Author: jplucas

Quoted: Consumers tend to be staunchly loyal when it comes to their auto brands, but bad news surrounding a brand and concerns about a company’s future can eventually tip the balance, said Deborah Mitchell, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin’s business school.

Quoted: Scientists said Sunday that they were unable to predict what this new swine flu would do next.

“It’s impossible to say with any assurance what’s going to happen,” said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison. “Influenza viruses can evolve quite quickly.”

Quoted: Confronted by a prolonged recession and a rising 8.5 percent unemployment rate, the highest U.S. rate in a quarter-century, some college seniors have grown “so anxious and worried they are paralyzed” and are not looking for a job, said University of Wisconsin, Madison, career services director Leslie Kohlberg.

Noted: At some point in reporting this article, someone pointed me to the MySpace page of Blood Jewel, a goth industrial band in the spirit of Marilyn Manson. Stylistically it could not be more different from the zaniness of Gory Bateson and the Ethnogs. Blood Jewel’s Web page seems designed to shock, full of depictions of violence and sexual bondage, and it features a music video called “Speedkilla,” a commentary on the student who carried out the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech two years ago.

This, too, is an academic project.

Blood Jewel’s leader, who goes by the stage name Detonator, is Neil L. Whitehead, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He studies depictions of sexual violence. He started the band three years ago as a way to get a new perspective on the culture of goth industrial music â?? and to propose a new approach to anthropology.

Quoted: “My impression is that it is largely ignored (today), having been superseded on the right by think tanks on the one hand and neo-Nazi groups and conservative religious groups on the other,” said Pamela Oliver, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor who in the 1980s co-authored a study of media coverage of the John Birch Society.

This is partly due to the animalsâ?? natural tendencies and partly a matter of training, says Patricia McConnell, a certified applied animal behaviorist and adjunct zoology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: But while property auctions are increasing nationally as foreclosures rise and the housing market slows, “there isn’t really a consensus among economists whether (a person bidding at) an auction ends up getting a better price,” said Stephen Malpezzi, professor of real estate development at the UW-Madison School of Business.

Quoted: “Weâ??re starting to see some serious financial strains,” said Bruce Jones, a UW-Madison professor of agricultural economics. “The dairy sector has taken some significant hits with milk prices being quite low and expensive feed costs.”

Quoted: University of Wisconsin Hospital’s Nan Peterson called 2008 “the year of the crib recall.”

The researchers who developed the evidenced-based education model that Gov. Ted Strickland used for his school-funding overhaul say most states don’t need to increase spending significantly to improve student performance.

Professors Allan R. Odden and Lawrence O. Picus say it generally should cost an additional 2 percent to 9 percent annually to finance smaller class sizes, more professional development for teachers and other proven strategies contained in the plan.

Odden, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin, said the evidence-based model calls for implementing strategies shown to improve student performance.

“Quoted: “We can choose the cattle not only based on their traits but also based on the sequences of the genes that matter,” said Bret Payseur, an assistant professor of medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “You can imagine that that’s going to be much more efficient.”