Virginia Tech

Decarbonization planning requires comparing diverse pathways across economic, ecological, and health dimensions under uncertainty. Capacity expansion models generally treat pathway uncertainties as independent, overestimating uncertainty around inter-scenario differences, which drive decisions. U.S.–Canada trade tensions and abrupt federal termination of offshore wind permits threaten key planks of regional decarbonization plans and illustrate the need for models spanning a wider pathway space. We present PHASE (Probabilistic Hourly Assessment of System Electricity), propagating correlated uncertainties across prescribed pathways through hourly dispatch over a 26-year horizon and generating joint posterior distributions across modeled outcomes. Applied to eight New England pathways, correlated uncertainty tracking yields >90% confidence in pairwise cost differences despite overlapping absolute cost intervals. Pathways with similar monetized impacts (roughly $470–477 billion by 2050) diverge on land use, avian mortality, and air quality. Rural areas receive greater relative air quality benefits than urban areas, cutting against assumptions that shape siting politics.

A coaxial gate/kelvin interconnect is proposed to limit gate loop inductance in vertical package structures. While low-inductance solutions have been demonstrated for planar packages, existing interconnects for vertical package structures result in high inductance per unit length. The coaxial gate/kelvin interconnect proposed here has been shown to reduce per-unit length gate-loop inductances in vertical package structures by 50% or more, enabling more advanced vertical package structures. The proposed on-chip coaxial interconnect also results in significant decoupling between the gate and power loops, enabling faster switching and better control of parallel die. This paper explores several materials and techniques for implementing coaxial interconnects. The resultant electrical characteristics, bond strengths, and viability of these approaches were evaluated. A solution for limiting mechanical stress in the bond between the die and the coaxial interconnects due to mechanical loading on the unbonded end was developed. To demonstrate the viability of the proposed interconnect solution, a package prototype which includes coaxial gate/kelvin interconnects was fabricated and characterized.

Universities vary greatly in their organic agriculture education programs, with differences in student interest in studying organic production and food systems, classes offered, and infrastructure and facilities. The organic agriculture curriculum options are also evolving as a result of departmental or college-level curriculum revisions. Similarly, the technical assistance provided for growers varies from state to state. Recent US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Marketing Service Transition to Organic Partnership Program programming has created more interest in providing and growing this assistance. The workshop “Where are we today? State of Organic Education and Technical Programs” was conducted at the 2025 American Society for Horticultural Science Conference in New Orleans, LA, USA, and featured a panel of teaching and extension scholars who provided insights into the existing programs and challenges that are currently affecting organic production across the United States. This workshop focused on discussing the challenges to organic agriculture education both at the undergraduate and farmer levels, and opportunities for growth.

Communication between gut microbiota and immune cells within the brain is essential for neurotypical development. Specifically, microglia are known to play a key role in regulating and supporting neural progenitor stem cell production during brain development, and are sensitive to changes in the maternal gut microbial composition during perinatal development. Here, we employed a germ-free (GF) porcine paradigm to examine how the absence of the microbiome affects microglial dynamics during a key epoch of brain development. We utilized automated software to evaluate microglial density and morphology across three developmentally significant regions: the ventricular/subventricular zone (VZ/SVZ), the prefrontal subcortical white matter (PFCSWM), and layers II/III of the prefrontal cortex (PFCII-III). We found no significant differences in microglial morphology or density in the VZ/SVZ or PFCSWM. In contrast, the PFCII-III of P16 piglets exhibited an increase in microglia density paired with morphologies indicative of an activated/reactive functional state. Notably, these effects were identified with no overall changes in microglial density in any of the regions assessed. Transcriptomics on RNA isolated from the PFCII-III revealed a significant upregulation of genes related to neuroinflammation, in agreement with a region-specific microglial and immune response in the absence of microbial colonization during postnatal development. Together, these findings build on the limited knowledge available on how microbiota influence brain development in large animal model organisms with high similarities to human brain anatomy and developmental trajectories.Significance StatementThe prefrontal cortex of porcine display unique, ramified microglia which are sensitive to germ-free conditions whereby they display alterations in morphology with a more transcriptionally reactive signature. These findings indicate that microglia are regionally sensitive to stimuli in the periphery, and studies in lissencephalic mammalian models may not be directly correlative to other higher-order species. The neuroanatomical heterogeneity of microglia across species is informative and understudied, but necessary, to draw conclusions on the array of perturbations spanning neurodevelopmental trajectories in health and disease.