Category: Experts Guide

Quoted: Catalina Toma, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin believes passive Facebook consumption (such as monitoring your friends? newsfeeds) can leave people feeling lonelier than before they logged on.

Quoted: “The advance of technology has really changed this conversation,” said Shawn F. Peters, a religious-studies professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law.” “I think people are educating themselves, and that?s often a good thing, but they?re also being exposed to crackpots.”

Noted: “I seldom watch a sporting event without my laptop and following along on Facebook and what other people are posting on Twitter,” said Dietram Scheufele, a science communication professor. Chancellor Biddy Martin got in on the action today, tweeting a picture of her assistant in Green Bay gear.

Quoted: David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.

Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Such findings show that health-care providers can no longer simply ask patients if they are sexually active, said John DeLamater, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

A column on the Rwandan situation by Lars Waldorf, senior lecturer at the University of York, and Scott Straus, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They are editors of the forthcoming book, “Remaking Rwanda: State Building and Human Rights after Mass Violence (University of Wisconsin Press).

Quoted: Dr. Ken Robbins, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said there appears to be disagreement within the U.S. government over how to deal with China. One side wants to remain soft on China to encourage it to consume more U.S. goods, while the security establishment favors a hardline approach, he said.

Quoted: Earwigs have been in Wisconsin only a couple dozen years, and they?ve only worked their way to the northern parts of the state in the last decade, according to Phil Pellitterri of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.

Quoted: At the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, a new surgical technique to repair torn knee ligaments in dogs was so successful that it?s now being used on NFL players, said Dr. William Gengler, director of Wisconsin?s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri said earwig larvae emerge from the ground every year about Memorial Day, and some earwigs still will linger into September. Before they disappear, they?ll likely munch on marigolds, hostas and aphids.

Quoted: “In general, there?s some research to support the idea that going to the movies to ?have a good cry? is a young person?s game – probably part of the developmental task of exploring intense feelings as well as a way to bond with your peers,” says Prof Marie-Louise Mares, of the communication arts department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: People buy iPhones for emotional reasons, not because they?re the best phones, said Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Wisconsin has 54 varieties of mosquitoes, but most can be classified in four subgroups, said Phillip Pellitteri, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “One of the big changes in business – and some executives still haven?t figured this out – is the role of government in business is much greater than ever before,” said Mason Carpenter, a business professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “I think part of the issue here is the Obama administration wants to start getting a message out that in fact their policies have been relatively successful and while we still have a long ways to go, we are actually making progress,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.

A column by Howard Schweber, UW-Madison professor of political science and law, analyzes whether Pakistan is a failed state, or on its way out of the morass in which it presently finds itself.

Quoted: The Department of Agricultureâ??s proposed rule would mark a dramatic shift. Most importantly, argues Peter Carstensen of the University of Wisconsin, it would be much easier for small producers to sue under the 1921 Packer and Stockyards Act.

Quoted: Humans also have a fascination with the divide between their species and animals, and Bigfoot bridges that gap, said John Hawks, anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Quoted: It appeared that Washington and Beijing had at least an implicit agreement earlier this year that China would allow the yuan to rise more rapidly, said Menzie Chinn, a China policy scholar who teaches economics at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Doug Wiegmann, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has studied human error in cockpits, operating rooms and other contexts. â??The general human-factors issues are the same whether youâ??re in a cockpit or anywhere elseâ?: communications, technology design and a checklist chief among them.

Quoted: “Itâ??s been a recession where everyone took a hit â?? with the bottom taking a bigger hit,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies economic inequality. But “the wealthy alone have bounced back.”

Quoted: “Weâ??re starting to see populations in Walworth County and Sheboygan County, so the distribution is starting to show in some places that it wasnâ??t 10, 15 years ago. As we get more ticks in more places, I guess we would expect to see more disease,” said Phil Pelliteri, a UW-Madison entomologist.

Local brand-experts say boycotting thousands of miles away isnâ??t the way to go. Thomas Oâ??Guinn, the executive director of the UW Center for Product and Brand Management, says gas station boycotts historically donâ??t work anywayâ??s, because people will go to the nearest gas station when they need gas.

Quoted: Most citizens didnâ??t understand the role and influence of caucuses in their state government when the scandal broke, and many probably still donâ??t, according to Kathy Cramer Walsh, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who studies public perception of government.

â??You canâ??t draw too many conclusions from these memos,â??â?? said Brad Snyder, a University of Wisconsin law professor who has examined relationships between judges and clerks. â??Thereâ??s a danger of saying if Kagan clerked for Marshall she must be an off-the-charts liberal. Thereâ??s no formula, but it will be interesting what she chooses to say about Thurgood Marshall, the judge, at her confirmation hearings.â??â??

Quoted: “If Lost has been so successful, in large part itâ??s because it broke a lot of televisionâ??s rules,” says Jonathan Gray, associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, via e-mail.

Quoted: Kathy Cramer-Walsh, a UW-Madison associate professor of political science, thinks Feingold is “safe” but expects him to face a competitive opponent in the general election.

Quoted: “This kind of insurgency is much more unusual than, say, [the Reagan revolution or the Gingrich revolution],” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. “You have a sort of classic establishment view that youâ??re about getting the seats [in Congress] and thatâ??s what grown-up leaders in Washington worry about [versus] this very intense amateur movement, but one that believes in something.”

Quoted: Susan Paskewitz, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that some people think the fruit attracts mosquitoes, others think it repels them.

Quoted: Phil Pellitteri, a distinguished faculty associate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, said lake flies do not bite (because they have no mouths) or carry disease.

Quoted: Kurt Squire, an associate professor of educational communications and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: States across the country exempt members of religious groups from prosecution if they choose prayer over doctors. Many of the laws were enacted in the 1970s, pushed by the Christian Science church, a religious group that embraces faith-healing, said Shawn Francis Peters, a UW-Madison instructor and author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Law.”

Quoted: “The portion of the price of soybeans that Monsanto is taking has gone up precipitously even as the amount of acres planted of those seeds has also increased,” said Peter Carstensen, a former Justice Department antitrust lawyer who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: At the same time, German banks also underwrite much of the Continentâ??s debt and exert considerable influence in domestic politics, according to Mark S. Copelovitch, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Germany â??doesnâ??t want its banking sector to go under because Greece has defaulted,â? he said.

Quoted: A telecommunications tycoon, Mr. Thaksin apparently retains enough wealth abroad to finance a nationwide political machine. A seizure of his assets frozen in Thailand should have no effect on this, said Thongchai Winijakul, a Thai historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: â??We have a work-based safety net without any work,â? said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. â??People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. Itâ??s the ones with less education and skills: thatâ??s the new poor.â?

Quoted: “All of a sudden major networks want to do big budget, big star, serialized dramas in prime time,” says UW Professor Michele Hilmes, “And Lost was the result of it.”

Quoted: If children are to relate positively to others, they must feel secure themselves and â??have a secure attachment to another person,â? said Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. Infants and young children whose own distress is ignored, scorned or, worse yet, punished can quickly become distrustful of their environment and feel unsafe.

Quoted: UW seismology professor Clifford Thurber says quakes are pretty rare in northern Illinois. Thurber adds, “This was probably an old fault, that got stressed enough to cause a small earthquake.”

Quoted: Urban agriculture crosses jurisdictional lines, said Alfonso Morales, a professor of planning at the University of Wisconsin. He advises cities to set up a one-stop-shop for urban farms, like they have for small business development, so that city farmers can deal with zoning, home business regulations and nuisance laws all in one place.

Quoted: Since the 2008 financial crisis, Beijing has concluded that the worldâ??s developed democracies “are badly wounded and therefore a healthy and growing China can now impose its will all over the world,” said Edward Friedman, a China specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Quoted: Ken Frazier, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison General Library System

Quoted: â??There is no evidence that stricter campaign finance rules reduce corruption or raise positive assessments of government,â? said Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. â??It seems like such an obvious relationship but it has proven impossible to prove.â?