Noted: If the Supreme Court rules that tax subsidies only apply to states that operate their own health insurance exchange, more than 180,000 people in the state would lose financial assistance. And Donna Friedsam, the health policy programs director at the UW Population Health Institute, says that would, in all likelihood, mean people would not afford their health insurance plans.
Quoted: “There is a common mantra that if you reduce biodiversity, that’s bad for infectious disease. That’s too simple,” said Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study. “It’s not biodiversity that matters; it’s the species.”
Quoted: “The success of his policy of transitioning adults off of BadgerCare is built on the existence of the ACA and the availability of those subsidies,” says Donna Friedsam, Researcher and Health Policy Programs Director at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Noted: A new analysis estimates the effect of committing Pell Grants to low-income students in the eighth grade, including a cost-benefit analysis. A paper on the study, by Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor of higher education at Seton Hall University, and Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of educational-policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, finds that such a program could increase the enrollment rate of low-income students.
Dietram Scheufele, professor of life sciences communication, and Dominique Brossard, life sciences communication department chair, partnered with the Morgridge Institute for Research. Their study shows people who feel the most informed in terms of politics tend to interpret information differently.
A UW crop scientist says it’s going to take the FDA’s blessing before you bite into the genetically modified fruit. Amaya Atucha, assistant professor of horticulture, says the browning is a natural phenomenon known as polyphenol oxidase. “When we cut the apple, the flesh is exposed to the oxygen and this enzyme reacts with the oxygen.” Dr. Atucha said.
Conducting great research and making exceptional advancements in the field of engineering has earned two UW-Madison professors — Raymond J. Fonck and Thomas M. Jahns — recognition by membership into an elite institution known as the National Academy of Engineering.
Quoted: Prof. Tom Oliver researches health policy and politics at UW Madison. He says a Supreme Court ruling against tax subsidies in states like Wisconsin would be a huge blow to thousands.
To WOECF Graduate Project Assistant David Lassen, the fellowship is a way to make the Wisconsin Idea manifest locally for communities around the state. “There’s a lot of folks that are interested in this idea of taking the university to the state,” Lassen said. “I think there are a lot of people who are anxious to actually do it but don’t know how.”
Quoted: Joshua Morrill, senior evaluator in DoiT’s Academic Technology; Paul Robbins, director of the Nelson Institute.
More information about the UW System public authority model was brought to light Thursday and further fueled a heated debate surrounding the potential shift to increased autonomy for system officials in exchange for decreased state funding. Quoted: Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of educational policy and sociology.
Panelists at a campus-wide forum on ‘Confronting Campus Rape’ Monday said the University of Wisconsin System has failed to address the issue properly and called for policies which better protect victims of sexual assault. Quoted: Anne McClintock, professor of English and gender and women’s studies; Cecilia Klingele, assistant professor of law; Claudia Card, professor of philosophy
Although varying in political disposition and opinions on the budget cuts, members of the panel consisting of UW-Madison faculty and Associated Students of Madison Vice Chair Derek Field agreed on the effects a public authority model would have on undergraduate education. Quoted: Noel Radomski, director of WISCAPE; Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of educational policy studies and sociology
UW Hospital performs surgery for chronic pancreatitis by blending up organs and reintroducing cells into the body. It is one of a few facilities in the country that is known for performing the eight-hour procedure. Noted: Luis Fernandez, associate professor of surgery; Nancy Radke, senior transplant coordinator for UW Health.
A UW-Extension paper estimates that workers in the manufacturing sector earn an average of $8,100 less in states that have right-to-work laws, and that right-to-work states have more poverty and fewer college graduates.
Quoted: Christine Whelan, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says there’s a a reason for this arrangement of stocking clothes months before you can wear them: “It’s aspirational.”
Quoted: For Yoshiko Margaret Herrera, a Russia expert and co-director of the International Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the US response wasn’t good enough. “We know that the justice system in Russia is deeply flawed,” she told DW. “I think essentially asking the Putin regime to investigate amounts to basically zero.”
Noted: Bugs, however, could lessen this capacity dramatically, according to a new study. “Insects may change in response to elevated carbon dioxide levels and limit or compromise the capacity of forests to serve as carbon sinks,” says Richard Lindroth, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “Thirty days is a game-able number,” said Dr. Gretchen Schwarze, a vascular surgeon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of an editorial on the metric in JAMA Surgery. Last fall, she led a session about the ethics of 30-day mortality reporting at an American College of Surgeons conference.
Humans are creatures of habit. And some of them don”t make us very happy. So how can we change behavior, learn a new habit or make a fresh start? Christine Whelan, a public sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert with AARP’s Life Reimagined Institute who studies happiness, human ecology and habits, provided some answers:
So what gives these fruits and veggies their curious and crazy shapes? Rest assured: These aren’t genetic mutants, says Irwin Goldman, a professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While malformed produce can result from genetic mutations, “most of the time it’s just an environmental effect,” he says.
Quoted: “It’s not a lot of money,” says Timothy Smeeding, an economist and former director of the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty. “If you think of what it costs to give a kid a fair chance, you’ve got to do better than the poverty line.”
Noted: “We are skeptical of the secular stagnation view,” concluded a paper presented at the Booth conference. Like many Fed officials, the authors— James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego; Ethan Harris of Bank of America ; Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs and Kenneth West of the University of Wisconsin—concluded the economy has been held back by temporary headwinds and not a permanent reduction in its potential growth rate.
Quoted: Scott Gehlbach, Political Scientist, University of Wisconsin–Madison: The more I think about Nemtsov’s murder, the more worried I am about what comes next. Historical experience, in Russia and elsewhere, demonstrates that political terror doesn’t require direction from the top. It simply needs a strong signal that terror is okay. And one could hardly ask for a stronger signal than the assassination of a prominent opposition activist a block from the Kremlin.
Quoted: “That is Twitter on speed,” says Katy Culver, an assistant professor at the UW Madison School of Journalism and an expert in social media. “It goes by so quickly that you can’t even process any of the messages. You actually have to stop it to be able to read and absorb any of them.”
Quoted: Unlike factories, ports can’t be moved to low-wage countries. The jobs are “impervious to outsourcing,” said John Ahlquist, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied port unions worldwide.
Quoted: “They never used their real names on the title page while Emily and Anne were alive,” says Emily Auerbach, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Searching for Jane Austen. “But the pen names helped them open the door and at least get a reading.”
Noted: David Egan-Robertson, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory, said many federal jobs, as well as private-sector positions in the D.C. region under federal contract, require high levels of expertise. And “to attract and retain this high level of expertise requires higher levels of compensation.”
Assistant Professor Michael Wagner studies political communication at UW-Madison, and says there’s going to be no compromise here.
Noted: “There may be benefits to waiting to raise the nominal rate until we actually see some evidence of labor market pressure and increases in inflation,” concluded the authors, the economics professors Kenneth West of the University of Wisconsin and James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego and the economists Ethan Harris of Bank of America and Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs.
A research team from University of Wisconsin has partnered with Johnson Controls, a global energy company headquartered in Milwaukee, to develop more efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for large commercial buildings.
As econoblog readers, we follow Econbrowser pretty regularly, mainly for Jim Hamilton’s insights, but recently, we’ve begun paying closer attention to the comments of his co-blogger, Menzie Chinn, who is an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: That makes scientists engaging the public — especially young people — more important than ever, University of Wisconsin-Madison Life Sciences Communication professor Dominique Brossard says.
Quoted: “It’s virtually impossible to make any claims” about the economic impact of right-to-work laws, says John Ahlquist, an associate professor of political science at UW-Madison who has studied labor market institutions.
University of Wisconsin “bug guy” Patrick “P.J.” Liesch has the creepiest, crawliest email inbox on campus.
Liesch, assistant faculty associate in the Department of Entomology, has been the solo “bug guy” in the Insect Diagnostic Lab for roughly one year. His role consists mainly of handling questions from the public, but he also teaches and conducts statewide outreach.
In a research lab at the McPherson Eye Research Institute, Dr. David Gamm and a team of researchers are looking for a cure and treatment for blinding diseases.
Quoted: “We are still on pace to break the all-time record — no question about it,” says Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Despite the brutal cold in the eastern U.S., the whole hemisphere is warmer this winter than it has ever been in history.”
Quoted: “The biggest driver of the number of vetoes is divided government,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies executive power.
Quoted: Michael W. Wagner, an assistant professor of journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin, said that Mr. Walker frequently speaks to the news media, but that the encounters are amid gaggles of reporters without time for pointed follow-up questions. “Local reporters have become conditioned to the idea he’s not going to amplify his answer,” he said.
Two professors at the University of Wisconsin have been selected for Alfred P. Sloan fellowships to support their research in mathematics and computer sciences.
Quoted: Remind guests, too, that dogs will reflect their own level of activity, said Patricia McConnell, certified animal behaviorist and zoology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Ramp up the excitement, and the dogs will get excited,” she said. “Settle down, and they’ll settle down.”
Quoted: Robert Drechsel, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, echoed that sentiment. “I don’t buy the idea that because they occupy different roles … that somehow a different standard should apply. I think they’re all subject to the same standard in that you report accurately and that you characterize the reporting accurately,” he said.
Quoted: Ron Schultz, a long-time researcher of canine vaccines, finds immunity of many diseases can last a dog’s lifetime, much like humans. He says vaccines are vitally important, but questions the need to vaccinate so often.
University of Wisconsin ranks fifth nationally among faculty participating in the Fulbright Scholarship Program. One recipient, UW professor Adrian Treves, seeks to bring the harmony he found between nature and society in Sweden back home.
Comment from Sharon McCabe, associate director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at UW-Madison and a former city of Madison assessor of commercial real estate.
Quoted: “In some ways its the end of a very long decline of the strength of unions and a weakening of protections both at the federal and state level for unions,” said William P. Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison history professor.
Quoted: “It’s not a perfect allocation of risk,” said Martha Gaines, a lawyer and director of the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “It’s a bad way to take care of people who are chronically sick.”
Quoted: Amanda Rogers, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has done research on ISIS, says that the group has two different types of propaganda.
Quoted: John Ahlquist, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who specializes in labor movements, said Walker had “effectively dismantled the financial and organizing structure of unions in Wisconsin.”
Quoted: “Ptomaine poisoning was a fairly popular term for food poisoning at the turn of the century,” says professor Susan Lederer, who runs the Medical History and Bioethics program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “[Doctors] believed that ptomaines came in many varieties and resulted from the growth of bacteria in food.”
Quoted: So, if not a better education, what exactly does a child get from an expensive private education? University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings suggested that it’s more about the lasting connections one can forge at a private institution.
Quoted: “I think they have strong claims to make in both federal and state courts,” Richard Monette, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in tribal law. “I think in both cases, the courts would not summarily dismiss their claims but would want to have them briefed and they’d want to hear that.”
Quoted: David Vanness, a health economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calculated that if the average payments for the procedures were purely random across metro areas, the odds of one metro area’s being among the seven most expensive for all three were about one in 1,400.
Quoted: David Vanness, a health economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calculated that if the average payments for the procedures were purely random across metro areas, the odds of one metro areas being among the seven most expensive for all three were about one in 1,400.
Wisconsin legislators should drop provisions creating a new UW System Authority from the biennium budget and take time to analyze the impact of such a drastic move, says Noel Radomski, director of WISCAPE at UW-Madison.
Scientists at Rutgers and Wisconsin universities are linking climate change and extreme weather, such as this winter’s persistent cold snaps gripping the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
A University of Wisconsin research center has received a $3.7 million federal grant to study e-cigarette use patterns and health-related issues, as e-cigarette popularity continues surging but their health effects remain largely unknown.
A team of geoscience researchers from the University of Wisconsin are in the process of discovering more effective methods of obtaining geothermal energy, renewable energy from the heat generated by the earth’s interior.
Julie Mead, a professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at UW-Madison, comments.
Quoted: Rich Halverson, education professor and associate director of the University of Wisconsin’s Games Learning Society, diagnoses the problem this way: “When you manage an education system that’s as rich in potential as ours with a sense of crisis, all crisis does is shut down possibility. We try to reach for the proven, for the stuff that works. Practices on the edge get ignored.”
Quoted: “Elevated body temperature is associated with heat stress, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke which can be fatal,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, who is director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
