Search

This paper highlights the potential of Indigenous Buffalo knowledge as a valuable resource for adapting to the impacts of climate change. Buffalo, particularly in regions where they have been traditionally reared, have played a crucial role in Indigenous cultures and livelihoods. Indigenous communities have developed an intimate understanding of buffalo behaviour, ecological interactions, and their relationship with changing environmental conditions. This traditional Buffalo knowledge encompasses observations, practices, and Indigenous knowledge systems passed down through generations, providing insights into adaptive strategies that can be applied in the face of climate change. Following decolonial and relational theoretical frameworks, we used deep listening to learn how traditional Buffalo knowledge contributed to climate change adaptation strategies in Indigenous communities; how does integrating traditional Buffalo knowledge into climate change adaptation policies and practices contribute to the resilience of vulnerable communities? What challenges and opportunities are associated with incorporating traditional Buffalo knowledge into mainstream climate change adaptation efforts? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addicks and Barker reservoirs were built in the 1940s to protect downtown Houston from flooding and have generally worked very well until 2017 when Hurricane Harvey devastated much of Houston and surroundings with up to 40 inches (102 cm) of rainfall causing flooding of 154,000 homes in over 22 watersheds in Houston/Harris County alone. However, the story of how Addicks and Barker flooded upstream residential areas from a hydrologic standpoint is a harsh lesson in flood infrastructure policy and funding. This failure to protect both downstream properties in Buffalo Bayou and upstream areas behind the dams ended up with tens of thousands of flooded homes and properties, with many having flood waters for over 10 days. This paper explores the main causes for the flooding and addresses the hydrologic issues upstream in both reservoirs. The main causes of flooding were not just related to a massive rainfall event, but also explosive urban expansion of land use upstream of reservoirs, altered and updated reservoir design issues, and lack of governmental action in the years leading up to the disaster. Potential long‐term solutions to the flooding and design problems are addressed in this article as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the need to preserve primary historical documents relating to African American history. The author acknowledges that many African American organizations, particularly those operating in the inner-cities, are focused on providing for basic needs within their communities rather than documenting the history of those communities. The author describes the significance of the historic preservation efforts at the Buffalo State College Afro-American Collection in Buffalo, New York. The resources available to other universities interested in preserving the history of African American communities are described.

Evaluate and compare the rates of persistent tympanic membrane (TM) perforations between short-term vs long-term tympanostomy tubes. In addition, to determine which demographic, anatomical, and physical factors affect ear drum healing after tympanostomy tube (TT) removal and simultaneous paper patch myringoplasty (PPM) in children. Retrospective chart review. Charts were reviewed from the Women and Children's of Buffalo hospital and our pediatric otolaryngology practice electronic medical record. Data was retrieved from patients less than 18 years old who underwent surgical removal of a TT and concomitant PPM between January 2005 and January 2017. 343 ear drums were studied that underwent tympanostomy tube removal and paper patch myringoplasty. 45/343 (13%) of ears had a persistent perforation after PPM. The rate of persistent perforation with short-term tubes and long-term tubes was significantly different (6.6% and 20% respectively). Patient characteristics significantly associated with persistent perforations were: age at time of tube removal and number of tubes that patient received. Ear drum characteristics that significantly impacted persistent perforation included: size of ear drum perforation, and presence of tympanosclerosis. Length of intubation, ear drum atrophy, retraction, granulation tissue, middle ear effusion and thickened ear drum were not found to be significant factors. Overall, we found an 87% perforation closure rate after surgical removal of the TT and PPM. Persistent perforations occurred significantly more often in patients with long-term tubes than short term tubes. Our data also suggests that several patient and ear drum characteristics may be important factors that contribute to persistent perforation after tympanostomy tube placement and removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods in urban and suburban areas experienced changes in terms of physical, social, economic, and demographics. Neighbourhood Hardship Index (NHI) had been used to measure neighbourhood socio-economic condition, using various census variables. Suburban neighbourhoods which underwent a change lead to stratification into striving outer suburbs and declining inner suburbs. The context of this study was suburban neighbourhoods in Buffalo Metropolitan Area (BMA), New York. This paper aimed at highlighting spatial variability of neighbourhood change in inner- and outer-suburban neighbourhoods of BMA between 2010-2015. This study examined factors that significantly contribute to neighbourhood change. Also, this study examined whether there a difference in the change of neighbourhood hardship index between inner- and outer-suburban neighbourhoods. Composite NHI was developed from economic, demographic, and housing variables. Neighbourhood change was measured by comparing the composite NHI 2010 with that of 2015. The findings depicted a variation of change in hardships index across suburban neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods with higher hardship index were primarily located in inner suburbs. Policy implications call for concerted efforts to tackle the decline in the economy, education, demography to promote equity across neighbourhoods in suburban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile crowdsensing offers a new platform that recruits a suitable set of users to collectively complete an information collection/sensing task through users' equipped devices. As a special case, video crowdsensing is to collect different video segments of the same event that are taken separately by the built-in cameras of mobile devices, and then combine them into a complete video. Mobile crowdsensing has attracted considerable attention recently due to the rich information that can be provided by videos. However, because of the limited caching space, a suitable video replacement policy is necessary. In this paper, we propose a Budgeted Video replaCement policy in mobile Video crowdsensing (BVCV), which first determines a video segment's value according to its caching situation and natural attributes. Then, we formulate the video caching problem as a budgeted maximum coverage problem, which is a well-known NP-hard problem. Finally, we propose a practical greedy solution and also infer the approximate ratio, which could be regarded as the lower bound of BVCV to the optimal solution. Our experiments with the real mobility datasets (StudentLife dataset, Buffalo/phonelab-wifi dataset) show that, the proposed budgeted video replacement policy achieves a longer successfully delivered video length, compared with other general replacement policies. • We propose a budgeted video replacement policy in mobile video crowdsensing. • We formulate the video caching problem as a budgeted maximum coverage problem. • We propose a practical greedy solution and also infer the approximate ratio. • We conduct simulations based on two real-world traces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US cities with shrinking populations have faced tremendous challenges in conserving their built heritage. Often, conservation work involves adaptively reusing existing buildings. Most reuse activity is fuelled by the developer and market-driven rehabilitation of historic properties through tax credits and other incentives. Places of worship like churches, however, are difficult to rehabilitate, and cities lose this urban heritage after years of vacancy and neglect, and eventual demolition. In many shrinking cities, particularly those now welcoming new immigrants and refugees, serendipitous conservation of vacant churches through faith-to-faith conversion can be an asset to local planners and preservationists in their fight to save urban heritage from demolition. This paper examines two former Roman Catholic Churches in the City of Buffalo: one converted into an Islamic mosque, and another into a Buddhist temple, to argue that faith-to-faith conversions can be a viable tool for other US cities experiencing similar threats to their urban heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“This is a Black Paper,” declared BUILD’s statement criticizing the Buffalo Public School system for providing inferior education to black children in Buffalo, New York. Written in 1967 by the community organization, BUILD (which stood for Build Unity, Independence, Liberty, and Dignity), “BUILD Black Paper Number One” was a call for change. Like other black communities in late 1960s America, black Buffalo was caught up in the fervor of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. A “Rust Belt” city, Buffalo was hit hard by deindustrialization, which, coupled with unemployment, segregated housing and unequal education, adversely affected its black community. In 1967, a riot exploded in Buffalo’s predominantly black East Side. This article analyzes statements made by black Buffalonians and argues that Black Power thrived in Buffalo in the late 1960s, through community organizations which attempted to address urban issues that negatively affected African Americans in a postindustrial city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews goals, content materials, and other essential elements of a new, experimental philosophy course on the built environment of cities now being developed in Buffalo, New York. Applying traditional philosophical methods, the course adds experiential components and expands philosophy’s scope in ways that promote deep learning about the city. A model unit on the work of Frederick Law Olmsted receives special attention here, as Olmsted’s work in Buffalo and elsewhere invites philosophical treatment—analysis, critical examination, and so on—from scholars, students, and city residents alike. We shall see that the distinctive character of philosophy can encourage teaching in new areas where philosophical study might promote learning and understanding, thus inspiring curricular innovation and a wide range of powerful student learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some complex geographic events are associated with multiple point locations. Such events include, but are not limited to, those describing linkages between and among places. The term multi-location event is used in the paper to refer to these geographical phenomena. Through formalization of the multi-location event problem, this paper situates the analysis of multi-location events within the broad context of point pattern analysis techniques. Two alternative approaches (vector autocorrelation analysis and cluster correspondence analysis) to the spatial dependence of paired-location events (i.e., two-location events) are explored, with a discussion of their appropriateness to general multi-location event problems. The research proposes a framework of cluster correspondence analysis for the detection of local non-stationarities in the spatial process generating multi-location events. A new algorithm for local analysis of cluster correspondence is proposed. It is implemented on a large-scale dataset of vehicle theft and recovery location pairs in Buffalo, New York. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unequal-area facility layout problem (UA-FLP) is the problem of locating rectangular facilities on a rectangular floor space such that facilities do not overlap while optimizing some objective. The objective considered in this paper is minimizing the total distance materials travel between facilities. The UA-FLP considered in this paper considers facilities with fixed dimension and was motivated by the investigation of layout options for a production area at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia (TMMWV) plant in Buffalo, WV, USA. This paper presents a mathematical model and a genetic algorithm for locating facilities on a continuous plant floor. More specifically, a genetic algorithm, which consists of a boundary search heuristic (BSH), a linear program, and a dual simplex method, is developed for an UA-FLP. To test the performance of the proposed technique, several test problems taken from the literature are used in the analysis. The results show that the proposed heuristic performs well with respect to solution quality and computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bison or buffalo were once the dominant herbivore that impacted the ecology and landscape of North American grassland and forest ecosystems from Alaska to Mexico prior to European colonization. By the early 20th century they were almost extirpated in the wild with two exceptions; in the areas that eventually became Yellowstone and Wood Buffalo national parks. Since then, private individuals, NGOs, government agencies and indigenous peoples have collaborated to restore these populations, but significant hurdles remain to achieving full ecological recovery of the species; a vision which was articulated in a landmark paper in Conservation Biology in 2008 (Sanderson et al 2008 - The Ecological Future of the North American Bison: Conceiving Long-Term, Large-Scale Conservation of Wildlife). Unfortunately, bison have been virtually erased from most people's consciousness and imagination for over a century now, making restoration efforts for the largest land mammal on the continent particularly challenging. Despite this, several locations have had remarkable success in re-establishing wild, free-ranging bison populations in Canada, the US and Mexico over the past two decades. Bison populations have recently been re-established in Banff National Park, Alaska, and Yakutia (Siberia) and there are plans to restore populations on tribal and indigenous lands in both Canada and the US in the next 10 years. The signing of the Buffalo Treaty in 2014 was the impetus for many of the current restoration efforts on tribal and indigenous lands and indigenous groups are heavily involved in shared stewardship of these transboundary bison populations. While commercially raised bison have very different goals and vastly outnumber their wild counterparts, who are managed for ecological restoration and conservation, both groups have several shared values relating to the long-term goal of maintaining and increasing the overall number of bison in North America as well as maintaining their wild character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of street network connectivity on pedestrian volume. Street network connectivity measured in most current studies captures only the metric characteristics of streets or physical connectivity. A whole different type of connectivity, visual connectivity, is largely ignored. Described in basic terms, higher physical connectivity means shorter travel time to reach the same number of destinations while higher visual connectivity means fewer turns to see the same number of destinations. Despite the correlation of these two connectivity constructs, studying both physical and visual connectivity is essential to better understand the role of street network on pedestrian activity. Using pedestrian counts of 302 street segments in Buffalo, New York, structural equation modelling highlights the multiple relationships between street network connectivity, built environment characteristics, and pedestrian volumes. Our findings suggest that both the conventional metric-based measure of physical connectivity and geometric-based measure of visual connectivity have significant positive impacts on pedestrian volumes, together with job density and land use mix. This outcome can encourage practitioners to pay attention to both the geometry of street network and its metric characteristics in order to create a pedestrian-friendly environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper employs a systems framework to explore sustainable agriculture as a source of food in Buffalo, NY and other Rust Belt cities that exhibit an abundance of abandoned property and vacant lots in core urban areas. Considering land as a common stock proves helpful for determining whether or not a system is sustainable, such that stocks of natural resources are not depleted faster than they can be replenished. By identifying feedback relationships in the local food system, planners and activists in these cities are redesigning their food production and distribution systems to meet the needs of food-insecure residents. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper proposes a spatial statistical approach to identifying the deprived areas where the access to grocery foods is restricted due to the destitute economic status of the target residents (the poor). For this purpose, the ratio of the expected population demand and observed food supply in each census block group is formulated as discrepancy index to denote the level of accessibility to grocery. Then, using the G-statistic, the regional spatial pattern of the indices is investigated to detect local hot-spots of disparity between population need and grocery provision at various spatial scales. The City of Buffalo is illustrated for this approach and planning implications for improving the accessibility are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the notion of privilege as it relates to whiteness. The argument that racial privilege is actively constructed in the micro-geographies of everyday life is based on a case study conducted in Buffalo, New York. In this study, I analyze the narrated experiences of white elderly, primarily female, residents of a changing urban neighborhood. To capture the interrelationships between racial privilege and place, I used multi-methods research which included surveys, mental maps, travel diaries, interviews, and participation observation. The stories told are detailed accounts of the ways in which these white elderly residents cope with a slipping away of their white privilege through learning new boundaries of privilege, devising strategies for coping with their changed neighborhood, and reclaiming, in part, their previously held privileges. I propose that whiteness and its attendant privilege is not just about who you are, but where you are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces new methods of modeling and analyzing social networks that emerge in the context of disease spread. Four methods of constructing informative networks are presented, two of which use. static data and two use temporal data, namely individual citizen mobility observations taken over an extensive period of time. We show how the built networks can be analyzed, and how the numerical results can be interpreted, using network permutation-based surprise analysis. In doing so, we explain the relationship of surprise analysis with conventional network hypothesis testing and Quadratic Assignment Procedure regression. Surprise analysis is more comprehensive, and can be without limitation performed with any form(s) of network subgraphs , including those with multiple nodal attributes, weighted links, and temporal features. To illustrate our methodological work in application, we put them to use for interpreting networks constructed from the data collected over one year in an observational study in Buffalo and Erie counties in New York state during the 2016–2017 influenza season. Even with the limitations in the data size, our methods are able to reveal the global (city- and season-wide) patterns in the spread of influenza, taking into account population mobility and socio-economic factors. • Permutation-based analysis is utilized to analyze influenza spread. • Surprise analysis enables simultaneous testing of multiple hypotheses. • Static and temporal networks can be analyzed through surprise analysis. • Influenza spread data is from an observational study conducted in Western New York. • Reveals patterns in influenza spread, accounting for socio-economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Working on the night shift is a potential source of occupational stress and has been associated with sleep disorders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between shift work and sleep problems among police officers from Buffalo, New York. Design/methodology/approach - Randomly selected officers (n=111) responded to questions on sleep quality and quantity. Shift work data were obtained from daily payroll records from 1994 to the exam date (1999-2000). Prevalence ratios (PR) were obtained using Poisson regression models that examined associations of shift work with sleep quality and quantity. Findings - Among police officers, night shift work was significantly and independently associated with snoring and decreased sleep duration. Originality/value - Although the sleep questions were similar to those used in validated sleep questionnaires, a major strength of this study was the availability of daily work history data on all officers for up to five years prior to the current examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers scheduling spatially distributed jobs with degradation. A mixed integer programming (MIP) model is developed for the linear degradation case in which no new jobs arrive. Properties of the model are analyzed, following which three heuristics are developed, enhanced greedy, chronological decomposition and simulated annealing. Numerical tests are conducted to: (i) establish limits of the exact MIP solution, (ii) identify the best heuristic based on an analysis of performance on small problem instances for which exact solutions are known, (iii) solve large problem instances and obtain lower bounds to establish solution quality, and (iv) study the effect of three key model parameters. Findings from our computational experiments indicate that: (i) exact solutions are limited to instances with less than 14 jobs; (ii) the enhanced greedy heuristic followed by the application of the simulated annealing heuristic yields high quality solutions for large problem instances in reasonable computation time; and (iii) the factors "degradation rate" and "work hours" have a significant effect on the objective function. To demonstrate applicability of the model, a case study is presented based on a pothole repair scenario from Buffalo, New York, USA. Findings from the case study indicate that scheduling spatially dispersed jobs with degradation such as potholes requires: (i) careful consideration of the number of servers assigned, degradation rate and depot location; (ii) appropriate modeling of continuously arriving jobs; and (iii) appropriate incorporation of equity consideration. • Scheduling spatially distributed jobs with degradation • MIP model developed for the linear degradation case • Properties of the model analyzed • Numerical tests conducted • A case study is presented based on a pothole repair scenario [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the factors that influence the intention of citizens to use their mobile phones to increase their participation in local government. It examined whether gender and age can be used to moderate the effect of these factors. The research was conducted in Buffalo City, a municipality in South Africa. The research used a questionnaire survey to collect quantitative data and semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data. Data was collected from people aged between 18 and 55 who have no access to fixed-line Internet at home but are instead primarily accessing the Internet via their mobile phones. The study found that the acceptance of mobile phones as a means for public participation is largely a matter of designing mobile participation solutions that support and enhance the performance of citizens. Citizens are fairly accustomed to mobile technology, and this increases the likelihood that they would willingly adopt mobile participation solutions if they offer tangible gains when compared to current methods. Older citizens would require support in familiarizing with the new technology, while all citizens place the availability of reliable organizational and technical infrastructure as an important predictor of their intention to use. The influence of friends and family members was an important factor in citizens' intention to use. Gender did not have any significant effects on the factors that affect intention to use. Age was a significant moderator with younger citizens requiring quick and convenient ways to interact with government while older people looked for more efficient ways of reaching government which should in turn lead to improved quality in services delivered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Design a reasonable electricity pricing programs for the high renewable penetration scenario. • Reveal the importance of electricity pricing programs on EEMs selection in U.S. medium office buildings. • Help building owners to select optimal EEMs under different electricity pricing programs. Building owners usually select energy efficiency measures (EEMs) by referring to return on investment (ROI). Current studies tend to apply static energy price to estimate ROI. However, more and more buildings are adopting dynamic electricity pricing programs. To understand how electricity pricing programs impact the selection of EEMs, this paper presents an analysis of the ROIs of EEMs under different pricing programs using U.S. medium office buildings as an example. Eight EEMs in four typical cities are selected as case studies. Considering five electricity pricing programs scenarios (one static program and four dynamic programs), EEMs are selected based on their ROIs. The main findings are: (1) The ROIs of EEMs change under different pricing programs. (2) In Honolulu, Buffalo, and Denver, replacing interior fixtures with higher-efficiency fixtures has a significantly higher ROI than the rest EEMs under all five pricing programs. However, the ROI of this EEM in Honolulu ranges from 28% to 47% for different pricing programs. (3) Similarly, in Fairbanks, replace heating coil with higher-efficiency coil produce higher ROI than the rest under all five pricing programs. (4) For other EEMs, their ROI rankings vary according to electricity pricing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]