Social Sciences

Now more than ever, the Buffalo Niagara region needs reliable, timely information for sound decision making. To help meet this need, the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth at the University at Buffalo has launched the Regional Knowledge Network (http://www.rkn.buffalo.edu), a state-of-the-art information resource for the bi-national region.

Two research teams at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions recently explored the scientific literature focusing on relapse to addictive behavior. The first team reviewed studies of relapse to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and the second team, the differences between men and women who relapse to alcohol and drug abuse.

This year, the Clarkson Chair in Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo is Lawrence Frank, Ph.D., internationally regarded author whose research centers on the interaction between land use, travel behavior, air quality and public health.

Graduate students in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning have proposed a strategy for the large-scale retail development of the former Glenny Drive apartment complex, 1827 Fillmore Ave., in Buffalo's East Side's commercially underserved Kensington Heights neighborhood.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Pennsylvania were the first to demonstrate that two intracellular events, both stimulated by the same cell receptor, can provoke different behaviors in mammals.

The University at Buffalo School of Social Work Office in collaboration with the Child Trauma Institute will offer a year-long certification program for mental-health professionals who work with children and adolescents who have been exposed to significant trauma or loss.

Over the past year, in preparation for its 75th anniversary, the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalohas been taking a look at its past, from its unexpected start, through the Great Depression and World War II, to the unrest of the 1970s and the present day. Toward that end, it has kicked off the School of Social Work History Project, an effort to document the school's history of educating social work professionals and its impact on countless lives.

From investigations into Lee Harvey Oswald's troubled adolescence to courtroom debates over Mike Tyson's violent tantrums, the 20 most psychologically intriguing legal cases of the past 50 years are chronicled in a new book coauthored by a University at Buffalo law professor and a clinical psychologist who is a graduate of the UB Law School.

Elemental House, a project by first-year undergraduate students from the Department of Architecture in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, will open with a reception from 6-8 p.m. on March 3 in the UB Anderson Gallery.

For those interested in the progress of contemporary architecture here and abroad, and planning in the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, the annual illustrated lecture series offered by the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning is a boon.