost unlimited class of election teams,” the source said.

“It’s geographically unlimited, though would probably have to be localized to an extent to accord with each jurisdiction’s data and privacy laws.”

“Nevertheless it’s an idea with miles of potential.”