The J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics at NUI Galway will host a three day intensive course entitled Topics in Microeconometrics. The conference will run from 1 to 3 June in Áras Moyola, NUI Galway. The keynote speaker for the event is Professor William Greene, Professor of Economics and Toyota Motor Corp Professor, the Stern School of Business at New York University. Professor Greene s work is at the forefront of knowledge in this field. This course will introduce the conference delegates to methods and models used to analyse cross section and panel data. It will show the change from the linear regression model to specifications for binary and censored data, ordered choices, count data and multinomial choices. The discussion will present basic models for cross section data then introduce theory and methods for extensions to panel data and stated choice experiments. The primary objective of the conference is to provide intensive instruction on frontier techniques in econometrics used in the analysis of cross section and panel data. The conference will include approximately ten morning classroom meetings. In the afternoon of each day, there will be hands-on analysis using ’live’ data sets and a familiar computer package. Speaking about the upcoming conference, Dr Mary Silles, conference organiser and Lecturer in Economics at NUI Galway, said: “Econometrics is central to the production of research in all domains of applied research relevant to public policy. This conference demonstrates the University s capacity to lead a programme of training in econometrics at the highest international level.” For further information, or to register online, visit http://www.conference.ie/Conferences/index.asp?Conference=117. -ends-

The Centre for Disability Law and Policy at NUI Galway will hold its third International Summer School from 6 to 11 June. The School will be co-hosted by the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and will take place in Room MY129, Áras Moyola at NUI Galway. The purpose of this six-day summer school is to equip participants with the insights and skills necessary to translate the generalities of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into tangible reform for persons with disabilities. The teaching faculty includes senior academics, practitioners and policy makers from around the world who have been directly and actively engaged in drafting and implementing the Convention. The participants will similarly be from around the world and will bring great diversity to the debate; including persons with disabilities, their families, civil society groups of persons with disabilities as well as advocates for disability law reform, lawyers, policy makers and policy analysts and others. The summer school is directed by Professor Gerard Quinn, Director of the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at NUI Galway and Professor Michael Stein, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Executive Director, Harvard Law School Project on Disability. Professor Quinn states that, “This summer school is all about power - restoring power to persons with disabilities over their own lives and giving them knowledge and skills based on the new UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Above all it belongs to the people affected and is structured in such a way as to enable people explore for themselves the relevance of the convention in their own lives and in the process of change.” Further information is available from the summer school website at: http://www.nuigalway.ie/cdlp/summer_school/welcome.html. -ends-

Gearóid Moroney, a final year student in Electronic & Computer Engineering at NUI Galway has been awarded the Avaya Prize for the best final year project in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in the College of Engineering & Informatics at NUI Galway. His project involved the development of a web based system to allow a remote user to automatically tune and then play an electric guitar. A native of Ennis, Co. Clare, Gearóid beat a number of other challengers whose projects included a mobile phone application to allow older people to monitor and manage their nutritional intake and exercise levels, and a novel electronic circuit used to increase the efficiency of generators, which utilise energy wasted by the forms of basic cookers used in households in developing countries, to produce electricity. Dr Michael Keane, Senior Manager with Avaya in Galway commented: “Avaya are delighted to continue with the sponsorship of this prize. We have recently announced expansion plans involving 75 new positions, many of which will be filled by graduates with the types of technical skills that we have seen in abundance in all of these excellent projects. We were greatly impressed by the standard of all the projects which we reviewed but Gearóid’s project was particularly innovative. It involved the very challenging task of developing a number of different pieces of software and custom electronic hardware and then getting them all to work together to deliver a very novel and fun application.” -Ends-

A major electronic historical database will be launched at NUI Galway on Friday, 20 May. The database of the landed estates of Munster, c.1700-1900, contains information and a guide to research sources for 1,972 landed estates and some 3,230 estate houses in Munster.A similar database for Connacht was compiled three years ago and both provinces can now be accessed at the site www.landedestates.ie Since its launch, the Connacht guide has been ’visited’ by tens of thousands of researchers and interested parties from dozens of countries across the globe. This major research database was created by Senior Archivist, Brigid Clesham, with Marie Boran, Special Collections Librarian at NUI Galway as Adjunct Research Advisor. The Technical Advisor was Joe Desbonnet. The research project under which this database created was government-funded, as part of NUI Galway’s suite of research projects funded under PRTLI4. The Munster Landed Estates database will be officially launched by Dr Martin Mansergh, at the Moore Institute in NUI Galway on Friday, 20 May at 5.30 pm, during a Conference on Irish Landed Estates c.1700-1900, which will take place in the Moore Institute on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 May. Distinguished speakers at the Conference will include, Professor Joe Lee, Professor William Smyth, Dr Olwen Purdue, Caitriona Crowe, Finola Reid, Ciara Kerrigan and young researchers - Conor Montague, Joanne Mcentee and Laura Vickers- conducting research into aspects of the Irish landed estate and its influence. The conference programme may be consulted on the Moore Institute website. Commenting on the significance of this new major research database, NUI Galway’s historian Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, academic Director of the Project, said: “This major research resource will be invaluable in assisting and supporting researchers -academics and members of the general public - working on aspects of the social, economic, political and cultural life of Ireland, notably rural society, from the early eighteenth century to the eve of the Great War”. -Ends-

NUI Galway’s James Hardiman Library will host renowned photographer Tarquin Blake’s Abandoned Mansions of Ireland exhibition until Friday, 24 June. Opening today, this photographic project spans three years of research and documentation and contains more than 40 images of the lost estate houses of Ireland. Blake documents the end of the landed aristocracy in Ireland and the demise of their country mansion houses. His beautiful, haunting images of crumbling ruins convey an indefinable beauty in the decay - in the abandonment. The images are accompanied by history and folklore, telling of troubled times and private hardship. The exhibition also features two audio visual presentations. The exhibition will be launched on Friday, 27 May at 4pm by Professor Gearoid Ó Tuathaigh of NUI Galway’s Moore Institute. Professor Ó Tuathaigh is Project Leader of Landed Estates and Country Houses in Connacht c1700-1914, a major historical database. Tarquin Blake will be present at the launch. Also on display will be items from the James Hardiman Library’s landed estates collections. In 2010, Collins Press published a book of Tarquin Blake’s photographs Abandoned Mansions of Ireland. More photographs can be viewed on his website: www.AbandonedIreland.com. Over the summer period, the Library will be open until 10pm Monday to Thursday, 5.30pm Fridays, and 10 am to 5pm Saturdays. Admission to the exhibition is free. -Ends-