Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: “It was a dramatic change in policy direction,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin. “Certainly the spark was the governor?s decisions of changing employment relations in the state.”

Quoted: The regulatory crackdown comes amid what some experts say is frothy, if hard-to-measure, growth for garage sales. “There are no scientific systems for measuring it, but absolutely the growth right now is significant,” said Alfonso Morales, a University of Wisconsin urban-planning professor who studies street markets. “The publications where these people advertise are getting thicker.”

Quoted: Sean Carroll, a geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, says: ?The inventory of genes in a bird would be very similar to the inventory of genes in a dinosaur.

Quoted: Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agriculture and applied economics, predicted that the funding cuts included in Walker?s current two-year budget will result in 20,000 job losses.

Quoted: “If you compare approval ratings, you may think that just muddling along is not the wrong approach,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “In most of the states where bills were introduced last year, legislators are planning to introduce them again,” said Sam Munger, managing director of the Center for State Innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has researched the issue. Lawmakers in other states (Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey) also are planning bills, he said. “The banking collapse of 2007 made a lot of people nervous about too-big-to-fail banks,” Munger said.

Winter has been a bust so far in Madison, not only for those trying to ski or sled, but for those who would normally take to the frozen expanses of Lakes Mendota and Monona. We are about to turn the calendar page to January, and there are still large areas of open water on the two big lakes as of Dec. 27, an unusual but not completely unheard of event here, according to UW-Madison?s Stephen Carpenter.

Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A: A snowflake can be an individual ice crystal or an aggregate of ice crystals. Ice crystals can grow by water vapor deposition on the crystal or by collisions with other cloud particles.

A: To stave off flu or measles or other afflictions, vaccines prepare our immune systems to identify particular sets of antigens, chemical markers that cover the exterior of viruses.

Quoted: Local councils and board seats are nonpartisan to negate the influence of political machines, said Dennis Dresang, professor of public affairs and political science at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Those elected are supposed to serve the community with no other agendas.

Quoted: ?Land sales are where the big money is,? Edward Friedman, a political science professor and a China scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a telephone interview. ?Every level can see how much better the level above it is doing. And each one wants to live at least that well. The system has within it a dynamic which makes people feel it?s only fair that they get their share of the wealth.?

Quoted: Dr. Ken Nordlund, DVM and clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?With Walker?s recent defense of his actions it?s hard to square any cooperation with labor unions, let alone expanding their benefits, with where the GOP is today,? said University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Charles Franklin. ?This critique of Thompson as an accomodationist, one willing to work with unions to expand their power, seems tailor-made for the campaign.?  

Quoted: Meg Gaines, director of the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, likens the experience to the game Mouse Trap, with patients moving around a board trying to avoid hidden pitfalls.

Quoted: “(Surgeons) feel the advance directive basically ties their hands behind their back, and they?re not given the tools to get them through the surgery,” said Margaret Schwarze, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who was one of the survey?s authors.

Quoted: ?Those are the people on the doorsteps of the service system,? said Marsha Mailick Seltzer, an autism expert at the University of Wisconsin. ?They may not have a diagnosis, but they are there.?

Quoted: “Voters are getting signals from sources that they trust, conservative and Republican sources, that that candidate (Gingrich) has flaws, and some significant flaws,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and founder of the website PollsandVotes.com.

Quoted: “A lot of consumers believe it?s a way to assist in all the issues we?re dealing with,” said University of Wisconsin consumer science professor Cynthia Jasper. “They believe that the money spent is reinvested in the local community in terms of taxes and jobs. Many consumers, because of the economic climate, want to to support their local communities.”

A. In geometry, pi (3.14159?.) is defined as the ratio of circumference to diameter, and “if this is the only definition of pi, then computing it to many decimal places would be impossible,” said Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at UW-Madison.

Quoted: Randy Stoecker, UW-Madison professor of Community and Environmental Sociology, has provided support to a number of local community organizations and has worked with Neuschel on several projects. He says he is particularly impressed with how the nurses have used community dinners as an “organizing process” and encouraged residents to take the reins.

Quoted: “It?s gone under the radar with the stalled reauthorization process,” said Doug Harris, a University of Wisconsin professor who wrote a recent book on education performance metrics. “You get really different answers depending on what you do with these numbers. You can talk all you want about what you do with failing schools but if you haven?t identified schools that are failing, it?s a waste of time.”

Noted: Flirtation-themed Ryan Gosling blogs have been trending on the Web for months as Gosling?s reputation as a sex symbol has grown. The ?Hey girl? meme, which started when one blogger started writing captions on paparazzi photos of the actor, took a turn for the academic in October when Danielle Henderson, a graduate student in gender studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, started Feminist Ryan Gosling.

Noted: And in a new twist, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified the development of ?superjets? in the Pacific ocean that may have fueled some of this year?s severe weather and heavy rains. These superjets form in the western Pacific when the subtropical jet stream lifts north and combines with polar jet stream. Jon Martin, one of the researchers, says these superjets can bring powerful storms to the Nation?s mid-section and Southeast 7-10 days after they form.

The race for the White House is heating up, and with the Iowa caucus just three weeks away, a University of Wisconsin professor said a pattern in polling numbers may point to a surprise in the race for the Republican nomination.

In response to the recent shooting of a Virginia Tech campus police officer, UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling discussed improvements the university and campus police departments have made to their crisis prevention and response strategies.

Assistant Director for UW Communications Terry Devitt said many of these improvements come in thanks to text alerts and emails, which can reach students instantly. ?[There are] lots of different tools that one can use to get to the university community and beyond very quickly, and we would use the whole menu if the situation warranted it,? Devitt said.

UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden says it?s possible the Greens could make a decent showing next year, although they might end up competing with another outgrowth of the discontent with the two-party system ? the online Americans Elect movement to nominate a nonpartisan ticket.

No matter how the vote turns out, the School Board is on notice to address the achievement gap, said Harry Brighouse, a UW-Madison philosophy and education policy studies professor who has followed the Madison Prep debate closely. “There is a kind of momentum behind this,” Brighouse said. If the School Board votes no, “they have to present real, clear alternative experiments that they?re going to be pursuing.”

Noted: The lead author on the study, Yuri Miyamoto at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has also looked at Japanese participants and found that in general, East Asians are more holistic in their reasoning than European-North Americans, Ji said Wednesday.

Quoted: “The governor?s race means that the very issues Fitzgerald is identified with are going to be front and center through April or May or even early June,” said Charles Franklin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. “Even if none of those Walker ads directly mention Fitzgerald, they are all about the success of the budget reforms. Fitzgerald has the opportunity to piggyback on that message.”

Quoted: Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW-Madison medical school, said a new medical school would have to include comprehensive residency programs for additional training after graduation. That would be cost-prohibitive, he said. That must also be examined in the study of a third medical school?s needs and impact.

Quoted: Where some see obstinacy in the governor, UW-Madison Political Science Professor John Witte perceives strength.

Quoted: Conversely, the state has benefited from its larger proportion of older people, since young people tend to move more often, said Dave Long, a researcher with the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.