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Category: UW Experts in the News

Naming rights deals for sports venues proliferate, but two economists say they do nothing for a company’s bottom line

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison marketing professor Kevin Chung sees good reason for insurers to keep their names before the public. In a hyper-competitive insurance market in which consumers shop only infrequently, it’s very important for companies to be on consumers’ minds, Chung said by email.

That’s one reason why insurance advertisements — think of Geico — tend to be memorable and interesting, he said.

“With this being said,” Chung added, “there is no study in marketing that I know of that has convincingly shown that sponsorship via stadium naming rights led to increased awareness and ultimately to more sales in insurance products.”

Jayme Closs captured the nation’s attention. Why don’t these other missing kids?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Hemant Shah, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s journalism school, said the pattern is part of a larger trend where white people are overrepresented as victims and people of color are overrepresented as criminals in mass media.

Part of the problem is the lack of diversity in newsroom leadership, said Shah, who teaches courses about mass media, race and ethnicity. White journalists may be more likely to latch onto stories of white victims.

“There’s a social psychology at work where you relate more to your in-group than to your out-group,” Shah said. “You may see in a missing white girl something that’s more relatable: It could be my daughter, my neighbor, et cetera. Whereas with a non-white young woman you might not have that same visceral connection.”

Scientists are learning how to farm on Mars through trail and error

Astronomy Magazine

Quoted: “Watering plants in space is really hard because water moves differently because there’s no gravity. If you get the water onto soil particles, it’ll just creep over the surface,” said Simon Gilroy, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches the effects of gravity on plant growth. He was not involved with the new study.

R. Kelly and the silencing of black women in history

Raw Story

Quoted: “It is incredibly courageous for the survivors to come forward, given the gross misogyny and disregard for black women and girls in the country and worldwide,” insists Bianca J. Baldridge, an Assistant Professor in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the forthcoming book entitled Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work.

What it means to be a peace corps volunteer

WPR

For the second consecutive year UW-Madison tops the list of universities for sending the most Peace Corps volunteers abroad. We find out more about the program and the opportunities they offer. We’ll also talk with a former lawmaker before he departs for Senegal next month about his decision to volunteer at the age of 65. Featured: Kate Schacter.

As Cheese Surplus Hits All-Time High, Dairy Industry Is ‘Cautiously Optimistic’

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Brian Gould, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agribusiness, expects this degree of excess to be a temporary situation.”The industry … is not alarmed to a large degree, I mean there is some concern of course if these stick around, but I haven’t seen a tremendous drop off in those cheese prices over the last six, seven months,” he said.

Blood sport: Coyote-killing contest will be held near Dane County this weekend

Isthmus

Quoted: Adrian Treves, a UW-Madison professor who runs the Carnivore Coexistence Lab, says it’s difficult to say what effect these contests are having on coyote populations, because the state isn’t regulating them.

However, they have the potential to be devastating. “We suspect the worst — that a whole region is getting depleted of coyotes, as in a whole county area or broader.”

How to help low-income children with autism

Spectrum News

Quoted:That means the needs of an untold number of children aren’t being met. It also has serious ramifications for research, because it can skew estimates of autism, says Maureen Durkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “It means that the prevalence of autism is probably even higher than we’re measuring.”

For now, the skies remain safe, officials say, but the shutdown is stressing the nation’s air safety system

Washington Post

Quoted: Jirs Meuris, an assistant professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said his research with truck drivers has shown that “financial worry is associated with a higher probability of a preventable accident.” And while “many air traffic controllers suppress their feelings of financial anxiety, this suppression actually makes people more error-prone as well because it takes cognitive effort to do so,” Meuris said.

Telemedicine Will Enhance, Not Replace Doctors In Rural Wisonsin, Experts Say

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: While some see telemedicine as the the future of medical care in rural Wisconsin, the director of the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health said it won’t replace the need to bring more physicians to rural areas.

“Telemedicine is an important piece of the puzzle, but even more important is that physician or primary care person in the communities,” said Dr. Joseph Holt.

Air pollution termed greatest environmental threat to health

Dawn.com

Quoted: Dr James J. Schauer, a senior civil and environmental engineer heading the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that the association of atmospheric particulate matter particles with adverse health effects had been well established and led experts to develop standards on these pollutants and implement control measures.

Stranger abductions like Jayme Closs case very rare

WISC-TV 3

Quoted: “Stranger abductions, typically they’re acting on some thought or fantasy or plan they’ve developed in their own head, and not necessarily focused on any one particular victim,” said Linnea Burk, director of University of Wisconsin Madison’s Psychology Research and Training Clinic.

Lauer: Warm up, rain had impact on corn

Eau Claire Leader Telegram

Above-average temperature and late-season precipitation were two major players in the outcome of the 2018 growing season, according to UW-Madison Corn Agronomist Joe Lauer. Lauer presented his highlights and summaries of last year’s growing season at eight agronomy update meetings held across the state last week.

You’ve Already Abandoned Your New Year’s Resolution. Here’s a Better Path to Reach Your Goals.

Entrepreneur

Noted: Not so, according to new research from the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jihae Shin, assistant professor of management and human resources at the school, together with Katherine L. Milkman of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a series of experiments that challenged the conventional wisdom that holds backup plans in high regard.

RE | Dance at Hamlin Park: There’s puffy white clouds but also a wall as 10th anniversary show goes political

Chicago Tribune

Noted: On the contrary, two new companion pieces from Estanich titled “The Biggest Wail from the Bottom of my Heart” and “What Love Looks Like” enter uncharted territory for this decade-old company. Estanich — who splits his time between Chicago and Stevens Point, Wisc., where he is a professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin — approached this new work with a political bent, which, to my knowledge, he and this company have not done before. So, some of those oft-seen tendencies listed above anchor the evening, bringing some familiarity to the forefront and softening overt references to racial tension in America and, yes, even Donald Trump’s wall.

When it was supposed to be payday

Marketplace

Noted: Jirs Meuris, an assistant professor of management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business, spoke to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about the financial stress that many federal workers could be feeling. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Why Would Paul Manafort Share Polling Data with Russia?

The New Yorker

Noted: In her analysis of five million paid, issue-based Facebook ads—which covered such hot-button issues as gun rights, abortion, gay rights, immigration, terrorism, and race—during a six-week period of the 2016 Presidential campaign, the University of Wisconsin professor Young Mie Kim discovered that “the most highly targeted states—especially Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—generally overlap with the battleground states with razor thin margins.

The power of ‘Om’

Financial Times

Noted: The Nimhans researchers are not alone in their interests. Richard Davidson, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Healthy Minds, is studying Tibetan Buddhist monks to understand how long-term meditation affects the brain.

Major Wisconsin Farm Groups Open To Creating Dairy Supply Management Program

Wisconsin Public Radio

Mark Stevenson, a dairy industry expert, said supply management programs like those in place in Canada and other countries can be effective.”If you restrict the amount of milk that gets to the marketplace, you can keep prices much higher, but if you do that, there has to be a lot of restrictions in place,” said Stevenson, director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences