Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Sue Robinson, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has followed The Capital Times’ transformation, says it’s too soon to say whether the move online will succeed.

Quoted: But even well-qualified women choose technical educations and careers less often than men, said Amy Wendt, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the universityâ??s Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute.

Quoted: Walter Dickey, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and former Department of Corrections secretary, said truth-in-sentencing has come with a high cost to the state. He doesn’t expect early release would have an impact on public safety. Those inmates eventually would be released anyway.

Quoted: â??I donâ??t think that fluoride added to domestic potable water is a hazard,â? said UW-Madison water quality specialist Jim Peterson. â??Part of the problem with fluoride is that it was considered a Communist plot to kill all of us capitalists in the â??50s and is considered a governmental interference with individual rights by some vocal folks. … Bad but interesting science takes a long time to beat down,â? he said.

Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, an economist at UW-Madison, said school boards will be faced with increasing property taxes in an uncertain economic climate.

â??School boards that are making these decisions will be, if anything, under a lot of pressure to lower property taxes,â? Reschovsky said. â??Districts, particularly, property-poor districts, will get a lot of push back to lower property taxes.â?

Quoted: So why are kids doing it? Bradford Brown, Professor of Educational Psychology and Human Development at UW Madison, says this is where communication has progressed for youths.

Noted: Q: How do snow fences work?

A: Snow picked up by winds can reduce visibility and cover roads.

We cannot switch off the wind, but we can slow it down.

Quoted: Walter Dickey, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and former Department of Corrections secretary, said truth-in-sentencing has come with a high cost to the state. He doesn’t expect early release would have an impact on public safety. Those inmates eventually would be released anyway.

Quoted: Thunder and lightning during a snowstorm is different from a run-of-the-mill snowstorm; it is extremely rareâ??fewer than 1 percent of observed snowstorms unleash thundersnow, according to a 1971 NSW study. But recorded observations of the phenomenon date back to 250 B.C., say ancient Chinese records translated in 1980 by atmospheric scientist Pao-Kuan Wang, now of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Others have come to the administrationâ??s defense. The Washington Postâ??s editorial board and the University of Wisconsin economist Menzie Chinn, for example, have noted that the White House numbers were in line with other economistsâ?? estimates, even if the White House estimates were on the more optimistic side.

Quoted: Ann Althouse of the University of Wisconsin Law School suggested yesterday that the reaction to Jindal and his speech might be racist: â??If thereâ??s someone of a different race, and you just have this gut feeling that somethingâ??s not quite right, why are you so confident that itâ??s not coming from racism?â?

Quoted: Rob Meyer is head of the Value Added Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is contracting with Chicago.

Quoted: “Prices were forecasted to be lower in 2009, but no one forecasted prices this low,” Bob Cropp, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in a dairy industry outlook last month.

Quoted: The public’s concern about the diversion of food to fuel in the growing move to developing fuels from plants has to be balanced with the global challenge to produce both food and fuel, said Randell Fortenbery.

The Renk Professor of Agribusiness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said the production of biofuels is a global issue in a global market.

Quoted: Rusty Bishop, director of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After raw milk has been pasteurized, he says, “there’s no difference in composition, other than that you’ve killed off a significant number of bacteria that were in the milk.”

Q: What is the jet stream?

A: A jet stream is a narrow current of strong wind that blows through the upper regions of the troposphere about 7 miles above ground.

Quoted: Michael Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at UW-Madison, said the Madison Police Department recently adopted a written policy stating that someoneâ??s personal or professional relationship to an officer or to other influential people should not be a factor in exercising discretion.

Quoted: Bruce Jones, an agricultural economist at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: â??I think house prices will be done declining within the year,â? says Morris Davis, a University of Wisconsin economist who studies real estate. But, given todayâ??s uncertainties, he cautions that â??anyone that tells you that they know, doesnâ??t know.â?

Retirement accounts have taken a brutal beating over the past year. Not only have many lost substantial value, what’s left is being raided by the people who put the money there in the first place.

“If you really have no other source of savings, tapping your 401k or retirement account may be your best option. But, you should think about that as a loan to yourself and that you’re going to pay that back,” advises University of Wisconsin financial specialist Michael Collins.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that Barton’s comments on Twitter border on risky.

“The comment that’s intended to be humorous, but if you don’t hear it right, you don’t read it right, it comes across in a very negative light,” Franklin said.

From Broward County, Fla., to Flint, Mich., homeowners might be facing exorbitant hikes in property taxes. In one of the more extreme cases, residents of West New York, N.J., are fighting a planned 27% bump in their property tax rates.

What gives? Squeezed by foreclosures and falling revenues, many local governments are facing unprecedented budget shortfalls. To fill some of the gap, more municipalities will have to raise property taxes, says Sharon McCabe, associate director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Stephen Malpezzi said that house prices could stabilize by this summer and a broader recovery could follow. But Malpezzi said it could be the summer of 2010 before things fully turn around.

“Who knows,” said James Johannes, associate dean for executive education at UW-Madison. “November 19, 2009 — that is my over/under date on the end of the recession, and if I am wrong the reporters do not have to pay for me for my forecast.”

Jim Seward, associate professor of finance, investment and banking at the UW-Madison School of Business simply said, “We’ll know when we know.”

Tim Riddiough, director at the UW-Madison Center for Real Estate said that, realistically, to get the economy back on track, it’s going to take the stabilization of the banking industry and the bottoming out of the real estate market.

Quoted: Al Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities.

Quoted: Al Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities, serving with the state’s Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

Quoted: William Jones, an associate professor of history at UW-Madison who has studied Depression-era government programs; and Bill Tishler, an emeritus professor with the UW-Madison’s Dept. of Landscape Architecture.

Quoted: Political scientist John Coleman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.

Quoted: â??It’s a very clever idea,â? said François Ortalo-Magné, a professor and chairman of the real estate department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. â??In today’s market, given the fear and uncertainty, we’re looking for things to get the market flow going again

Quoted: “Wisconsin spends more than $3 billion each year in extra health care costs to treat illness and disease directly caused by tobacco use,” said Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention in Madison.

Quoted: “Eudaimonic well-being is much more robust and satisfying than hedonic happiness, and it engages different parts of the brain,” says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The positive emotion accompanying thoughts that are directed toward meaningful goals is one of the most enduring components of well-being.”

Quoted: Israel-native Nadav Shelef is assistant professor of political science at UW-Madison. He told The Chronicle in a telephone interview that it was a â??reasonable predictionâ? that any coalition will not last full term.

The letters A-P-R stand for annual percentage rate, as in, the interest rate you pay on unpaid balances.

“Annual percentage rate was created, historically, more than 25 years ago as regulators were trying to make it easier for us to compare interest rates, ” notes University of Wisconsin financial specialist Michael Collins.

A new program produced by University Communications will make its national debut Thursday at 4 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. Ken Goldstein, UW-Madison professor of political science, will host the show â??Office Hours.â?

Quoted: Aaron M. Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offered another theory.

â??I think that it stems from their K-12 experiences,â? Professor Brower said. â??They have become ultra-efficient in test preparation. And this hyper-efficiency has led them to look for a magic formula to get high scores.â?

Quoted: Divesting of profitable noncore units makes sense when you compare it to a lottery, says Jim Seward, a professor of finance, investment and banking at the University of Wisconsin

Quoted: “Even if your assessment goes down, that doesn’t guarantee your real estate taxes will go down,” said Sharon McCabe, associate director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin Business School.

Quoted: Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that’s one reason green-minded Madison stations have largely decided to stick with the original date, despite concerns about people slipping off their icy roofs trying to install new antennae, he said.