Social Sciences

The doctor who wouldn't come into the patient's hospital room. The neurologist who avoided eye contact. The ambulance attendant who angrily threw her bloodied gloves into the street after learning the injured patient was HIV-positive. These are reactions of some health-care personnel when faced with caring for persons infected with HIV more than 25 years after its discovery and documented in a study a University at Buffalo assistant professor of communication and health behavior.

The University at Buffalo Art Gallery in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus will present two large-scale installations by New York City-based artist Douglas Repetto to open with a public reception at 5 p.m. on Feb. 28. An exhibition walkthrough with the artist will begin at 5 p.m.

Between 900,000 and 3 million women annually experience violence or abuse by their intimate partners, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates. And while the children in such relationships often receive extensive counseling as a matter of course, support for their mothers may not go beyond providing temporary safe housing. The Athena Project at the University at Buffalo was designed to help correct that scenario.

Increases in young women's drinking during the transition from high school through the first year of college can have dangerous physical, sexual and psychological implications, according to a report out of the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

"Body Counts," the 12th annual International Women's Film Festival presented by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG) at the University at Buffalo, will open Jan. 31 and continue on Thursday evenings through March 6 in the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St.

Much research addresses how and why many of the earth's thousands of languages are disappearing. The question still arises, however, as to why it should matter to the rest of us if, say, Pite Sami, a language spoken by fewer than 20 inhabitants of Norway and Sweden, should vanish from the face of the Earth. Jeff Good, Ph.D., a University at Buffalo linguist, says that we should attend to these losses because even seldom-used languages can tell us a great deal about the methods of categorization of the natural and mental world and because they can serve as vital links between the present and the prehistoric past.

The University at Buffalo Regional Institute is partnering in an effort led by The Brookings Institution and The John R. Oishei Foundation to convene young leaders from the Great Lakes region, including Buffalo, to develop and implement strategies for the region's economic future.

The University at Buffalo Regional Institute has unveiled a major expansion of online features and completed development of the Environment section of its Regional Knowledge Network, a central online resource for information on the binational region of Buffalo Niagara.

The Concrete Central, Agway, The Great Northern, The Marine A, The Lake and Rail, Kellogg, Pillsbury, H&O Oats, Exchange American, Electric Annex -- these are just a few of the "Grand Ladies of the Lake" whose fascinating biographies and arresting photos are the subject of a new book on Buffalo's grain elevators edited by landscape architect Lynda Schneekloth.

How prepared is New York for another terrorist attack or major disaster? That's the question a group of researchers and disaster-response experts will discuss at a two-day conference addressing ways to protect New York City and New York State.