Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Institute for Research on Poverty.

Quoted: “You really need to hear that voice; just reading a written message isn?t good enough,” says lead author Leslie Seltzer, postdoctoral fellow in biological anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?There is no threat to China from the United States,? observes Edward Friedman, a China expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?If there are any threats to China?s rise, they lie inside China, i.e., local greed and conservative politics.?

Quoted: But Democrats lost a potential candidate to oppose Walker when Russ Feingold said Friday that he wouldn?t run. It could be awhile before a candidate emerges, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said.

Quoted: It?s a blockbuster of an announcement says UW-Madison Political Scientist David Canon. ?I?m a little bit surprised. I?m certainly not shocked but I was certain he would run for one of the other.?

Quoted: “Getting employment back up is going to have a lot to do with getting that housing market problem healed and getting us back on track,” said Steve Malpezzi, a business professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: The process of working with principals on problems at school can be fraught with inequity, said UW-Madison education professor Beth Graue, who is also a former Randall parent.

Noted: The large influx of Latinos to metro New Orleans after Katrina produced diverse reactions ranging from gratitude for their much-needed labor to resentment among workers who perceived the newcomers as opportunistic competition. University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist Elizabeth Fusel, a former faculty member at Tulane University, has researched our region?s changing face and compiled her studies.

Quoted: Allan Odden, a professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on teacher compensation, has studied performance-pay models across the country for more than a decade and said the failure of some recent initiatives can be attributed to the fact many merit pay programs have been implemented as a ?pilot? program rather than being integrated with other programs and additional resources. He pointed to a study by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University that found student test scores did not improve when middle-school math teachers in Nashville were offered bonuses tied to the results.

Quoted: “These aren?t necessarily views that the larger electorate is primarily motivated by,” said Charles Franklin, who studies public opinion and politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: In general, such restructuring is expensive, but it provides companies with the flexibility to address debt issues in an orderly way, said Jim Seward, an associate professor of finance and academic director of the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “Politically there?s a lot of hay to be made either in good numbers of bad numbers from one month to the next, but the bigger picture is one of the long run over months and years,” said UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin.

Advertising for the market-savvy American consumer long ago stopped being about a product?s benefits and started being about creating unspoken, but enduring, emotional attachments between product and consumer, according to Robin Tanner, an assistant professor of marketing at UW-Madison.

Quoted: What?s important is not what the chips are doing, but how they?re doing it, says Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who worked with IBM on the project.

Sandi Sawchuk, clinical instructor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, said buying pet medication online is an option if people use caution.

Quoted: “What we?re seeing this year is there?s enough uncertainty about who the frontrunner is in the Republican ranks to give a reason to look at other candidates, and Paul Ryan is filling that void right now,” Charles Franklin said.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the GOP?s slim margin in the Senate ? 17 to 16 ? may make it tougher for them in certain key votes in future sessions.

Noted: The Ticket asked several constitutional scholars and presidential experts if a sitting president would be allowed to carry a gun if he wanted to, even if it meant breaking local law. Since the White House is located in Washington, D.C.–a city that bans carrying firearms–the answer isn?t perfectly simple. As presidential scholar Kenneth R. Mayer of the University of Wisconsin put it, the legal questions would get “big, fat, and hairy in a hurry.”

The QR code is a square with a black and white design and placed on a print advertisement or a placard, say, at a transit station, people can use their mobile devices to scan the code and access a website for more information or a discount on a purchase. UW-Madison has started experimenting with QR codes in some venues, such as the Chazen Museum of Art, wgere an exhibit of Russian icons last spring included QR codes on the labels of many objects, leading to pages on the art history department?s website with research by students on the works of art. The athletic department posted a QR code online, in addition to a link, for the Badgers? spring football game, packed with information about the team, while the Wisconsin Sea Grant printed QR codes on postcards distributed to outdoor outfitter stores.

Quoted: UW-Madison communications professor Dietram Scheufele, who said QR codes are ?very successful tools” and could one day be used by students to register for classes.

Noted: But Morris Davis, Associate Professor in the Department of Real Estate at UW-Madison?s School of Business, said there?s a catch.

Noted: UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin says that?s about all the poll is really good for, other than also serving as a fundraiser for the GOP.

UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin says turnout will again be a major factor in today?s election, much as it was in the GOP races. He says voters last week in some districts came out numbers that were close to the levels seen in presidential elections.

Cynthia Jasper, a consumer science professor at UW-Madison, said people wouldn?t like to see the dream idea or their feelings about it unfairly exploited. ?Consumers are, more and more, becoming very sophisticated in terms of what they accept and whether they feel they?re being manipulated,? Jasper said. ?It could backfire.?

Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Large, slow moving air masses make life easy for a forecaster, says Steve Ackerman, professor of atmospheric science at UW-Madison. “When we have a high pressure zone sitting above us in winter or summer, we know the weather is going to stay pretty much the same.” At the opposite extreme are thunderstorms and tornadoes, Ackerman says.

Noted: ?If you were paying attention to the coverage, the characterization of people resistant to raising the debt ceiling was they were Tea Party supporters or members of the Tea Party caucus,? said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin and a polling specialist. ?That characterization is an element in the current apparent decline in Tea party popularity.”

Noted: Students aren?t the only ones with a steep learning curve. More than half of teachers say they feel unqualified to use their state?s financial education standards, and few feel “very competent” lecturing a class on topics such as risk management and debt, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW-Madison Political Scientist Charles Franklin thinks lawmakers will squabble over what constitutes an appropriate reason for recall.

Quoted: Japan?s first Emperor is also said to have been a farmer and could communicate with gods to secure a good harvest, according to Emiko Onuki-Tierney, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: The device will help fill the need for equipment that is more convenient and less stressful for patients, permitting easier and more reliable monitoring, said Zhenqiang Ma, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, who was not part of the research team.

Noted: Duffy has shown a willingness to part ways with Republican leaders that could help him, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor. That includes voting for funding for public radio — which is popular in his district — when most Republicans voted to cut off those funds this year.

Noted: UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden says that Democrats clearly suffered a blow in only gaining two seats. Republicans wisely delayed the general elections by running “fake” Democrats in primaries.

Quoted: “I don?t think there is much of a moral victory in taking only two,” UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said. “This was all about taking command of the Senate.”

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it will be a challenge for Democrats to sustain the recall intensity because they will need their resources next year for the presidential race and a U.S. Senate contest in the state.

Quoted: The recall elections, sparked by a battle over union power and Walker?s controversial legislation earlier this year restricting collective bargaining, ended up focusing mostly on broad economic issues, said Charles Franklin, political science professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: The votes test the viability of the political strategy of attacking unions and the amount of money coming from outside groups shows that they see the national implications, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: The research of Bruce Wampold, UW-Madison counseling psychology professor.

Quoted: However, John Hawks, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes that many HLA genes pre-date humans? split from Neanderthals and Denisovans, and that the differences may have arisen by chance as the groups evolved.

Quoted: Though Democrats were declaring victory, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin pointed out the shortfall.

Quoted: “All states are under budget pressure, and how they deal with the cost of public employees, unionized or not, is an important political issue,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: But a study by economists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the Urban Institute found that more than 80% of households had accumulated their optimal wealth targets for retirement, and the lowest-income households were in better shape than most.

Quoted: The votes test the viability of the political strategy of attacking unions and the amount of money coming from outside groups shows that they see the national implications, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication and political science at UW-Madison, laments that quiet, mostly local elections have become “major television campaigns” driven largely by outside groups. (Only a third of the ads mentioned above were issued by candidates? campaigns.)

Noted: To be effective, psychotherapy needs to be provided in a way that meets a set of well-defined criteria. Condensing many hundreds of studies, psychologist Bruce Wampold, in a recent American Psychological Association symposium, boiled these ingredients down to this bakers dozen. Ive listed them in brief and translated them into practical terms that you can use in evaluating mental health professionals serving you or those close to you.

Quoted: Menzie Chinn, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and economics, said the bond rating downgrade signifies “the inability of the political groups to agree to a credible plan to shrink the budget deficit in the longer term ? and I want to stress, the longer term.”