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Category: Business/Technology

Exact Sciences Expanding Through $2.8B Deal

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Dr. Joshua Lang of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center said he hopes the merger would mean more practical tools for oncologists.

“As we’ve learned more, we’re starting to understand just how many different types of cancers there are,” he said. “We need better tests. And if (I’m) smarter as a clinician, because I have better information, it means I’m going to be able to deliver better care.”

Wisconsin legislators pushing market-based approach to farm pollution say it will work. The evidence isn’t clear.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Morgan Robertson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison geography professor who studies market-based environmental policy, is less certain. In the past, lawmakers and industry groups across the country have been too optimistic about farmer participation in water quality trading programs, he said.

“To the extent that that’s an attractive strategy at the state level — the 30,000-foot level — for somebody planning a statewide political response, it’s not necessarily an attractive strategy for Joe and Jane Farmer in Kewaunee County who have other kitchen-table concerns,” he said.

Tom Still: People win when collaboration leverages Wisconsin research assets

Wisconsin State Journal

A few years ago, Melissa Skala and Joe Carroll didn’t know one another. In fact, their areas of expertise as researchers didn’t seem to intersect — at least, not directly. Today, UW-Madison professor Skala and Medical College of Wisconsin professor Carroll are co-investigators on a project with the promise of helping millions of people who are blind or otherwise visually impaired.

Taking Advantage of Aloha

Hawaii Business Magazine

Financial abuse is often paired with domestic violence. A study by the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison indicated that economic abuse occurs in 99 percent of domestic violence cases. This can take the form of an abuser managing family funds, preventing a victim from working, hiding assets or otherwise asserting financial dominance in the relationship.

On Design in Human-Robot Interaction

Robohub

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Bilge Mutlu, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, about design-thinking in human-robot interaction. Professor Mutlu discusses design-thinking at a high-level, how design relates to science, and he speaks about the main areas of his work: the design space, the evaluation space, and how features are used within a context. He also gives advice on how to apply a design-oriented mindset.

Record-low fertility rates linked to decline in stable manufacturing jobs

Science Codex

New research by University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist Nathan Seltzer identifies a link between the long-term decline in manufacturing jobs — accelerated during the Great Recession — and reduced fertility rates. Analyzing every birth in America at the county level across 24 years, Seltzer found that the share of businesses in goods-producing industries better predicted a metropolitan area’s fertility rate than the region’s unemployment rate.

Music streaming app LÜM prepares for launch

Madison Magazine

LÜM CEO Max Fergus — a University of Wisconsin–Madison alum, as are several other cofounders of the new music platform — says the idea came out of a desire to make a new streaming service profitable while compensating lesser-known artists.

Ag tourism brings locally produced goods to the forefront

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Will Hsu, president of Hsu’s Ginseng Enterprises in Wausau, grew up on the family farm doing his share of weeding and picking seeds. A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate in finance and Chinese literature who later went on to earn his MBA from Harvard, Hsu joked he’s likely the only farmer out of his 800 MBA classmates. His father started the business in 1974 and today they farm hundreds of acres, all in Marathon County.

Breaking: robot makes breakfast

Cosmos

The research team led by Daniel Rakita from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, set out to find a way to replicate the so-called “gestalt” effect of human two-handed movement, in which arms and hands move together to achieve what each individual limb cannot do alone.

Ask the Experts: How Will China Tariffs Affect Summer Shopping?

Offers.com

Quoted: “If the past is any guide, consumers, both households and firms, have taken the entire hit from the tariffs,” says Menzie Chinn, professor of Public Affairs and Economics in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Theory says in principle Chinese producers could absorb some of the cost, but, in practice, recent studies have indicated the entire burden has fallen on U.S. purchasers.”

New CEO for Cellular Logistics, Madison heart repair startup

Wisconsin State Journal

Cellular Logistics’ Tandem HF technology, discovered by chief science officer Eric Schmuck in the research labs of cardiologist Amish Raval at the UW-Madison, is based on combining a framework of proteins derived from cardiac fibroblasts — a certain type of heart cell — with cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle stem cells.

The White House probably won’t be happy with the Fed’s interest-rate decision

Business Insider

Quoted: “In demanding aggressive cuts in the Fed funds rate, and a resumption in quantitative easing at a time when economic growth remains solid, the administration is only further demonstrating that it has only the political self interest of Mr. Trump at heart,” said Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Tom Still: Idealism or inevitable? Greening of America well underway

Wisconsin State Journal

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, part of the UW-Madison Energy Institute, launched in 2007 to focus on sustainable production of fuels and chemicals from non-edible plant materials such as corn residue, poplar and switchgrass. It is one of four such labs in the country and was recently renewed – with an increase in federal dollars – by the Trump administration.

Seed money: Madison has become fertile ground for venture capitalists

Quoted: Risk management is something that Jon Eckhardt — the director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship at the Wisconsin School of Business — said often gets overlooked by the general public.

“When they read about a company that worked out really well, what they’re missing is all the effort and money and energy that went into companies that didn’t work out,” he said.

Novomoto has big plans for 2019

Wisbusiness.com

Novomoto began in 2017 after spinning off from UW-Madison, and the company has grown quickly under co-founders Olson and Mehrdad Arjmand. At the end of 2017, the company had 20 paying customers, and Olson and Arjmand managed to grow that tenfold by the end of 2018.

How to think about breaking up big tech

The Intercept

Quoted: India has already instituted a Warren-like rule to prevent e-commerce platforms from selling their own products on the platform. “We should go back and understand the wisdom of that kind of separation,” said Peter Carstensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “We would never want the interstate highway system to be owned by Walmart. It simplifies the market functions if you separate them out.”

Less-Educated Wisconsinites Faring Worse As Job Growth Shifts From Manufacturing To Service Industry

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Steven Deller, interim director of the Center for Community & Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the report confirms trends seen in Wisconsin as jobs shift away from manufacturing.

“It was possible to barely make it out of high school and land a job at a manufacturing firm making decent wages,” Deller said. “Many of (those jobs) are going overseas and a lot of the jobs that we’re generating now are in the service sector and they simply don’t pay those kind of wages.”

The Best & Brightest Business Students of 2019

Forbes

Quoted: “When I started business school, I expected to be supplied with formulas and ample information to always make the right decision,” admits the University of Wisconsin’s Anders Larsen. “In reality, I learned that business is messy, and you never have all the information you want to make a decision. You learn to make decisions based off what information you have; and you learn when that information is enough or when you need to find more.”

Wisconsin dairy farmers seek higher milk prices before it’s too late

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “It’s very much a matter of your perspective,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison and chairman of Dairy Task Force 2.0, a committee of Wisconsin dairy farmers and others that aims to chart a course for the dairy industry’s future.