Science and Technology

Academic Management Systems (AMS), a software-development company located in the University at Buffalo Technology Incubator, has released CourseEval3, a Web-based evaluation tool. This new version of its well-established software provides colleges and universities with the ability to set up a wide variety of course, faculty and other assessment activities online.

The expertise of faculty members at the University at Buffalo in the field of nanotechnology, where materials are the size of a billionth of a meter, has brought Buffalo distinct recognition by the National Cancer Institute.

Subtle differences in the ways that individuals look, walk, write and speak -- known as biometrics -- will be the subject of the Fourth IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Workshop on Automatic Identification Advanced Technologies to be held Oct. 17-18 at the University at Buffalo.

When University at Buffalo planetary volcanologist Tracy Gregg mentioned at a recent geology conference that the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library was this fall exhibiting an original edition of the world's first geologic map, audience members were captivated.

Jochen Autschbach, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award to conduct theoretical studies of the magnetic properties of molecules and nanoscale systems.

The family of the late Om Parkash Bahl, a distinguished University at Buffalo professor whose scientific research led to the development of the home pregnancy test, is remembering him by raising money for a new endowed professorship in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

Days after Hurricane Katrina hit, research teams from the University at Buffalo's Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research were dispatched to the Mississippi coast to conduct structural analysis and remote sensing of damage to large structures. On Oct, 3, MCEER will send three teams of researchers to New Orleans, again with funding primarily from the National Science Foundation.

The desire to assign cosmic significance to the arrival of hurricanes Katrina and Rita is an example of humankind's ages-old need to find reason within chaos, according to University at Buffalo anthropologist Phillips Stevens Jr., Ph.D., a renowned expert on the origins, nature and meaning of cults, superstitions and cultural identities.

Effective mitigation of the drastic effects of extreme natural phenomena like hurricanes, floods, landslides and wildfires through integrated environmental management that includes the perspectives of geomorphologists and ecosystem scientists is the focus of the interdisciplinary 36th International Geomorphology Binghamton Symposium to be held Oct. 7-9 at the University at Buffalo.

The failure of levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina points out the need for new technologies to strengthen levees and monitor their reliability, according to Deborah D. L. Chung, Ph.D., a University at Buffalo materials scientist and inventor of "smart concrete."