A new study of the extent to which “smart utility meters” can improve energy efficiency in manufacturing finds that the willingness of managers to actually make use of the technology is a key driver in reducing energy consumption and related costs. The work also serves as a proof-of-concept for using “event system theory” – which has historically been used to understand the impact of unexpected phenomena – to tease out the practical effects of planned actions in the business community, such as adopting new technologies.
“We had two goals with this study,” says Patrick Flynn, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of human resources in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.
“First, we wanted to see how effective smart utility meters are at reducing energy consumption in the manufacturing sector, and which factors of the implementation approach might play a role there,” Flynn says. Smart utility meters give real-time data about power consumption to manufacturing managers, which they can use to make informed decisions about how to operate more sustainably.
“Second, there’s a lot of work out there that makes use of something called event system theory, which is largely used to help us understand the ripple effects of unexpected events such as the COVID pandemic or a stock market crash,” Flynn says. “But we know there are a lot of proactive events in the business community where companies make changes intentionally. We wanted to see if we could adapt event system theory to help us more fully understand the knock-on effects of these proactive events.”
To address both of these questions, the researchers looked at data from 87 plants, all of which were owned by a Fortune 500 company that adopted an energy management system which made use of smart utility meters. The researchers collected data on power consumption for each factory in the year before the smart utility meters were installed and for the year after the smart meter installation was finalized. The researchers also had data on when the smart meter installation took place, how long it took for the installation to be finalized, and how often factory managers accessed data from the smart utility meters.
“The first finding here is that, broadly speaking, the smart utility meters were a success,” says study co-author Amrou Awaysheh, OneAmerica Foundation Endowed Chair and associate professor of operations and supply chain management at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “On average, energy consumption dropped by 7.46% across all of the factories. And the company saved more than $41 million per year in energy costs.”
However, the study showed there was significant variability from factory to factory, and that there were three variables associated with those differences.
“The strongest effect associated with greater energy savings was the extent to which managers accessed the smart meter data,” Awaysheh says. “In other words, our study suggests that people who actually used the data were able to achieve greater reductions in energy consumption. This is extremely important for managers.
“It isn’t enough to just invest in a new system,” Awaysheh says. “Managers need to make sure that system is being accessed and that behaviors are being changed as a result of the new insights.”
“The two other effects were less obvious,” Flynn says. “Factories that received the smart meters earlier also saw greater energy reductions. In addition, we found that the longer the installation process took, the more likely the factory was to have increased energy efficiency. And there was tremendous variation here, with some installations taking place in one month, while others took more than a year. Our hypothesis is that factories that experienced longer installation times were more likely to feel a greater sense of ownership of the smart meters and their potential.”
“Our work also helps demonstrate the viability of these types of investments for sustainability,” says Awaysheh. “The Department of Energy and policymakers around the globe want to increase investments in these kinds of systems to help reach net zero goals. Thus, when companies see that there is a financial benefit to investments in these types of systems, they are more likely to do so.”
The study also lays the groundwork for business researchers to go one step further.
“This work lays out a blueprint for how we can use event system theory to improve our understanding of any intentional change that a business makes, whether that’s installing a smart utility meter or adopting new human resources software,” Flynn says.
“Not only can event system theory help us understand the impacts that a proactive change had, it can also help us understand the impacts that a proactive change will have,” Flynn says. “And that means our research has greater potential for developing approaches that can help businesses thrive.”
The paper, “From Intent to Impact: A Proactive Event Approach for Amplifying Sustainability Across Time,” is published in the Journal of Management. The paper was co-authored by Amrou Awaysheh of Indiana University; Paul Bliese of the University of South Carolina; and Barbara Flynn of Fundação Getulio Vargas.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“From Intent to Impact: A Proactive Event Approach for Amplifying Sustainability Across Time”
Authors: Patrick J. Flynn, North Carolina State University; Amrou Awaysheh, Indiana University; Paul D. Bliese, University of South Carolina; and Barbara B. Flynn, Fundação Getulio Vargas
Published: March 22, Journal of Management
DOI: 10.1177/0149206323122437
Abstract: We extend event system theory (EST) to conceptualize proactive events and examine how event duration, timing, criticality, and disruption are related to two phases of change associated with an organizationally initiated event. Specifically, we explore the impact of a new sustainability monitoring system on energy consumption using longitudinal archival data from 87 manufacturing units of a Fortune 200 multinational firm. We use a variant of mixed-effects discontinuous growth modeling (DGM) to test EST propositions related to initial and longer-term changes associated with implementing the monitoring system. Results indicate that while the new sustainability monitoring system is effective in reducing within-unit energy consumption on average, there are significant differences in change magnitude between units. The magnitude of change during the pre-post phase was related to between-unit differences in event duration, timing, criticality, and disruption. Longer-term change patterns were related to between-unit differences in managerial criticality behaviors. The results empirically validate several of EST’s core propositions and provide an illustration of how DGM can be modified to study events that vary in onset and duration across entities.
]]>“People around the nation will be buzzing about NC State,” said late Wolfpack women’s coach Kay Yow back in 1985, the first time she and men’s coach Jim Valvano advanced their teams to the regional semifinal round of their respective tournaments.
That’s the case again this week, as both the women’s team, coached by Wes Moore, and the men’s team, coached by Kevin Keatts, are taking their teams on the road to compete in the second weekend of their tournaments.
For the 11th-ranked and No. 3-seeded women, the weekend travel is not so unexpected and is their fifth Sweet 16 appearance in the last five years. After finishing second in the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and advancing to the finals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, Moore’s team easily blew past Chattanooga and Tennessee to advance to face Stanford.
The 11th-seeded and unranked men, however, have become the media darlings of the ’24 postseason after winning five straight games to capture its first ACC title since 1987 and two games last weekend to advance to the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time since 2015.
Keatts’ team is the talk of the tournament, particularly affable senior center DJ Burns Jr., who won the Everett Case Award as the ACC’s most valuable player. He’s been on every local, regional and national television show imaginable in the last two weeks and is the current face of the program as it advances in the postseason. The team’s seven consecutive postseason wins is approaching the school records of 10, set over the 1974-75 postseason, and nine, set in 1983.
Moore and Keatts have now matched the feat Yow and Valvano accomplished in both 1985 and ’89. It’s never been done at State since. The Wolfpack joins Duke, Connecticut and Gonzaga in having both their men’s and women’s teams in the Sweet 16.
And, just as their Hall of Fame predecessors supported one another, they couldn’t be happier for each other.
“Our players are good friends,” Moore told USA Today after his team secured its place in the regional semifinals with a victory over Tennessee. “Even with all his success, he comes to our game. I’m so happy for both teams and (the Wolfpack men) — they’ve been on an unbelievable run.”
For Wolfpack fans, Friday will be the basketball banquet of their dreams, with both the men’s and women’s teams playing simultaneously. The men will face Marquette at 7:09 p.m. in Dallas, while the women will play Stanford in Portland at the same time.
Overall, last weekend was quite successful in NC State athletics, as the No. 16 gymnastics team won the ACC championship in Greensboro and was invited to its sixth consecutive NCAA appearance, this time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Fifth-year senior Emily Shepard was named the gymnast of the year, and fifth-year senior Chloe Negrete was named the specialist of the year.
With gymnastics and men’s basketball, athletics has now won five ACC titles this academic year, along with women’s cross-country, wrestling and men’s swimming and diving.
State’s baseball team also took a three-game series against No. 9 Duke at Doak Field at Dail Park, and the No. 14 and defending ACC champion women’s tennis team beat No. 5 North Carolina.
So everyone really is buzzing — or howling, whichever you prefer — about the Pack.
]]>Kasey Wagoner is an assistant teaching professor of physics at NC State and a baseball enthusiast who recently helped produce a video that explains exactly why a curveball does what it does. He shared the video with The Abstract and told us a bit about why he – and physicists generally – spend time and attention on baseball physics.
The Abstract (TA): Why are you interested in baseball physics?
Wagoner: Baseball has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. When I was young I would play for hours each day and watch as many games as I could get on TV in rural Illinois. When I got to high school I took my first physics course, and it was very interesting to me. Around the same time, my father was finishing his undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois. The last class he needed for his degree was physics, and his physics instructor gave him a copy of Robert Adair’s book, “The Physics of Baseball.”
This showed me the applicability of physics to things that I was and am passionate about. As I’ve pursued multiple degrees in physics, I’ve continued to care a lot about how the fundamental rules of our universe can be applied to situations in our everyday lives, particularly baseball, the game I love!
TA: Why are physicists interested in baseball?
Wagoner: I must admit that the field of baseball physics researchers is a relatively small one, and I can’t speak for all of them. But the ones I know are interested in baseball physics mostly for the same reasons I am.
Baseball is interesting because there are multiple situations that seem like they are described by the physics that you’d learn in a first semester course; for example, how a ball flies through the air after being pitched.
But when you dig a bit deeper, some things are more challenging to understand, like how the spinning motion or the laces on the ball affect the ball’s trajectory. This combination of familiar scenarios, coupled with more challenging questions, makes baseball a fun sport to analyze.
This is compounded by the fact that Major League Baseball has started using very sophisticated camera systems to collect large data sets with information about everything that happens on the field. These data give researchers a fertile ground to explore the interesting physics of baseball.
]]>And that’s the same spirit Wolfpack donors brought to NC State’s sixth annual Day of Giving on March 20, setting a new university record for total number of gifts — 21,920 in all.
From those gifts, NC State raised $46,622,214 in support of students, faculty, programs, facilities, Extension, research and more. The dollar total is second only to NC State’s 2021 Day of Giving, which at the time set a national record for higher education giving days.
“This community comes together and responds in a big way every year. The way Day of Giving has grown says so much about the Wolfpack family,” said Chancellor Randy Woodson. “We are so proud of all we accomplished today. As I often say, as exciting as these numbers like this are, what is most exciting is the impact these gifts will make.”
Donors representing 99 North Carolina counties, all 50 states and Washington, DC, and 20 countries were part of the 24-hour effort. Throughout the day, leaderboard and hourly giving challenges maximized each gift, as colleges, programs and other areas competed for shares of bonus funds.
These bonuses for leaderboard competitions and challenges come from a pool of unrestricted university enhancement funds. This year’s leaderboard winners include:
Part of this year’s success was due to NC State’s faculty and staff, who went above and beyond throughout the day, and showed up in particularly strong numbers during the Faculty and Staff Giving Challenge. Nearly 2,000 gifts from faculty and staff members came through in that 2 p.m. challenge hour alone.
“We have $46 million reasons to be thankful today,” said Reshunda Mahone, associate vice chancellor for alumni engagement and annual giving. “Wolfpack Nation really stepped forward to support our vision and our future in such incredible ways.”
In addition to hourly giving challenges, social media challenges highlighted one of the most important parts of Day of Giving: the unique relationships alumni, families, friends and staff share with NC State.
Whether sharing photos of dogs and cats (and even the occasional snake) in their NC State gear for the Pack Pets Challenge, putting a unique stamp on the “Red and White Song” or sharing what they love about the departments and programs they call home through the #GivingPack Hashtag Match Challenge, supporters on Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram highlighted the enduring experiences, memories and connections that make being a part of the Wolfpack so special.
“Day of Giving brings our entire community together,” said Brian Sischo, vice chancellor for university advancement. “I’m so grateful to everyone who joined in today to show the true strength of the Pack. Each year continues to get better and better — this is an incredible university and an incredible campus that comes together to do amazing things.”
While Day of Giving always highlights what the Pack achieves together, this year put a new spin on interactivity with the Wolfpack Games. Throughout the day, track and field coach Laurie Henes and football coach Dave Doeren faced off in a series of head-to-head challenges as voters at home determined the college or division for which each coach would compete.
In the end, Doeren represented the Division of Academic Student Affairs, though he came up short of Henes in the final challenge — a spirited Jenga match — and the track and field coach earned bragging rights and a $4,000 bonus for the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.
Other highlights from the day include:
These gifts — and the nearly 22,000 others — will make an immediate and lasting difference throughout NC State.
“There is nothing better than seeing so many alumni, friends, families, students, faculty and staff invest in the parts of the university they find most meaningful,” Woodson said. “Thank you to everyone who made this day such a record-breaking success.”
View full results at dayofgiving.ncsu.edu.
This post was originally published in Giving News.
]]>Recently, Smith worked with photographer and artist Xavi Bou to turn images of insects in motion into photographic works of art. Some of the results are featured in the latest edition of National Geographic Magazine. Smith (who is an assistant research professor of biology at NC State with a joint appointment at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences) and Bou sat down with the Abstract to talk about how the partnership came about, the challenges involved in photographing these subjects, and why they do what they do. You can check out the results of the collaboration below or visit Bou’s website to see more of his work.
The Abstract (TA): How did this partnership come about?
Xavi Bou: I spent the last eight years working on Ornithographies, a project dedicated to revealing the beauty of birds’ flight plans. I decided to expand this visual universe of natural movement to the kingdom of insects. Initially I did some tests in a similar way to what I did with the birds, but it didn’t work.
I realized that I had to change the scale and get much closer to the subjects to appreciate their beauty, but that posed technical problems that I couldn’t solve. Just at that moment one of Adrian’s incredible videos came to me, and I instantly realized that it was exactly what I had been looking for. So after I contacted him about collaborating and he accepted, we worked together to adapt his technique to my needs and thus be able to create the images you are seeing.
Adrian Smith: One benefit I didn’t anticipate from creating and publishing science media online has been collaborations with people outside of my field. When Xavi reached out to me and I saw his stunning work on birds, I knew this would be something worth doing.
Whenever collaborative opportunities like this come up, I’m eager to pursue them. Especially when they are opportunities to bridge my work into different formats and contexts, and to reach audiences I wouldn’t be able to reach on my own.
TA: How long did it take to capture the images – were some insects more “cooperative” than others? How do you stop the subjects from making a break for it?
Smith: I’ve been filming insects in flight to showcase insect biodiversity for the past five years or so. The image sequences captured for this project go back three or four years. I haven’t counted, but I’m sure I’ve captured and published flight sequences of more than 100 different species. Beyond that 100 or so, there have been many that prove to be camera shy or uncooperative in the lab. Even the ones that do fly are not always easy to get images of because a good image sequence is when the insect flies across the frame while staying within a narrow depth of field.
As for preventing escapes, I don’t film in cages or with the insect restrained in any way. I just film everything in a relatively small room with a low ceiling. I have to find and catch the insect in that room after every filming attempt.
TA: Adrian, what is the technology involved in capturing the images? And Xavi, what technique do you use to create the final images?
Smith: On my end of the work, I use high-speed Phantom cameras. For this project most of the sequences were filmed between 1,000 and 6,000 frames per second. The rest of my process is lighting, both to make the image look good and to direct the behavior of the insect. The lowest tech, but sometimes hardest part, is the insect wrangling and handling to both not harm the animal and to get it to behave in the desired way in front of the camera.
Bou: The process is quite similar to the one I use on birds: by merging frames from Adrian’s video sequences with algorithms we stop seeing an insect in flight. These very organic shapes appear, which are suggestive of sculptures or flowers.
The idea of engraving them on a pedestal comes from wanting to value, as if it were a trophy, this animal kingdom that goes so unnoticed and that is disappearing without many of us realizing it.
TA: How many “takes” did you need on average to get the images?
Smith: A good session where I end up with 3-4 good flight sequences from a single species takes about 2 hours on average. In that time, I’ve probably recorded and scrapped two or three times as many sequences as the ones I’ve saved.
TA: Do you have any plans for future projects?
Smith: Yes, I hope to continue collaborating with Xavi on this and similar projects. My work filming and producing public media about insects and science is always ongoing through the Ant Lab YouTube channel, across other social media platforms, and through a long-time collaboration with the SciNC show on PBS-NC. I also have a few additional art/science projects that are in the works (including a series of physical flip books that I am very excited about), but those are not yet ready for show quite yet.
NC State Emergency Management and Mission Continuity will conduct a campuswide emergency communications test on Thursday, March 28. No action is required from you during the test. The test should last approximately five minutes and will end after an all-clear announcement.
The test notifications will be sent through all WolfAlert system methods, which are sirens, the OnCampus App, the NC State homepage, text messaging, email, Alertus Desktop, digital billboard screens, and the social media accounts Facebook and X. In the event of a real emergency, weather threat or other safety situation, the test will be postponed.
It is the responsibility of every member of the Wolfpack to prepare for emergency events and to know what to do to ensure the safety of ourselves and one another. Here are a few things you can do today to be ready for any emergency and better understand the upcoming test:
The best time to prepare for an emergency situation is now. Please review the university’s recommended emergency preparedness information and plan accordingly for the emergency communications test on Thursday, March 28.
Thank you.
]]>An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a new tool that improves the accuracy of electronic devices that measure the color of a plant’s leaves to assess health. The new technology works by improving a sensor’s ability to account for variations in light that can influence how the sensor perceives color.
“There is a tremendous amount of research being done that focuses on developing new plant varieties that are better able to withstand challenges such as drought, high temperatures and so on,” says Michael Kudenov, co-author of a paper on the new software and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University. “Many of these researchers use sensors that capture the color of a plant’s leaves to assess plant health, which is critical for their work. These sensors are also used by some growers and crop consultants to assess crop health. However, when researchers, growers or crop consultants are working with crops in fields, the sunlight can affect the ability of these sensors to capture leaf color accurately. Specifically, glare can throw the sensors off.
“Our goal was to develop software that would allow users to more easily account for the ways in which glare from sunlight can change the ways that sensors capture the color of a plant’s leaves,” Kudenov says. “Previous tools that account for glare have been extremely complex and required a lot of computational power. Our approach is substantially less complicated.”
A key idea to understand here is polarization. If we think of light as a wave, it’s possible for its wavelengths to vibrate along many different planes. When light is polarized, that means that the light is vibrating on the same plane. If you’ve tried to look into a body of water on a bright day, you’ve probably noticed that glare from the sun can make it difficult to see below the surface of the water. If you put on a pair of polarized sunglasses, the glare effectively disappears, allowing you to see below the surface of the water.
“The software we’ve developed essentially acts like an incredibly dynamic pair of polarized sunglasses, able to account for whatever polarization challenges are present in order to accurately capture the color of a leaf, regardless of the glare,” says Daniel Krafft, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State.
Here’s how the new tool works. When the sensors take a picture of a leaf, they not only capture color, but are also able to measure how polarized the light is. The new software estimates the true color of a leaf based on two variables: the color that the sensor perceived and how polarized the darkest wavelength of light is in the picture.
To assess the new tool, researchers conducted proof-of-concept testing that compared the performance of sensors with and without the new software when measuring leaves for which they knew the correct color. They found that the new software performed exceptionally well.
“The new software reduced the magnitude of errors tenfold when there was a lot of glare,” Kudenov says. “For example, if the color recorded by a sensor with the new software was off by 3%, the color recorded by a sensor without the software was off by 30%. And when there’s not a lot of glare, then you don’t need the software to do as much, so the difference between the two sensors was less pronounced.”
The researchers tested the new software using a full-size hyperspectral polarization camera. Next steps include incorporating the new software into more compact visual sensors and testing it on platforms such as drones to see how it performs in real-world situations with a variety of crops.
“Ultimately, we’d like to provide researchers and growers with a tool that is small enough and inexpensive enough for practical use,” Kudenov says.
The paper, “Mitigating Illumination-, Leaf-, and View-Angle Dependencies in Hyperspectral Imaging Using Polarimetry,” is published in the open-access journal Plant Phenomics. The paper was co-authored by Clifton Scarboro, former Ph.D. student at NC State; William Hsieh, a former undergraduate at NC State; Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of molecular and structural biochemistry at NC State; and Peter Balint-Kurti, a USDA-ARS research geneticist and adjunct professor of plant pathology at NC State.
The research was done with support from the National Science Foundation, under grant number 1809753; and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, under grant number 2020-67021-31961.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“Mitigating Illumination-, Leaf-, and View-Angle Dependencies in Hyperspectral Imaging Using Polarimetry”
Authors: Daniel Krafft, Clifton G. Scarboro, William Hsieh, Colleen Doherty, Peter Balint-Kurti and Michael Kudenov, North Carolina State University
Published: March 22, Plant Phenomics
DOI: 10.34133/plantphenomics.0157
Abstract: Automation of plant phenotyping using data from high-dimensional imaging sensors is on the forefront of agricultural research for its potential to improve seasonal yield by monitoring crop health and accelerating breeding programs. A common challenge when capturing images in the field relates to the spectral reflection of sunlight (glare) from crop leaves which, at certain solar incidences and sensor viewing angles, presents unwanted signals. The research presented here involves the convergence of two parallel projects to develop an algorithm which can use polarization data to decouple light reflected from the surface of the leaves and light scattered from the leaf’s tissue. The first project is a mast-mounted hyperspectral imaging polarimeter (HIP) that can image a maize field across multiple diurnal cycles throughout a growing season. The second project is a multistatic fiber-based (MFB) Mueller matrix bidirectional reflectance distribution function (mmBRDF) instrument which measures the polarized light-scattering behavior of individual maize leaves. This data was fitted to an existing model using SCATMECH, which outputs parameters that were used to run Monte Carlo simulations. The simulated data were then used to train a shallow neural network which works by comparing unpolarized two-band vegetation index (VI) with linearly polarized data from the low-reflectivity bands of the VI. Using GNDVI and Red-edge Reflection Ratio (RERR) we saw an improvement of an order of magnitude or more in the mean error (ϵ) and a reduction spanning 1.5 to 2.7 in their standard deviation (ϵσ) after applying the correction network on the HIP sensor data.
]]>To support student success, North Carolina State University has extended its enrollment confirmation deadline for admitted students from May 1 to May 15, 2024.
The move was made in response to the delayed timeline resulting from changes to this year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Admitted students who plan on enrolling at NC State for the fall 2024 semester should access their wolfPAW account to confirm enrollment and pay the $300 enrollment fee before the new May 15 deadline.
NC State remains committed to supporting admitted students. Financial aid professionals are available to answer questions weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT by email at financialaid@ncsu.edu or by phone at (919) 515-6278.
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]]>Tonkonogy earned her bachelor’s degree in bacteriology from Douglass College, the women’s division of Rutgers University in New Jersey, in 1970, two years before Rutgers became coeducational. She remembers just two female professors and about 10 students in her major.
The trailblazing female scientists who taught Tonkonogy and learned alongside her inspired her lifelong love of immunology and showed her the possibilities of a career in science academia.
“There have always been amazing women in immunology, but there weren’t many back then,” says Tonkonogy, now the longest-tenured active faculty member at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. “They were certainly not half of the field.”
Tonkonogy has since become a role model for other women finding their footholds in the biological sciences. She joined the College of Veterinary Medicine faculty in February 1982, during the college’s first spring semester, as the first female faculty member in what is now called the Department of Population Health and Pathobiology.
At NC State, she has advanced medicine’s understanding of gastrointestinal health and disease through her research on the immune system’s role in intestinal inflammatory conditions and helped thousands of DVM students across 40 graduating classes and countless graduate students understand a complex medical discipline.
As Tonkonogy reflects on her career ahead of her retirement this summer, she is grateful for the progress she has seen at the college and in the broader scientific community to better support women pursuing careers in the sciences.
“The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is an absolutely wonderful place to be a faculty member and a scientist,” she says. “And it’s so nice to look out over a sea of students and see so many more female faces than when I was studying. There are also many more women to look up to now.”
Training in a Changing Field
Originally from Montclair, New Jersey, Tonkonogy started at Douglass College interested in science but unsure what specialty she wanted to study. A captivating instructor in her advanced microbiology course helped change that.
“Dr. Cook would often start our class by saying, ‘I read something so fantastically interesting about how the immune system works and the mysteries of its functions, and I’m going to tell you today about what we know and especially what we don’t know,’” Tonkonogy recalls. “She was so enthusiastic, and I started thinking, ‘I want to be involved in a subject in which there are so many unanswered questions that I could help answer through research.’”
She moved to Boston after graduation and began working as a research assistant in immunology at Harvard Medical School. While there, she learned the school was starting a new Ph.D. program in immunology and enrolled in its first class, completing her Ph.D. in 1976.
At Harvard, Tonkonogy saw firsthand how her generation was making the field more inclusive. She remembers no female immunology professors from her graduate program but plenty of female students and postdoctoral researchers who supported one another.
“Many of the students and postdocs did look like me, but at the time, we did not dwell on the obvious issue that the faculty didn’t,” she says.
Women have furthered the fields of immunology and microbiology since at least the late 1800s, but historically their contributions have been under-recognized compared with those of male peers.
A 2020 National Institutes of Health study published in Nature Immunology found that female scientists are still underrepresented and underfunded in faculty and leadership positions, despite comprising the majority of microbiology, immunology and virology trainees. Another study co-authored by Dr. Laura Nelson, an NC State College of Veterinary Medicine associate dean, in 2023 reported that male veterinary college faculty tended to hold higher odds of more advanced academic rank and that female faculty more frequently reported their gender disadvantaged their careers.
These studies propose that reallocating resources equally, boosting mentorship and advocacy efforts and challenging gender-based stereotypes can improve gender parity in the sciences. Tonkonogy’s career is a testament that making strong connections with supportive and inclusive advocates makes a difference.
After earning her Ph.D., Tonkonogy worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland, from 1977 until 1979. She learned to master a new technique that would revolutionize scientific research and disease diagnosis, namely producing monoclonal antibodies.
She then spent a month as an immunology instructor at the World Health Organization Research and Training Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil, before returning to the United States for a position at Duke University Medical Center’s immunology division in 1979. There, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow and later a medical research associate producing monoclonal antibody reagents that would expand the capacity to test tissue compatibility in organ transplants.
“At the time, there were very few immunology labs, and you generally went somewhere on the basis of some personal association,” she says of her arrival at Duke. She applied there at the suggestion of a female postdoc she knew from Harvard whose Ph.D. mentor headed the lab.
Three years later, friends on NC State’s faculty encouraged Tonkonogy to apply to the newly established College of Veterinary Medicine, and Tonkonogy found herself trading Duke blue for Wolfpack red.
Four Decades of Impact
When she interviewed at NC State, Tonkonogy remembers, administrative assistant Alice Dorsey was the only female department employee available to accompany her to lunch with department head Dr. Leroy Coggins.
By joining what was then the Department of Microbiology, Pathology and Parasitology, Tonkonogy helped diversify the faculty pool in another way: She had a Ph.D. but not a DVM.
“The dean, Dr. Terry Curtin, and Dr. Coggins appreciated that veterinary medicine is science, in addition to practice,” Tonkonogy says. “They equally valued basic research, applied research and clinical work.”
The college looked much different back then. Tonkonogy says faculty from across departments had adjacent offices so they could easily collaborate on multidisciplinary projects. Classes were nearly three times smaller, with 40 students — 20 men and 20 women — in the first cohort.
“Our first students were just outstanding,” Tonkonogy says. “They were so eager to learn, because they had been waiting for a veterinary school in North Carolina for so long. Immunology is a very abstract discipline, but I remember students were so interested and excited about learning it. That was just a wonderful way for me to start an academic career.”
Dr. Hilda “Scooter” Holcombe, DVM Class of 1987, says Tonkonogy’s passion for immunology is infectious. She met Tonkonogy as an NC State undergraduate, worked in her lab every summer during vet school and studied under her for her master’s and Ph.D. in immunology.
“I worked with her every chance I could,” says Holcombe, a retired associate director of lab animal medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I fell in love with immunology largely because she’s so enthusiastic and hands-on about it. To this day, anytime I’m doing any immunological research or training people, I’m still teaching them ‘her way.’ She’s the expert, as far as I’m concerned.”
Tonkonogy also appreciates the support the college has given her for her research throughout the years.
Often working with colleagues in the collaborative Center for Gastrointestinal Biology and Disease, which is approaching 40 years of continuous National Institutes of Health support, Tonkonogy has extensively studied immunity and inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, focusing on the immune response to intestinal microorganisms in inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
“Her true love is really the science itself,” Holcombe says. “I’m enjoying retirement, but I get together with her and I get all excited about immunology again. It’s an amazing trait for somebody to be that enthusiastic about and happy with their career for so long.”
Even after 42 years, Tonkonogy still looks forward to coming to the college every day and inspiring a love of immunology and academia in her students and colleagues.
“To me, there’s absolutely nothing that can match an academic career,” Tonkonogy says. “For women entering the field now, I say, ‘We did it, and you can, too.’”
This post was originally published in Veterinary Medicine News.
]]>A gene associated with courtship behavior in fruit flies does not operate the same way in two different fruit fly species, a new study finds. The work demonstrates that conserved genes – the same genes found across species – do not necessarily have the same function across species.
Fruitless (fru) is a gene common to fruit flies and many other insect species. The gene is associated with male courtship behaviors. Scientists have studied the expression and function of the gene specifically in Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) by either removing it from males or by giving it to females and observing the results. For example, males with fru removed lose some male-specific courtship behaviors, and females given fru gain some of those behaviors.
“The fruitless gene was first found in D. melanogaster but it is conserved across species from grasshoppers to cockroaches and mosquitoes, and earlier experiments suggested that its function was also conserved across species,” says Christa Baker, former postdoctoral researcher at Princeton now an assistant professor of biology at North Carolina State University. “But researchers’ genetic tools have advanced. With CRISPR-Cas9 we can now add fru to females of other species to see whether the gene functions the same way.” Baker is a co-corresponding author of a paper describing the work.
Baker and the research team decided to look at the function of fru in a different fruit fly species, Drosophila virilis (D. virilis).
“D. virilis is quite divergent from D. melanogaster – the species split apart around 60 million years ago,” Baker says. “So comparing these two fruit flies is like comparing a mouse to a rat. They’re both fruit flies, like mice and rats are both rodents, but they are very different.”
Fruit flies have two copies of every gene, just like humans do. The researchers began by giving the D. virilis females one copy of fru and found that while they were about 40% less likely to mate, D. virilis females who did mate remained fertile. In contrast, while D. melanogaster females with one copy of fru are also about 40% less likely to mate, those that do mate can no longer lay eggs. These findings point to a similar role for fru in some female behaviors like mating, but a different role in other behaviors, including laying eggs.
“D. virilis is especially interesting because both males and females have mating songs,” Baker says. “In most fly species, only the male sings. In D. melanogaster, giving females fru results in their adopting male courtship behavior, such as singing. But D. virilis females with one copy of fru retained the ability to sing the female’s song, although they sang much more than females without fru.”
The researchers then added a second copy of fru to the D. virilis females and saw that they were now able to also produce male song; however, they retained the ability to produce female song. Additionally, females with two copies were completely unreceptive to mating, and tended to express aggression toward courting males.
“The canonical idea had been that giving females fru endows her with male behaviors while disrupting female behaviors like receptivity and egg-laying,” Baker says. “Our findings in D. virilis are exciting because they show that giving fru to female D. virilis does enable her to sing male songs, but it does not prevent her from singing female songs.
“We don’t know why two copies of the gene were needed in D. virilis females to produce results similar to those from one copy in D. melanogaster, but it opens up exciting new avenues for exploration,” Baker adds.
“What it does tell us, though, is that just because a gene is conserved across species doesn’t mean its function is also conserved. If we want to understand how our genome impacts behavior and development, we need to study genes’ impacts across diverse species and behaviors.”
The work appears in Science Advances and was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health. Mala Murthy, the Karol and Marnie Marcin ’96 Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University and director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, is co-corresponding author. Xiao-Juan Guan, former research scientist at Princeton, and Minseung Choi, former Princeton undergraduate currently at Stanford University, also contributed to the work.
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Note to editors: An abstract follows.
“The role of fruitless in specifying courtship behaviors across divergent Drosophila species”
Authors: Christa A. Baker, North Carolina State University; Xiao-Juan Guan, Minseung Choi, Mala Murthy, Princeton University
Published: March 13, 2024 in Science Advances
Abstract:
Sex-specific behaviors are critical for reproduction and species survival. The sex-specifically spliced transcription factor fruitless (fru) helps establish male courtship behaviors in invertebrates. Forcing male-specific fru (fruM) splicing in Drosophila melanogaster females produces male-typical behaviors, while disrupting female-specific behaviors. However, whether fru’s joint role in specifying male and inhibiting female behaviors is conserved across species is unknown. We used CRISPR/Cas9 to force FruM expression in female D. virilis, a species in which males and females produce sex-specific songs. In contrast to D. melanogaster, in which one fruM allele is sufficient to generate male behaviors in females, two alleles are needed in D. virilis females. D. virilis females expressing FruM maintain the ability to sing female-typical song as well as lay eggs, whereas D. melanogaster FruM females cannot lay eggs. These results reveal potential differences in fru function between divergent species and underscore the importance of studying diverse behaviors and species for understanding the genetic basis of sex differences.
Bitting devoted his career to helping others thrive and harnessing a passion for lifelong learning. He graduated from North Carolina Central University before moving to New York. There, shaped by the height of the Civil Rights Movement, he began his career as a social worker before becoming a middle school teacher during a teacher’s strike in 1968. He taught for several years and then became an assistant principal in Brooklyn. He earned another bachelor’s degree and his first master’s degree from St. John’s College in 1974 and then a Master of Science in Education from the City University of New York in 1975.
“During that time, I was forced to confront my own biases and prejudices, and reconcile my interests as a philosopher and an educator,” Bitting said when he retired.
Bitting returned to North Carolina and completed a Master of Arts in Philosophy and then a Ph.D. in the philosophy of education from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1985. Soon after, he joined NC State’s College of Education as an assistant professor in what was then the Department of Educational Leadership and Program Evaluation. He focused on researching and teaching ethics, moral education and development, and multicultural and indigenous education.
Throughout his distinguished time in the College of Education, Dr. Bitting was known for mentoring students, faculty, and other professionals; and he inspired conversations around the need to produce culturally competent graduates that still influences the College of Education today. As assistant dean for diversity, he also led efforts to create a climate survey for faculty and developed a framework for a college-wide curriculum audit.
Throughout his career, Bitting was guided by one question: “How do we best educate our children?”
His answer? “If you want to truly educate children — to get them to develop an ability to think critically and reflectively — you need empathy, which is key to creating equity.”
This post was originally published in College of Education News.
]]>Rhett & Link met on the first day of first grade in detention after writing profanities on their desks and their teacher sentenced them to color pictures of mythical beasts. It was the start of a lifelong friendship filled with creativity and curiosity. Their friendship continued at NC State University where Rhett graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 2000 and Link graduated with a degree in industrial engineering in 2001.
Now, the “Internetainers,” who started on YouTube in 2006, deliver standout sketch comedy and interview celebrity guests for over 25 million YouTube fans. The two are featured on Forbes’ Top Creators List, included on Forbes’ Highest-Paid YouTube Stars List, are New York Times best-selling authors, have appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon 10 times, and they won the ‘Show of the Year’ Streamy Awards in 2019 and 2022 for Good Mythical Morning.
Their entertainment empire, Mythical, is home to an array of digital-first comedy, variety, culinary and gaming shows that draw audiences comparable to their peers in broadcast and cable TV. Mythical has an enormous reach with its owned and operated YouTube channels amassing 31 million subscribers and 12 billion lifetime views, plus over 23 million followers across other social media platforms. Becoming the Internet’s version of late night, celebrity guests across Mythical shows include Tom Hanks, Post Malone, Jack Black, Amy Schumer, Daniel Radcliffe, Megan Fox, John Boyega, Madison Beer, and NCT Dream to name a few.
Rhett & Link define mythicality as “a desire to learn and do new things, an appreciation of originality, and a tendency to not take yourself too seriously.” The Rhett & Link Engineering Innovation Scholarship Fund will provide one student with the financial support to fearlessly pursue their own mythicality.
This post was originally published in College of Engineering News.
]]>Now, thanks to $16 million in funding from the North Carolina General Assembly, NC State is elevating our student-built gaming ecosystem by launching NC State Esports, an official program dedicated to collegiate competition. To spearhead the program’s development from within the NC State University Libraries, university leaders selected an esports coach and manager who’s already helped build one of the premier collegiate esports programs in the nation.
Join us as we sit down with Cody Elsen, NC State’s first esports program director, to learn more about his history as a gamer and coach and his plans for NC State Esports.
How did you become interested in gaming and esports?
When I was in sixth grade, my family moved to a new neighborhood, and one of my new neighbors, Aaron, attended the same summer camp I did. We started gaming together. For the next two or three years, we would sneak into each other’s houses at night, while our parents were asleep, to play Super Smash Bros. There was no real Wi-Fi option at the time, so that was the first truly competitive game that I got involved with.
I was a freshman in high school, in 2007, when I really started competing. I started playing Gears of War and traveling around the country as part of different professional teams, playing at LAN events and tournaments. It was a lot different than it is now. We used to put six people in the same hotel room. Now, players get flown around and stay in luxury hotels. But I continued to compete in different capacities from 2007 until about 2016.
What made you decide to turn esports into a career?
I had a great job in PR and marketing for one of the largest golf companies in the world, but I realized that golf wasn’t my passion. My passion was gaming and esports. I was determined to make it my full-time career, so I used my experience to start a brand called Fable Esports in 2016. We did really well over the next several years, coaching and developing professional players and fielding rosters for games like Gears of War, Halo and Rainbow Six. All of our rosters got acquired at some point.
Then I started looking at the collegiate landscape, because I realized that a lot of players were trying to go pro, but they had no fallback plan if that didn’t work out. That’s when I saw that I could help provide an outlet for students who want to be professional gamers, but also help them grow other skills that could translate to other careers. That was the model I started with in 2018 when I arrived at Northwood University. When I left the program to come to NC State, we had won two world championships, 14 national championships and over 30 conference championships.
Overall, including my time at Fable Esports and Northwood University, my record has included 2,316 wins to 194 losses; those two world championships and 14 national championships with Northwood; plus more than 50 conference and league titles between Northwood and Fable.
with Northwood University Esports
for a career win percentage greater than 91%
with Northwood University Esports
What appealed to you about the opportunity to lead NC State Esports?
Over my five years at Northwood, I realized I wanted to be able to do what I was doing with all the elements there, but on a larger scale at a big university. I know that for collegiate esports to really take off, it’s going to take large schools like NC State coming in to stake their claim and make the vision into reality. I was blown away by the university’s commitment to the student experience, and by how much of the focus here is on collaboration — with students, with other university units and with the wider community. There’s a huge community of gaming that already exists at NC State, and I’m excited to be able to help it grow.
What goals have you laid out for the program?
Our goals for NC State Esports revolve around our values, what we’re calling our Four C’s: community, collaboration, careers and competition.
Community is all about continuing to grow the sense of unity on campus around esports. That involves creating more spaces for gaming, like the new NC State Gaming and Esports Lab at the Hunt Library, but also just creating opportunities for people to cross paths in these spaces. Down the road, we plan to host events and workshops for middle schools and high schools to help make sure NC State becomes the epicenter for esports in North Carolina.
Collaboration, which I’m especially excited about, is where we’ll be working with different colleges and units across the university to conduct research, create courses and host programs that feed into esports. Whether it’s the College of Education, College of Engineering or the Poole College of Management, we’re going to work with these colleges to explore how gaming and esports can integrate into their programming and curriculum. Of course, collaboration is also about supporting partnerships with other companies and brands, whether that’s through sponsorships or donations.
Which leads us to careers. That’s where we’ll focus on building industry relationships and bringing in high-level guest speakers with experience in the field so students can ask questions and learn how people have actually translated their esports skills into careers. And it’s about leveraging the huge networks of industry connections that already exist at NC State to help us create opportunities like internships for students, and then continuing to grow those networks through esports. We’re also planning to host workshops for students and faculty that teach skills that can be applied to careers in the field — we’ve had a ton of interest in those already.
And finally, competition. Esports is naturally competitive, and by fielding highly competitive teams, we’re going to give students opportunities to develop into professional gamers; but we’ll also have an impact with a larger group of students and alumni who might relate more to gaming than to traditional athletics. We’ll be creating new opportunities for student employment and engagement that aren’t directly tied to gaming. For example, if you have a competitive team, you’re going to need someone to monitor their schedule, and someone else to monitor their analytics.
This framework of the Four C’s shows how we’re going to learn and grow and improve as a program. What’s working now might not work five years from now, but following the Four C’s will prepare us to adapt. Ultimately, we aim to make NC State the hub for esports on the East Coast.
How have you tapped into NC State’s largely student-built esports culture to help launch the program?
I’ve gotten the chance to work with the officers of the Esports Club quite a bit since I’ve started, and our visions for what esports can be here are very much in line with each other. Those students have helped to generate ideas and goals for the program, and they’ve helped me to understand which games are really thriving on campus and which games and technology students expect to see in our gaming spaces.
We’re going to continue to support that community and help make them as visible as possible. Part of the reason I got involved with esports as a career is that, while I was competing in high school, I never really had a large community to be a part of around gaming. That relationship between the program and the club is only going to get stronger.
What excites you most about working with students, as compared to strictly professional gamers?
What I love most about it is that I’m able to help gamers with their early development, compared to a professional whose habits and muscle memory have already been established. In gaming, if you’re able to work with someone early on, you can teach them good habits from the start, you can teach them good positioning, you can teach them how to communicate but not to overcommunicate. If someone has already played a game for 10,000 hours, it can be hard to break them from bad habits.
The culture has been established here for so long, and we’re going to continue to push it forward.
I’m also just excited by their enthusiasm. As I get connected more and more with students, it’s great to see how excited they are by all the potential with NC State Esports. I’ve even been hearing from some alumni, who’ve been sending us pictures of them gaming from the 2000s — photos of their own clubs, their own tables set up trying to recruit people to play StarCraft and other games. The culture has been established here for so long, and we’re going to continue to push it forward.
How will the Gaming and Esports Arena slated to open in Mann Hall in 2026 enhance NC State’s standing within collegiate esports?
Honestly, I think about that arena every single day. When that facility opens, it’s going to open a new world of esports opportunities for NC State. Having this space that can host a lot more students to learn about esports around like-minded people, it will serve them as a gateway into their careers. And having this huge venue to run large workshops and bring in hundreds of audience members for events will give us a major incubator for esports in our region.
My goal is to have student-run startups help us develop the technology for the space. We plan to outfit it with a broadcast studio, so students will be able to plug in beyond gaming to learn about live production and event management. And, of course, the arena will only increase our ability to host and broadcast matches and field highly competitive teams.
]]>Even if they didn’t outwardly show it.
All four members of the Kivett family — longtime operations volunteers at the league’s prestigious tournament, with a total of five NC State degrees among them — were thrilled to experience what it meant to see the Wolfpack cut down the nets after its first championship since 1987, back when parents David and Tanya were dating as NC State students.
For 37 consecutive tournaments, David Kivett (’87, computer science) has volunteered as a stats runner, media liaison and internet and technology specialist. His wife, Tanya (’88, business management), began volunteering as a press runner and coordinator in 1992.
Both their sons, Casey (’16, textile engineering; ’20, textile engineering M.S.) and Grayson (’21, communication), have worked as volunteers since they were teenagers, long before they ever enrolled at NC State.
That’s almost 100 years of voluntary service to the league without pay or a championship to celebrate for their alma mater.
There’s no cheering on press row, in the media work room or in the photographer’s bullpen, a lesson each of them learned before they were handed their first all-access credentials.
Saturday night, however, they allowed themselves to let loose a little, actually cracking a visible smile in the aftermath of the Wolfpack’s win over the Tar Heels, especially as they took a family Christmas card photo in front of the completed tournament bracket in the arena’s hallway.
“We’ve been trained by our parents not to cheer at the tournaments, because we are volunteering for the ACC,” says 25-year-old Grayson, who is an assistant director of annual giving at the Wolfpack Club and is currently working on a master’s degree in sports management. “But it was hard not to be excited.
“I tried to keep it in check.”
One of Grayson’s jobs was to escort ESPN sideline reporter Jess Sims all week, and she knew of his connection to the winning team.
“Towards the end of the championship game, she looked at me, smiled and said to stay calm because our work was not yet done,” he says.
It’s a lesson he’s known since volunteering for his first tournament at the age of 15.
Casey, 30, volunteered in NC State’s athletics communication office as a student and had similar emotions as his brother after seeing the Wolfpack win an unprecedented five games in five days.
“While on the court postgame, making sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing, I had the biggest grin on my face the entire time,” says Casey, the director of U.S. sales for the German nonwoven textiles machinery maker DiloGroup. “I think looking at any of us after State won, you might think we were a little subdued in celebrating.
“After working so many ACC tournament finals through the years, I could tell all of us were going through our postgame duties with a little lighter step.”
David, Casey and Grayson are all Eagle Scouts, so volunteering is part of their DNA.
The time sacrifice for the tournament is huge, but it’s mitigated by the fact that they’re working at what has traditionally been the most prestigious conference tournament in college basketball.
Tanya, a native of Shallotte who moved to Lewisville when she and David were married in 1988, has enjoyed the family’s ride and the relationships she’s made with volunteers, media and ACC staff through the years. It’s a satisfying break from the positions she has held for 32 years at Winston-Salem clothing manufacturer Hanesbrand.
“I’ve made so many good friends throughout my years of working the tournament,” she says.
Still, working all the events is a voluntary commitment that has been part of the family’s vacation plans for four decades — a commitment that comes with some serious sideline and backstage perks, but no compensation.
David Kivett began volunteering in 1985 as a student in the NC State athletics sports information office, as it was called back then, handling minor duties during football and basketball games. He volunteered to be a student statistics runner for his first ACC tournament in Greensboro in 1986, while in his final semester of earning a degree in computer science.
After working so many ACC tournament finals through the years, I could tell all of us were going through our postgame duties with a little lighter step.
The native of Lewisville, North Carolina, missed going to the 1987 tournament in Landover, Maryland, when head coach Jim Valvano led his team on an unlikely run for the school’s 10th all-time championship. Since then, however, he has watched as 10 other schools — including neighbors North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest — won titles.
He saw his alma mater’s team advance to the title game four times (1997, 2002, ’03 and ’07), with two losses to North Carolina and two losses to Duke.
He’s had multiple jobs through the years, both professionally and as an ACC volunteer.
He’s been a runner, taking in-game and postgame statistics to members of the media covering the games. He’s been a coordinator of photographers, creating baseline photo boxes where they shoot and assigning them to media outlets. And he’s helped assign seats for individual reporters and coordinate postgame interviews.
Since the early 1990s, when the internet first became a necessity, he’s used his computer science and IT knowledge from his 25-year career with Piedmont Air, US Air and US Airways to set up internet service at more than 20 different football and basketball venues, from high-speed landline connections to all-wireless connectivity.
It’s been a way to marry his love of athletics, his knowledge of computers and technology and his volunteer nature in the most intense sporting events imaginable.
“It’s something we started doing in college and have just enjoyed the challenges,” says David, now an assistant chief in charge of finance and logistics for the Lewisville Fire Department. “Over the years, we have developed relationships with most of the media. If I didn’t get to see them at a Wake Forest event while I was working there, I always knew I would see them in March.
“Those friendships have helped me understand what their needs are to do their jobs, and that helps us assist them in what they do. It hasn’t always been easy. Different venues provide different challenges, and you never know what technology is going to break next.”
He’s been the onsite electronics troubleshooter for internet connections, stat crew operations and electrical issues. He’s done essentially the same job at every ACC Football Championship; at every ACC Women’s Championship since 2000; for NCAA sites in Raleigh, Greensboro and Winston-Salem; and for Wake Forest football and men’s basketball for 35 years.
The technology has been the biggest change and challenge through the years, as the ACC has gone from manual stat-keeping to electronic, from hardwired telephones to wireless internet, from telecopiers to fax machines to stat monitors to up-to-the-second online stat displays available to every member of the media covering a game.
“I always said I wouldn’t even try to put on an ACC tournament without David Kivett and his family,” said Brian Morrison, the ACC’s emeritus associate commissioner of media relations. “They have been an incredible asset to the league.”
Like many NC State fans and alumni who actually did joyously celebrate last week’s victory, the enormity of the moment hasn’t quite settled in for a family who all went back to work Monday morning with hidden smiles.
“I still think it’s a dream,” Grayson Kivett says.
]]>He wasn’t about to end the best night of his basketball life without one more photo to celebrate the program’s 11th Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
“Hold up,” said the hulking, 6-foot-9-inch center from Rock Hill, South Carolina, who had just been handed the Everett Case Award as the tournament’s most valuable player. “I gotta take this picture.”
Burns, who scored 20 points in the Wolfpack’s 84-76 victory over top-seeded and fourth-ranked North Carolina on Saturday, then walked over to the red-striped legion of NC State students who make up the Wolfpack pep band for one last joyous photo on the court.
The mammoth player with funky dance moves and a playful sense of humor wasn’t about to miss the chance to hang out one more time with the classmates who greet his every big play, for whatever reason, by screaming “ma-ca-RON-i.”
After all, the 29 pep band members, 12 cheerleaders and mascot Mr. Wuf had also spent their entire spring break performing at the basketball team’s unprecedented five tournament wins, and they have been among the team’s biggest supporters all season.
Head coach Kevin Keatts and his team pulled off the miraculous feat of winning back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back tournament games for just the second time in major college basketball history — first accomplished by Connecticut in 2011 but never by an ACC team.
It earned NC State the ACC’s automatic berth in the NCAA Championship, which begins Thursday. The Wolfpack will play Texas Tech in Pittsburgh in its opening round game Thursday afternoon. Also this weekend, the Wolfpack Women will host the first two rounds of play in the NCAA Women’s tournament at Reynolds Coliseum.
With a team that has more spectacular DJs than a Hollywood house party, the Wolfpack men muscled to the championship with a variety of strategies and a host of players who stepped up to perform. Graduate guard DJ Horne, who didn’t play in the opening round game on Tuesday because of injury, twice led the team in scoring.
The honors were shared equally. Four different players led the Pack in scoring: graduate Casey Morsell (25 vs. Louisville), junior Jayden Taylor (18 vs. Syracuse), Horne (18 vs. Duke, 29 vs. North Carolina) and Burns (19 vs. Virginia).
Despite concerns over fatigue, the championship game was really never close. The Wolfpack jumped out to a 14-4 lead in the first five minutes and never trailed in the first 10. The Tar Heels grabbed a lead late in the first half behind the shooting of RJ Davis, but State took the lead at the beginning of the second half and never trailed in the game’s final 19 minutes. As the clock wound down — and celebrants in Washington, Raleigh and half the state of North Carolina prepared to uncork 37-year-old champagne — the Pack extended its lead to as many as 12 points.
North Carolina missed 12 of its last 13 shots.
Despite a few leg cramps, Horne’s earlier injury and the aches, pains and tiredness of five consecutive games, the Wolfpack played loose and had fun all the way through to their traditional celebratory scoops of ice cream, something Keatts started when he arrived seven years ago after road victories.
The path was not easy. Including State, six current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference have won NCAA men’s basketball titles. The Pack beat the other five in succession: Louisville, Syracuse, Duke, Virginia and North Carolina.
“I don’t think everybody understands that we won five games in five days against some very good teams,” Keatts said.
There were multiple story lines that gained attention for NC State, even more than breaking the prolonged championship drought:
And the members of the band? They made good use of an unanticipated full week in the nation’s capital, touring the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol. They visited the Smithsonian sites, including the National Air and Space Museum. Some caught an up-close glimpse of a presidential motorcade.
They saw all the city’s important documents: The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and, uniquely for most tourists, the ACC Championship brackets in the tunnel of Capital One Arena that were updated after every Wolfpack win.
“Some of our students were a bit superstitious and made sure to eat the same meals every day and perform the same pregame rituals to ensure they didn’t break the good karma we had going,” said director of bands Paul Garcia.
Mostly, though, like the team they were supporting, they played their hearts out.
]]>The survey is being sent to all permanent full-time (75% time or more) faculty and staff employed as of Jan. 31, 2024.
Watch for an email March 25 with a survey link and instructions from ModernThink, an independent research and consulting firm that is administering the survey on behalf of the UNC System. Each employee will receive a unique link that cannot be shared. If you do not receive the email, contact the ModernThink helpline at (888) 684-4658.
In the 2020 survey, the response rate was 57%. In 2022, as NC State was still emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the response rate was 45%. University leaders hope more faculty and staff members will choose to participate this time, giving them a better picture of the issues that motivate employees — as well as those that present challenges. We are aiming for at least a 50% response rate.
Participation is voluntary and confidential. Managers and supervisors have been instructed to give their employees up to 30 minutes to complete the survey during regular working hours. Employees cannot be required to use break time or leave time to take the survey. The survey will be available in English, Spanish and French.
If you have general questions about the survey initiative, contact Tim Danielson, associate vice chancellor for human resources, at tjdanie4@ncsu.edu. For technical issues, contact Nancy Whelchel, assistant vice provost for institutional survey research and analysis, at nancy_whelchel@ncsu.edu. For more information, visit the survey website.
]]>In labs and greenhouses on North Carolina State University’s campus, hundreds of varieties of Lemna gibba, a species of duckweed, are being analyzed for potential domestication. With a joint appointment in the departments of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry and Biological and Agricultural Engineering, assistant professor Ryan Sartor is the lead researcher behind these duckweed domestication experiments.
“Pretty much all plants and animals that have economic value in our society, especially those used in agriculture, have gone through the process of domestication. We’ve essentially changed their genomes through selective breeding in ways that work better for us,” Sartor explains.
A number of labs around the world study duckweed, but most are interested in using it as a model organism to study basic molecular biology, genetics, evolution or biochemistry, making Sartor one of the few researchers looking at duckweed as a potential new crop. Duckweed possesses several key characteristics that Sartor wants to optimize through selective breeding.
The first characteristic is quality. Duckweed is a high-quality biomass containing roughly 30% protein. It can also be induced to produce more starch content. While duckweed could be used for human consumption, Sartor’s lab is more interested in domesticating duckweed for use as low-carbon animal feed or in bioproducts — everyday items made from biological sources that result in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Bioplastics, biofertilizers and biofuels are some examples.
The second characteristic relates to where duckweed grows. According to Sartor, duckweed can extract all the nutrients it needs directly from water, even wastewater. Sartor is using municipal wastewater in duckweed tests and hopes the plant can be cultivated on or near animal waste like hog lagoons. Duckweed is not a picky eater. It can thrive on a widely variable composition of nutrients, Sartor says.
The third characteristic is yield. Duckweed is a high-yielding plant because it can reproduce clonally. In optimal conditions, it will double its biomass every two to three days and the entire plant could theoretically be harvested as opposed to just the fruit or grain. Sartor and other researchers have found duckweed yield to be several times greater than the highest-yielding crops. Sartor is trying to identify traits that impact yield stability as well as overall yield.
Another benefit of trying to domesticate duckweed is that it can go through reproductive cycles rapidly — in as little as five weeks, compared to three to four months for most crops. These short cycles enable quicker plant breeding than many other crops. Though his background is in basic molecular biology, Sartor began doing applied work as a postdoctoral researcher. His combined skills allowed him to develop systems from scratch to accurately measure traits of interest for improving duckweed.
For the first phase of his duckweed domestication project, Sartor has created a customized rack that grows duckweed specimens in upright tubes, which are analyzed by imaging systems at a 45-degree angle. The system tracks growth rates under different conditions. Sartor’s current project aims to develop a duckweed variety that grows well on municipal wastewater.
Sartor has also developed a hydroponic greenhouse system that tests 100 duckweed varieties in triplicate, producing 300 samples. These duckweed samples are grown in baskets suspended in water that can be automatically weighed several times per day. Each basket is mounted on a digital scale and can be raised out of the water to record its mass after water drains off. In these artificial conditions, Sartor is selecting for the most promising 10% of the samples to move on to the next phase.
Eventually, Sartor will build outdoor ponds to test the duckweed in real conditions. After that, he envisions duckweed being grown in shallow ponds installed in spray fields near hog lagoons to make the most of that land and the excess nutrients from hog production. If and when duckweed is grown on a farm like any other crop, it could be a boon for farmers’ margins and sustainable agriculture as a whole.
This post was originally published in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.
]]>Researchers have developed a new training tool to help artificial intelligence (AI) programs better account for the fact that humans don’t always tell the truth when providing personal information. The new tool was developed for use in contexts when humans have an economic incentive to lie, such as applying for a mortgage or trying to lower their insurance premiums.
“AI programs are used in a wide variety of business contexts, such as helping to determine how large of a mortgage an individual can afford, or what an individual’s insurance premiums should be,” says Mehmet Caner, co-author of a paper on the work. “These AI programs generally use mathematical algorithms driven solely by statistics to do their forecasting. But the problem is that this approach creates incentives for people to lie, so that they can get a mortgage, lower their insurance premiums, and so on.
“We wanted to see if there was some way to adjust AI algorithms in order to account for these economic incentives to lie,” says Caner, who is the Thurman-Raytheon Distinguished Professor of Economics in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.
To address this challenge, the researchers developed a new set of training parameters that can be used to inform how the AI teaches itself to make predictions. Specifically, the new training parameters focus on recognizing and accounting for a human user’s economic incentives. In other words, the AI trains itself to recognize circumstances in which a human user might lie to improve their outcomes.
In proof-of-concept simulations, the modified AI was better able to detect inaccurate information from users.
“This effectively reduces a user’s incentive to lie when submitting information,” Caner says. “However, small lies can still go undetected. We need to do some additional work to better understand where the threshold is between a ‘small lie’ and a ‘big lie.’”
The researchers are making the new AI training parameters publicly available, so that AI developers can experiment with them.
“This work shows we can improve AI programs to reduce economic incentives for humans to lie,” Caner says. “At some point, if we make the AI clever enough, we may be able to eliminate those incentives altogether.”
The paper, “Should Humans Lie to Machines? The Incentive Compatibility of Lasso and GLM Structured Sparsity Estimators,” is published in the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics. The paper was co-authored by Kfir Eliaz of Tel-Aviv University and the University of Utah.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“Should Humans Lie to Machines? The Incentive Compatibility of Lasso and GLM Structured Sparsity Estimators”
Authors: Mehmet Caner, North Carolina State University; and Kfir Eliaz, Tel-Aviv University and the University of Utah
Published: March 12, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics
DOI: 10.1080/07350015.2024.2316102
Abstract: We consider situations where a user feeds her attributes to a machine learning method that tries to predict her best option based on a random sample of other users. The predictor is incentive-compatible if the user has no incentive to misreport her covariates. Focusing on the popular Lasso estimation technique, we borrow tools from high-dimensional statistics to characterize sufficient conditions that ensure that Lasso is incentive compatible in the asymptotic case. We extend our results to a new nonlinear machine learning technique, Generalized Linear Model Structured Sparsity estimators. Our results show that incentive compatibility is achieved if the tuning parameter is kept above some threshold in the case of asymptotics.
]]>A printable organic polymer that assembles into chiral structures when printed has enabled researchers to reliably measure the amount of charge produced in spin-to-charge conversion within a spintronic material at room temperature. The polymer’s tunable qualities and versatility make it desirable not only for less expensive, environmentally friendly, printable electronic applications, but also for use in understanding chirality and spin interactions more generally.
Spintronic devices are electronic devices that harness the spin of an electron, rather than its charge, to create energy-efficient current used for data storage, communication, and computing. Chiral materials refer to materials that cannot be imposed on their mirror image – think of your left and right hands, for example. If you lay your left hand over your right, the finger positions are reversed. That is chirality.
Chirality in spintronic materials allows designers to control the direction of spin within the material, known as the “chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS)” effect. The CISS effect occurs when charge current flows along the chiral axis in a chiral material, producing spin – or charge-to-spin conversion – without needing ferromagnetic elements. Charge-to-spin conversion is necessary for memory storage in computing devices.
“We know that CISS-driven charge-to-spin conversion works efficiently in chiral semiconductors, but we want to know why,” says Dali Sun, associate professor of physics, member of the Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL) at North Carolina State University and co-corresponding author of the work. “And an easy way to understand the puzzling mechanics of such a process is to reverse it, that is, to look at spin-to-charge conversion via the inverse CISS effect.”
Sun worked with Ying Diao, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-corresponding author of the work, who developed printing processes to assemble conjugate organic polymers into chiral helical structures.
“Organic materials can transport spin over long distances, but they aren’t good at converting spin to charge, which is necessary for spintronic devices,” Diao says. “By making the structure of this material chiral we can leverage it to convert between spin and charge.”
“The CISS effect is created by putting a charge into a chiral spintronic device, but figuring out how efficiently the charge is converted to spin within the device is very challenging because it is hard to measure the produced spin in a quantitative way,” Sun says.
“The inverse chirality-induced spin selectivity effect, or ICISS, where you put spin into the device and measure the resulting current, has not been studied in organic polymers,” Sun says. “But it’s a lot easier to measure current than spin. So that’s what we did.”
Sun used microwave excitation as a spin-pumping technique to inject pure spin into the organic polymer and measure the resulting current.
The researchers found that spin lifetimes up to nanoseconds were achievable in the chiral organic polymer at room temperature, as opposed to the picosecond lifetimes in traditional spintronic materials.
“The beauty of this material – among other things – is its tunability,” Sun says. “We can change chirality, conductivity, and see how that affects spin or efficiency. We now have a way to really gain insight into why CISS-related spintronic devices work, which could help us design better and more efficient ones.”
“Polymer-based electronics are much less energy-intensive to fabricate than current electronics, and are easy to scale up for production,” Diao says. “Since polymer semiconductors are printable – they can be printed in the same way newspapers are – they would be ideal for portable, flexible and stretchable applications ranging from solar cells to new forms of computers.”
The work appears in Nature Materials and is supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Program under award number FA9550-23-1-0311; the Department of Energy; the National Science Foundation; the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Air Force. Rui Sun of ORaCEL and Kyung Sun Park of Urbana-Champaign are co-first authors. Andrew H. Comstock and Aeron McConnell of NC State; Yen-Chi Chen and Axel Hoffmann of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Peng Zhang, and David Beratan of Duke University; Wei You of UNC-Chapel Hill; and Zhi-Gang Yu of Washington State University, also contributed to the work.
-peake-
Note to editors: An abstract follows
“Inverse Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity Effect in Chiral Assemblies of π-Conjugated Polymers”
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01838-8
Authors: Rui Sun, Andrew H. Comstock, Aeron McConnell, Dali Sun, North Carolina State University and ORaCEL; Yen-Chi Chen, Kyung Sun Park, Axel Hoffmann, Ying Diao, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Peng Zhang, David Beratan, Duke University; Wei You, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Zhi-Gang Yu, Washington State University
Published: March 15, 2024 in Nature Materials
Abstract:
Coupling of spin and charge currents to structural chirality in non-magnetic materials, known as chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), is promising for application in spintronic devices at room temperature. Although the CISS effect has been identified in various chiral materials, its Onsager reciprocal process, the inverse CISS (ICISS) effect remains unexplored. Here we report the observation of the ICISS effect in chiral assemblies of π-conjugated polymers. Using spin-pumping techniques, the ICISS effect enables quantification of the magnitude of the CISS-driven longitudinal spin-to-charge conversion in different chiral polymers. By widely tuning conductivities and supramolecular chiral structures via a printing method, we found a very long spin relaxation time of up to several nanoseconds parallel to the chiral axis. Our demonstration of the ICISS effect opens possibilities for elucidating the puzzling interplay between spin and chirality, and opens a route for spintronic applications using printable chiral assemblies.
For the last several years, Vitiello has delighted people at weddings, schools and festivals. He’s also grown a following among students at NC State, bringing his costumed act to events like Packapalooza, Shack-A-Thon and more. His process is simple: People approach him, he asks them to give him a word, he writes it on a piece of paper, he promptly types a poem about the subject using his trusty typewriter, and he hands over the finished product.
“When I first started doing the Poetry Fox routine, I thought it was just a fun way to show off how good I was at writing and that I would impress people and feel really good about it,” Vitiello said. “I’ve come to realize it’s more about the interactions I get with other people. The poem is really the means to having a small, meaningful interaction with somebody, and I had not anticipated that it would be so valuable to me and to others.”
As of last month, Vitiello has written over 50,000 poems and appeared at more than 1,000 events. Because he churns out poetry at such a rapid pace, it’s hard for him to remember specific pieces. However, his fans give him frequent reminders about the impact of his work. Last year, a person recognized Vitiello in public, sans costume, and reminded him that he had written a poem for them about the word “transformation.” Little did he know, the person was struggling with their gender identity at the time, and his poem helped them commit to changing their preferred gender identity.
“There’s something about how people let their guard down to a guy in a fox suit and they really show themselves,” Vitiello said. “To me, it was just a poem I wrote for this person, but they interpreted it a certain way and found meaning from it.”
There’s something about how people let their guard down to a guy in a fox suit and they really show themselves.
People often ask Vitiello to write poems for big life events, such as the birth of their children. His poems have even helped mend relationships.
“On New Year’s Eve, I was writing at a local event and a woman came up to me. She had obviously been crying, and had mascara trails down her face,” he recalled. “She told me her fiance had gotten cold feet and broken up with her earlier that day, and she asked me to write a poem for him about how she was feeling at that moment. She came back to me like two hours later and told me she had sent a picture of it to him, he realized he had made a panicked decision, and they were back together again.”
Vitiello hasn’t always owned the fox costume, but he has always possessed a passion for reading and a gift for writing. From a young age, he took pride in writing poems based on random ideas that popped into his head. He would even get together with friends and compete in what they called “poetry games.” For example, they would decide to write about the moon, but they would challenge themselves by prohibiting the use of the word moon or related words like star, night or dark in their work.
“That sort of writing really resonates with what I do as the Poetry Fox. You come up to me, we have a short interaction, I get a word from you, and I see what I can come up with as you stand in front of me. It’s like getting a little assignment and having to get it done really fast.”
The poem is really the means to having a small, meaningful interaction with somebody, and I had not anticipated that it would be so valuable to me and to others.
As a child, Vitiello was fascinated with the concept of having a secret identity, but he has only been wearing the fox costume over the last decade. The outfit came from a relative who had helped organize a festival, and a vendor left it behind by accident. She called them to retrieve it, but they never did, so it ended up sitting in an attic for many years until she was preparing to move.
“She was going to toss it in a dumpster because it was a little unwieldy, and then she thought, ‘I’ll give it to Chris. He likes weird things like this,’” Vitiello laughed. “So really it was a joke gift, and I had it for three or four years before I even did anything with it. I would put it on around the house and goof around with the kids because it was basically a big pair of pajamas.”
As a resident of Durham, North Carolina, Vitiello got involved in the art space Shadowbox Studio, where he participated in Saturday night art programs. For one of those events, he decided to put on the fox suit and write poems on his typewriter. That initial event was a resounding success, and afterwards he received countless requests from acquaintances asking him to bring his act to their art gallery openings or their child’s school.
With his services in high demand, Vitiello works hard behind the scenes to keep his aging fox costume in good shape. He washes it regularly — and carefully — at home, and he recently had the back zipper replaced. The inside scoop is he’s considering purchasing a new costume in the near future.
Another piece of Vitiello’s ensemble that requires special care is his typewriter. He owns multiple — some that fans gifted to him, others that he purchased after carefully researching on eBay, and one he bought from a reputable typewriter refurbisher. But the one he’s been most consistently using is a 1953 Royal Quiet Deluxe that he bought for $20 at a thrift store.
“I love this Royal,” he said “I really can’t express how much punishment this typewriter has taken — I am not a gentle typist! I type with a certain kind of panache and energy, and I break things here and there, but it’s just soldiered through with me.”
Outside of his antics as the Poetry Fox, Vitiello incorporates his writing skills into his day job as well. He has worked for seven years as a communications strategist for NC State University Libraries, where he writes articles about programs, events and people. He also manages the Libraries’ social media accounts.
Vitiello has lived in the Triangle area for 30 years, and prior to his hiring at NC State, he was a freelance writer. He completed projects for several organizations and other universities in the area, but he has felt the strongest connection with NC State and its students.
“One of the first things I did when I moved to this area was to go into all of the academic libraries,” he said. “I’m one of those people who loves the stacks of a library and is always putting my nose into books, so being able to have an office in Hill Library with nine floors of book stacks above me all the time is a perfect fit for me.”
Vitiello is grateful to work for a place that supports his professional and creative pursuits, and he encourages other employees to find ways to exercise their own creative abilities, whether it be at work or in their personal lives.
“If people have a practice they’re interested in, a hobby or some type of artwork that they want to do, you have to make room for it,” Vitiello said. “If you exert a little will and desire into it, it’s worth going after it, whether it turns into a business or if it’s just something you enjoy doing. It’s about being intentional and taking initiative.”
]]>ah yes
it’s tuesday and i
have to finish writing
a promo post and a
press release
but
i hear upstairs the
voices of books
calling me into the stacks
poets historians artists scientists
spines in my
hands
the library wants to speak with me
Researchers have published a simple trick that improves the accuracy of techniques that help us understand how external variables – such as temperature – affect gene activity in plants.
“There are really two contributions here,” says Colleen Doherty, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of molecular and structural biochemistry at North Carolina State University. “First, we’re raising the visibility of a problem that many of us in the plant research community were unfamiliar with, as well as highlighting the solution. Second, we’ve demonstrated that addressing this problem can make a significant difference in our understanding of gene activity in plants.”
At issue is a technique called RNA-seq analysis, which is used to measure changes in gene activity – i.e., when genes are actively transcribing to produce proteins.
“We use RNA-seq analysis to assess how plants respond to various stimuli, or changes in their environment,” Doherty says. “It’s used widely because it’s a relatively easy and inexpensive way to monitor plant responses.”
For example, researchers can use RNA-seq analysis to see which genes are turned on when a plant is experiencing drought conditions, which then informs the development of new plant varieties that are drought resistant.
But there’s a specific challenge related to RNA-seq analysis, which Doherty and her collaborators ran into by accident.
“We were monitoring how plants respond to different temperatures at multiple times of day, and the results we got were wildly divergent,” Doherty says. “We initially thought we might be doing something wrong. But when we began looking into it, we learned that animals and yeasts are known to have global changes in transcription based on variables such as the time of day or nitrogen deprivation.”
In other words, researchers want to see how specific variables – such as increased temperature – affect transcription in specific genes. But there are some variables – like time of day – that can increase or decrease transcription in all the genes. This can throw off researchers’ ability to draw conclusions about the specific variables they want to study.
“Luckily, we found that this problem is sufficiently well-established among researchers who work on non-plant species that they have developed a method to account for it, called an artificial spike-in,” Doherty says. “These and similar techniques have been used in plant science in other contexts and when using older techniques and technologies. But for whatever reason, our field didn’t incorporate artificial spike-ins into our methodology when we adopted RNA-seq analysis.”
Artificial spike-ins make use of pieces of foreign RNA that are unlike anything in the plant’s genome, meaning that the foreign RNA will not be confused with anything the plant itself produces. Researchers introduce the foreign RNA into the analysis process at the beginning of the experiment. Because global changes in transcription will not affect the foreign RNA, it can be used as a fixed benchmark that allows researchers to determine the extent to which there is an overall increase or decrease in RNA that the plant itself is producing.
“When we used artificial spike-ins to account for global changes in transcription, we found that the differences in plants exposed to temperature changes at different times of day were actually even greater than we anticipated,” Doherty says.
“The artificial spike-in gave us more accurate information and greater insight into how plants are behaving at night – since we found that global transcription was higher at night. Before we adopted the use of artificial spike-ins, we were missing a lot of what was happening at night.
“Artificial spike-ins are an elegant solution to a challenge many of us in the plant research community didn’t even know was there,” Doherty says. “We’re optimistic this technique will improve the accuracy of transcriptional analysis in the wide variety of conditions that can affect global transcription in plant species. And that, in turn, may help our research community garner new insights into the species we study.
“We didn’t develop this solution – artificial spike-ins – but we really hope it garners more widespread use in plant science.”
The paper, “A normalization method that controls for total RNA abundance affects the identification of differentially expressed genes, revealing bias toward morning-expressed responses,” is published open access in The Plant Journal. First author of the paper is Kanjana Laosuntisuk, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Amaranatha Vennapusa of Delaware State University; Impa Somayanda of Texas Tech University; Adam Leman of the Good Food Institute; and SV Krishna Jagadish of Texas Tech University and Kansas State University.
The work was done with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, under grant D19AP00026; the National Science Foundation, under grant 2210293; and the Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talents Project, Thailand.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“A normalization method that controls for total RNA abundance affects the identification of differentially expressed genes, revealing bias toward morning-expressed responses”
Authors: Kanjana Laosuntisuk and Colleen J. Doherty, North Carolina State University; Amaranatha Vennapusa, Delaware State University; Impa M. Somayanda, Texas Tech University; Adam R. Leman, the Good Food Institute; SV Krishna Jagadish, Texas Tech University and Kansas State University
Published: Jan. 30, The Plant Journal
DOI: 10.1111/tpj.16654
Abstract: RNA-Sequencing is widely used to investigate changes in gene expression at the transcription level in plants. Most plant RNA-Seq analysis pipelines base the normalization approaches on the assumption that total transcript levels do not vary between samples. However, this assumption has not been demonstrated. In fact, many common experimental treatments and genetic alterations affect transcription efficiency or RNA stability, resulting in unequal transcript abundance. The addition of synthetic RNA controls is a simple correction that controls for variation in total mRNA levels. However, adding spike-ins appropriately is challenging with complex plant tissue, and carefully considering how they are added is essential to their successful use. We demonstrate that adding external RNA spike-ins as a normalization control produces differences in RNA-Seq analysis compared to traditional normalization methods, even between two times of day in untreated plants. We illustrate the use of RNA spike-ins with 3′ RNA-Seq and present a normalization pipeline that accounts for differences in total transcriptional levels. We evaluate the effect of normalization methods on identifying differentially expressed genes in the context of identifying the effect of the time of day on gene expression and response to chilling stress in sorghum.
]]>Adding a fourth light to traffic signals – in addition to red, green and yellow – would shorten wait times at street corners for pedestrians, as well as improve traffic flow for both autonomous vehicles and human drivers. And the more autonomous vehicles there are in the traffic network, the shorter the wait times for everyone.
“Our earlier work introduced the idea of a fourth traffic signal called a ‘white phase,’ which taps into the computing power of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in order to expedite traffic at intersections – but we had not yet incorporated what this concept would mean for pedestrians,” says Ali Hajbabaie, corresponding author of the paper and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. “We’ve now expanded our computational modeling to account for foot traffic, and the results are extremely promising for both pedestrians and vehicles.”
The white phase concept makes use of AVs’ ability to communicate wirelessly with both each other and the computers that control the traffic signals. When enough AVs are approaching the intersection, this would activate a new traffic light – the white light. While red lights mean stop, and green lights mean go, white lights tell human drivers to simply follow the car in front of them. In short, the white light is a signal that AVs are coordinating their movement to facilitate traffic through the intersection more efficiently.
“Our previous research found that the more AVs there are on the road, the more efficiently the traffic moves,” Hajbabaie says. “To be clear, this improves travel time, fuel efficiency and safety for all of the cars on the road – not just AVs.”
To account for pedestrian traffic, the researchers incorporated a suite of new parameters into the optimization model that assessed the impact foot traffic would have on all traffic through an intersection.
“We found that, when pedestrians are added into the mix, the white phase concept still improves traffic efficiency for everyone,” Hajbabaie says. “And, again, the higher the percentage of traffic that is made up of AVs, the more efficiently traffic moves through intersections.
“If at some point in the future we see almost universal adoption of AVs, our models suggest that delays at intersections would decrease by more than 25%. More realistically, we will eventually see a lower percentage of wirelessly connected AVs on the road, but there would still be meaningful improvements in traffic time.”
The researchers know that governments will not be adopting these new traffic technologies in the immediate future, but are already taking steps to ensure that future pilot projects will be safe and effective.
“We are currently setting up a physical testbed that will allow us to experiment with this concept in the physical world – not just in a computer model,” Hajbabaie says. “However, the vehicles we are using in the testbed are small enough to hold in your hands. This will help us identify challenges in implementation without the expense – and safety risk – involved with using full-scale vehicles. In the meantime, we are open to working with industry and research partners to explore ways to move forward with these technologies.”
The paper, “Advancing the White Phase Mobile Traffic Control Paradigm to Consider Pedestrians,” is published open access in the journal Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. First author of the paper is Ramin Niroumand, a former Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Leila Hajibabai, an assistant professor in NC State’s Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“Advancing the White Phase Mobile Traffic Control Paradigm to Consider Pedestrians”
Authors: Ramin Niroumand, Leila Hajibabai and Ali Hajbabaie, North Carolina State University
Published: March 10, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
DOI: 10.1111/mice.13178
Abstract: Current literature on joint optimization of intersection signal timing and connected automated vehicle (CAV) trajectory mostly focuses on vehicular movements paying no or little attention to pedestrians. This paper presents a methodology to safely incorporate pedestrians into signalized intersections with CAVs and connected human-driven vehicles (CHVs). The movements of vehicles are controlled using both traffic lights and mobile CAV controllers during our newly introduced “white phase.” CAVs navigate platoons of CHVs through the intersection when the white phases are active. In addition to optimizing CAV trajectories, the model optimally selects the status of the traffic light signal among white and green indications for vehicular and walk and do-not-walk intervals for pedestrian movements. A receding horizon-based methodology is used to capture the stochastic nature of the problem and to reduce computational complexity. The case study results show successful operation of fleets consisting of pedestrians, CAVs, and CHVs with various demand levels through isolated intersections. The results also show that increasing CAV market penetration rate (MPR) can decrease average intersection delay by up to 27%. Moreover, the average pedestrian, CHV, and CAV delays decrease as the CAV MPR increases and reach their minimum values with a fully CAV fleet. In addition, the presence of the white phase can decrease the intersection average delay by up to 14.7%.
]]>The SEA Change initiative offers a framework and community for colleges and universities as they undertake a rigorous, data-informed self-assessment and action-planning process to identify and begin to demolish barriers to opportunity and excellence in STEMM. Award applications are peer-reviewed by a panel of experts in STEMM higher education and accessibility.
“AAAS SEA Change is proud to recognize the three 2024 Institutional Bronze Awardees,” said Shirley Malcom, founding director of SEA Change and a senior advisor at AAAS. “This year’s class showcases the robust ways the SEA Change framework can be used to pursue goals that emerge from institutional missions. NC State, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz demonstrate the creativity that has been applied while addressing challenges to success in STEMM for all.”
NC State was specifically recognized for developing an action plan that is forward-thinking, strategically aligned with its institutional mission and designed within the unique parameters determined by state laws, according to AAAS.
“We’re proud that the Sea Change Institutional Bronze Award recognizes NC State’s efforts to make STEMM fields more accessible and inclusive, which is a key component of Goal 4 of the university’s strategic plan,” said Sheri Schwab, vice provost for institutional equity and diversity. “As a land-grant university and leading STEMM institution, NC State exists to transform lives and better the world, and it’s imperative that our university reflects the diversity of the communities it was built to serve.”
Institutional Bronze Award winners must have completed the self-assessment of their institution’s policies, procedures, and climate, demonstrate a deep understanding of the underlying issues contributing to the challenges they face, and create an action plan to address those challenges.
The 2024 Awardees bring the total number of institutions holding a SEA Change Institutional Bronze Award to seven. Other awardees include the University of California, Davis; Arizona State University; the University of California, Irvine; and the University of Florida.
The initiative also includes the SEA Change Institute – a library of courses related to institutional capacity-building for barrier removal and excellence – and the SEA Change Community. The community is publicly accessible but also offers additional opportunities for connections among the 27 SEA Change member institutions.
SEA Change includes accountability mechanisms and encourages participants to measure progress. An institution holds a Bronze Award for five years, after which they apply either for a renewal of their award or for the next award progression. AAAS also offers silver- and gold-level awards: Silver Awards honor continued self-assessment and demonstrated achievements in the institution’s own action plan, while Gold Awards recognize institutions that have carried out major transformations and shared their own efforts with others.
]]>A new study of how high school students respond to a program designed to increase the frequency and quality of conversations about race in school finds that the anti-racist intervention did not cause stress or feelings of alienation among study participants. The finding rebuts concerns that anti-racist programs are harmful to children and teens.
The study could serve as a blueprint for assessing anti-racist interventions.
“Young people are aware of racial injustice and related social issues, and schools are interested in helping students understand racial justice and develop the tools they need to discuss these issues in a meaningful way,” says Kelly Lynn Mulvey, co-author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University.
“There are multiple programs that aim to help schools accomplish these goals,” Mulvey says. “In this study, we wanted to determine how effective one such program was. Did it help students understand racial justice issues? Did it make them more comfortable talking about these issues? Were there any unintended effects on the students?”
For the study, researchers from NC State, Duke University and Dickinson College worked in partnership with a public high school to assess the impact of a classroom intervention aimed at helping students understand and discuss issues related to racism. The intervention was conducted for 45 minutes once a week for 10 weeks. Specifically, the researchers did an assessment of 227 students before the intervention and three months after the intervention, aimed at capturing how engaged students were, how students related with staff, the extent to which students felt that they belonged in the school community, student stress, and the extent to which students perceived social inequality.
In addition, 67 of the study participants also completed daily surveys for three weeks during the intervention. These surveys were designed to capture daily fluctuations in each student’s stress levels and feelings of belonging.
“One of the key findings was that 60% of study participants reported being highly engaged with the intervention, and another 20% were passively/somewhat engaged,” says Jackie Cerda-Smith, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State.
“Students in our study were actively interested in learning about and discussing issues related to racism,” says Mulvey. “And the highly engaged group demonstrated significant growth in their awareness of social inequality after the intervention.
“We also found that there was no increase in stress – or decrease in feelings of belonging – on days when students were involved in the anti-racism intervention,” Mulvey says. “That was true for all 67 participants who did daily surveys, regardless of how engaged they were in the intervention.”
“A lot of the opposition to addressing racism in schools hinges on the idea that anti-racist programming is somehow harmful or stressful for students,” says Cerda-Smith. “Our study finds that, at least with this program in this school, students are actually benefiting from these programs. What’s more, there is no evidence that the intervention is stressful or has an adverse impact on students’ feelings of belonging in their school community.
“Based on what we learned here, and on our interactions with the educators at this school, this study also underscores the value of partnerships between educators and the research community,” Cerda-Smith says. “We were able to capture real-world data on how students are responding to anti-racist interventions, which expands our understanding of this subject and gives teachers insights into their students. Hopefully, this will encourage more researchers and educators to pursue partnerships like this one.
“This study was particularly valuable for teachers at our partner school, because it took place during the pandemic when classes were being conducted online,” Cerda-Smith says. “Normal social cues that would help teachers determine how students were responding weren’t available, but our assessment gave them insights into students’ experiences with the intervention.”
“Another exciting component of this study was that we were able to capture student experiences in a variety of ways,” says Mulvey. “Many studies rely solely on pre-intervention and post-intervention testing to see what has changed. By having a subset of study participants provide data on a daily basis, we were able to better understand the effects of the intervention in real time. Further, we were able to capture student engagement with the intervention and see how that engagement related to outcomes. Previous work on this subject didn’t capture the role that engagement plays.
“This approach could serve as a model for future work aimed at broadening our understanding of anti-racist interventions, or other interventions in schools – such as interventions that focus on mental health or academic skills,” says Mulvey.
The paper, “A Novel Approach for Evaluating a Schoolwide Antiracist Curriculum Intervention,” is published open access in the journal AERA Open. The paper was co-authored by Paula Yust, an assistant professor of psychology at Dickinson College; Molly Weeks, director of research in Duke University’s Office of Undergraduate Education; and Steven Asher, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
The research was supported by a grant from the American Educational Research Association.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“A Novel Approach for Evaluating a Schoolwide Antiracist Curriculum Intervention”
Authors: Jacqueline Cerda-Smith and Kelly Lynn Mulvey, North Carolina State University; Paula K.S. Yust, Dickinson College; Molly S. Weeks and Steven R. Asher, Duke University
Published: Feb. 19, AERA Open
DOI: 10.1177/23328584231223476
Abstract: This manuscript describes our effort to apply a novel approach to understanding student outcomes associated with a schoolwide antiracist intervention. We report a multimethod quantitative approach to evaluate a 10-week antiracist intervention designed and implemented by school staff by examining patterns of student intervention engagement and measures of key constructs that connect to antiracism, psychological well-being, and school connectedness. Our novel approach combines schoolwide surveys with smaller samples of daily diary participants, documenting variation in intervention engagement and examining postintervention outcomes. Our findings are limited by high attrition rates, small sample size, and data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, our methods offer a promising transferable approach to evaluate school-based antiracist interventions by examining patterns and predictors of intervention engagement, as well as daily fluctuations in student experience throughout the intervention period.
]]>As American society continues to divide along political lines, higher education and educators have unique potential to help foster interpartisan friendships, according to a new study from North Carolina State University.
The findings are based on data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a study that included 5,762 college students from 118 American colleges or universities. The students attended from 2015 to 2019.
The researchers identified several key points regarding the type of environment that may help facilitate friendships across political lines.
“What we took away is that people didn’t have to significantly shift their political persuasions or perspectives in order to have these friendships. They were able to maintain some of those key identifiers or hallmarks associated with their political leaning,” said Alyssa Rockenbach, corresponding author of the study and an Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor at NC State. “We also learned that a welcoming climate for people of different political leanings on campus is helpful.”
When it comes to higher education specifically, students’ perceptions of how faculty share political views affected their likelihood of forming interpartisan friendships even outside of the classroom. If students felt pressured to align their political views with those of their professors, they were less likely to form friendships across partisan lines.
“If you’re in an environment where you’re feeling pressured or coerced, that’s going to make you take a step back from wanting to engage other people. It makes people more resistant and protective of themselves,” Rockenbach said. “But simply having the political conversation in class or even faculty members sharing about their own political leanings is okay, so long as they are at the same time creating an open environment that does not feel coercive.”
Students who had interpartisan friendships also tended to report that they had political disagreements within their friendships, but proved largely capable of resolving those disagreements and maintaining the relationship.
Friendships that bridge social divides serve an important and practical purpose, Rockenbach said. When people form friendships across political and ideological lines, they are more likely to be empathetic to the struggles of other groups. This idea is based on the theory of civic friendship, a concept dating back to Aristotle which contends that friendship not only provides personal benefits, but in fact plays a key role in creating the cohesion necessary for civilization.
“Friendship is linked to our ability to be moved by the issues that our friends face,” Rockenbach said. “If we have friends of other identities, we’re more likely to have empathy, we’re more likely to care when they face injustices in society and to stand up for them.”
This study, Rockenbach said, was the first step in determining the full extent of those effects. Further research focused on attitude change over time will be needed, she said, as well as to better understand where students see themselves on the political spectrum. For instance, students who say they have friends who are politically different to them may be referring to someone who is still relatively similar, compared to having a friend on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum. Political identity comes with an inherent amount of grey area, Rockenbach said, but the new study provides an idea of how to begin bridging that divide.
“It’s much messier than just democrat or republican, liberal or conservative,” Rockenbach said. “We’ve talked about people making friends completely across the aisle, but what about the area in between? Maybe a first step is someone who is liberal becoming friends with a moderate.
“There is a lot of nuance across the political spectrum and a lot of possibility for easing some of the polarization that we see.”
The study highlights obstacles to interpartisan friendships that may require larger systemic and societal changes to address, such as the hazards that marginalized groups may face when attempting to form friendships that cross political boundaries. Black students, for instance, were less likely to form these types of friendships, as with anti-Black racism and white supremacy still prevalent in American society those relationships could pose too many risks. These fears likely extend to other vulnerable groups as well, including queer and trans students, religiously minoritized students, and undocumented students.
The study found that when trying to foster friendships, educators must also have conversations about personal boundaries and emotional safety. The study suggests that educators should present students with opportunities to foster friendships across partisan lines, but also understand that some friendships are not possible and to ultimately encourage students to identify what will work for them.
The paper Transforming Political Divides: How Student Identities and Campus Contexts Shape Interpartisan Friendships is published in Aera Open and is open access. The paper was co-authored by Tara Hudson, NC State alumnus and associate professor of higher education administration at Kent State University.
The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation under Grants 41600695 and 1712-05214; the Fetzer Institute under Collaboration Agreement 3816.00; and the Julian Grace Foundation. IDEALS was a collaboration between Interfaith America and principal investigators Matthew J. Mayhew (The Ohio State University) and Alyssa N. Rockenbach (North Carolina State University).
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Note to editors: The abstract of the paper follows.
Transforming Political Divides: How Student Identities and Campus Contexts Shape Interpartisan Friendships
Authors: Alyssa Rockenbach, NC State University; Tara Hudson, Kent State University
Published: Jan. 29 in Aera Open
DOI: 10.3886/E192403V1
Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that only about 1 in 5 U.S. adults has a friend on the political “other side” (Dunn, 2020). Although these interpartisan friendships are uncommon, they play a critical role in catalyzing empathy, reducing prejudice, furthering justice, and even restoring democracy, as suggested by the theory of civic friendship (Goering, 2003; Kahane, 1999; Rawlins, 2009). In the present study, we drew on national data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) to examine the personal and contextual factors that predict interpartisan friendship formation among 5,762 college students attending 118 higher education institutions in the United States. The findings revealed the constellation of individual, social, and institutional contributors to students’ capacities to reach across political differences in their friendships. We offer guidance for how college educators can support the development of these relationships that may open a path toward empathy and healing in our polarized society.
“Financial well-being is one of those topics that still feel taboo to talk about,” said IEI Director Sarah Hall. “At the 2024 Emerging Issues Form, we wanted people to not only talk about our collective financial journeys but to walk away with ideas about how we can increase financial resilience at scale for the betterment of our entire state.”
After NC State University Chancellor Randy Woodson and IEI Director Sarah Hall welcomed attendees to the forum, Michelle Singletary set the stage for the day with her keynote address. Singletary, award-winning author and personal finance columnist with The Washington Post, discussed the importance of, and challenges to, saving money. She also shared her experiences as a journalist, parent and personal finance coach with the audience.
“In this room are people who are dedicated to helping people live their best financial lives, and we do that by looking at the entire person. What’s going on, what’s their back story, why do they spend?” said Singletary from the forum stage.
Following her remarks, Singletary moderated a panel with Mary Esposito and Tiffany Grant, two personal finance educators who use social media to connect with Gen Z and Millennials, respectively. They discussed the differences in educating various generations, introduced us to the term “edutainment” and shared tips for how organizations in the audience could reach the next generation of savers and investors.
Later in the morning, attendees heard from Mariel Beasley with Duke University’s Common Cents Lab about how psychology impacts the financial decision making of households – specifically: why we do the things we know we shouldn’t, and why we don’t do the things we know we should.
“We often think that ‘oh the reason my outcomes are the way that they are is because I care about these things, these are my values and my beliefs.’ And if somebody else is making poor choices, it’s because it’s not their values, their choices, their beliefs,” said Beasley. “But really, it’s that role of the environment that has a huge influence on how we operate within the world.” Singletary, so intrigued by Beasley’s remarks, focused her next column for The Washington Post on the topic.
Throughout the day, attendees heard from representatives with Civic Federal Credit Union and Fidelity Investments, as well as Bank of America, the Center for Responsible Lending, Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont, MDC Inc., the NC Council on Economic Education, SaverLife, United Way of North Carolina and others about topics and initiatives related to financial resilience, including the state’s new financial education mandate, how technology is impacting our financial future, strengthening public and employer benefits, and more.
Breakout sessions gave attendees the opportunity to dive deeper into topics covered during the plenary sessions.
The forum wrapped up with a conversation between Senator Sydney Batch and Representative Stephen Ross about the expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina. Moderated by PBS North Carolina CEO David Crabtree, the two discussed how a bipartisan group of legislators made the expansion a reality and what it will mean for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are now eligible for Medicaid.
Hall ended the day by announcing IEI’s next initiative designed to keep the momentum of the day going long after the forum ends: the Financial Resilience Community Cohort. Five community-based organizations that work to increase household financial resilience – especially for communities with historically increased barriers to saving and debt management – will be selected for the cohort. They will work with IEI and each other over a two-year period to implement solutions that make them stronger and better equipped to serve their communities. Applications will be accepted through March 29.
About the Institute for Emerging Issues
The Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State University is a nonpartisan connector, bringing North Carolinians together to find solutions to the state’s emerging and most critical policy issues.
About the Emerging Issues Forum
Since 1986, the Emerging Issues Forum has attracted leaders in business, education and public policy to discuss issues with profound implications for North Carolina’s future prosperity. It has helped catalyze the policy reforms, public investments and other proactive responses required to build an enduring capacity for progress in North Carolina.
This post was originally published in Institute for Emerging Issues.
]]>Harnessing the ability of wood products to store carbon even after harvest could have a significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions and change commonly accepted forestry practices, a new study from NC State researchers suggests.
The new study published in the journal Carbon Balance and Management uses carbon storage modeling to link the carbon stored in wood products with the specific forest system from which the products originated. Wood products and the forests they come from store different amounts of carbon, and being able to compare the two more specifically would help forest managers better understand these tradeoffs and plan for better carbon storage.
By tracing carbon in southern loblolly pine plantations from planting to harvest, the study also identified specific wood products that are important to improving carbon storage and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Chief among them were corrugated carboard boxes.
“Corrugated cardboard boxes are one of the most important products made from loblolly pine,” said Sarah Puls, NC State graduate assistant and corresponding author of the study. “If we can extend the effective lifetime of products like these boxes, it could have a significant impact on the carbon storage associated with southern loblolly pine plantations.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, these boxes make up 11.4% of all municipal solid waste and account for more than a quarter of all carbon in harvested loblolly and shortleaf pine timber. The study found that improving the lifespan of these boxes and lowering emissions from their production and decay would lead to significant carbon gains from loblolly plantations. Although these boxes already have estimated recycling rates between 91 and 96 percent, increased recycling could still have a significant impact on carbon storage, the researchers say.
The study also found that smaller sawtimber logs and engineered materials like oriented strand board – a type of board made by pressing together small wooden chips – might also be good at storing carbon since they can be grown quickly but still go into long-lasting products like houses.
“Wood is a great material to use in our lives – it’s renewable, it’s very flexible in terms of what we can do with it, and it takes a relatively low amount of fossil fuels to produce,” Puls said. “If we can find ways to keep producing wood while also improving carbon storage – that would be fantastic.”
The study also found that short rotations – harvesting and replanting trees more quickly – could potentially outperform slower long rotations in carbon storage when a forest is highly productive. This finding applied specifically to pulp harvests, which produce the types of wood used in creating corrugated carboard boxes.
Most other research in the field has found that sawtimber harvests outperform pulp in carbon storage. Sawtimber refers to trees which produce the types of straight, thick logs used in construction and furniture. Puls said that even one instance of short rotation pulp harvests outperforming sawtimber was noteworthy.
“Almost everything in the existing body of research says the opposite, that a long rotation strategy is the best for carbon storage,” Puls said. “This implies that we should maybe look at plantations on a more case-by-case basis, and adjust our rotations based on specific site productivity.”
Puls said that the study may help to direct future research around sustainable forestry.
“The bottom line is that we need to take climate action now. This study offers the opportunity for further research, with some specific pointers and suggestions for where we could focus,” she said. “It’s exciting that people are starting to understand that we need to do a better job modeling this, because we need to find ways to better use our forest resources in order to reduce emissions.”
The study was co-authored by Rachel Cook, Justin Baker and Andrew Trlica of NC State University and James Rakestraw of International Paper.
This project was funded by International Paper through the Forest Productivity Cooperative at NC State.
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Note to editors: The abstract of the paper follows.
Modeling wood product carbon flows in southern us pine plantations: implications for carbon storages
Authors: Sarah Puls, Rachel Cook, Justin Baker and Andrew Trlica, NC State University; James Rakestraw, International Paper.
Published Feb. 21 in Carbon Balance and Management
DOI: 10.1186/s13021-024-00254-4
Abstract: Wood products continue to store carbon sequestered in forests after harvest and therefore play an important role in the total carbon storage associated with the forest sector. Trade-offs between carbon sequestration/storage in wood product pools and managed forest systems exist, and in order for forest sector carbon modeling to be meaningful, it must link wood product carbon with the specific forest system from which the products originate and have the ability to incorporate in situ and ex situ carbon synchronously over time. This study uses elements of a life cycle assessment approach, tracing carbon from US southern pine timber harvests to emission, to create a decision support tool that practitioners can use to inform policy design around land- and bioproduct-based mitigation strategies. We estimate that wood products from annual loblolly and shortleaf pine timber harvests across the southern US store 29.7 MtC in the year they enter the market, and 11.4 MtC remain stored after 120 years. We estimate fossil fuel emissions from the procurement, transportation, and manufacturing of these wood products to be 43.3 MtCO 2 e year -1 . We found that composite logs, used to manufacture oriented strand board (OSB), were the most efficient log type for storing carbon, storing around 1.8 times as much carbon as saw logs per tonne of log over 120 years. Results from our analysis suggest that adjusting rotation length based on individual site productivity, reducing methane emissions from landfills, and extending the storage of carbon in key products, such as corrugated boxes, through longer lifespans, higher recycling rates, and less landfill decomposition could result in significant carbon gains. Our results also highlight the benefits of high site productivity to store more carbon in both in situ and ex situ pools and suggest that shorter rotations could be used to optimize carbon storage on sites when productivity is high.
Since 1990, Hahn has been the regular play-by-play announcer for the Wolfpack Sports Network, a position held by just four announcers since it was formed in 1961 as a regional broadcast outlet for radio stations across North Carolina and neighboring states.
Hahn has a pretty good idea of how many football games he called—414, because someone did the research for him—but he can’t say the same for the more than 1,200 basketball broadcasts and hundreds of baseball broadcasts he’s done, mainly because there are split duties in those sports and he hasn’t called every possible game.
He’s also spent time away from both sports for various reasons, most recently missing four consecutive broadcasts while taking care of his dying mother.
She passed away the day after the Boston College game, and he returned to the broadcast table for the last weekend’s game against North Carolina. Like most sports media lifers, Hahn’s calendar is defined less by dates than by a predetermined schedule of games.
He does remember his first football game, a 67-0 victory in which opponent Western Carolina did not make a first down — something that hasn’t happened in a major college football game since.
And his first men’s basketball game in 1990, which he shared with new basketball coach Les Robinson, rings a bell, too. Hahn had a truly captive audience for that first game, since the 120-79 victory was played on the road and was not televised.
To be honest, though, Hahn doesn’t have vivid memories of specific games or events. Win or lose, he tries to erase everything that just happened and move forward to prepare for the next contest.
“The Lord blessed me with a good short-term memory, which you need for this job,” Hahn says. “But I have a terrible long-term memory. As soon as this game’s over, I’m flushing it and I’m going on to start preparing for the next one.”
After the Wolfpack men’s team completes the current season, Hahn knows he won’t have a next game to prepare for. That doesn’t mean he’ll be inactive. First he’ll go through the difficult process of settling his mother’s estate. Then in August, he’ll marry fiancee Rhonda Potts, a retiring kindergarten teacher.
“Oh, I’ve got all sorts of stuff to do,” Hahn says. “I think the first two years after retirement, I’m going to be slammed. After that, I think I’d like to play in some charity golf tournaments and do the things I enjoy.”
The truth is, he can’t wait.
“I never wanted to die at the mic,” he says. “I’m going to miss being on the air, but I am not going to miss all the prep work and stuff that you have to do to get ready to be on the air.”
At PNC Arena during Monday night’s game against Duke, Hahn’s achievements were recognized on the videoboard, and he was given a framed basketball jersey and football jersey, both with the number 34.
He’s gotten messages from people he’s worked with through the years, including a phone call from former football coach Mike O’Cain and former basketball coach Sidney Lowe. Peggy Amato called on behalf of husband Chuck, another former football coach. Basketball coach Herb Sendek texted to say good luck.
I’ve met a lot of good people and worked with a lot of great people in this business. Being able to come to NC State has been probably the greatest blessing of my professional life.
The last two years have taken their toll emotionally, as he continued to work while moving his mother from the Washington, D.C., area and serving as her primary caregiver, something he did until her death on Feb. 25.
“I’ll miss all the players and the coaches and support people,” Hahn says, who has also broadcast games in various capacities for Butler, Louisville basketball and Alabama football, the latter two during national championship seasons. “I’ve met a lot of good people and worked with a lot of great people in this business. Being able to come to NC State has been probably the greatest blessing of my professional life.”
NC State hasn’t had to find a new “Voice of the Pack” for the past five football coaches, five basketball coaches and five athletics directors. Historically, it’s been a job held by few people.
Hahn is one of just four full-time men’s basketball and football play-by-play announcers for the school’s radio network: Bill Jackson (1961-73), Reese Edwards (1973-74), Wally Ausley (1975-90) and Hahn (1990-2024).
Ausley first served as a color commentator on the radio network. When Jackson fell ill and eventually died during the 1973-74 NCAA championship season, local sports radio personality Reese Edwards filled in for just that year. Ausley took over play-by-play duties when Garry Dornburg was hired as the color analyst.
The process of hiring a new play-by-play announcer will begin when the season ends, says Kyle Winchester, general manager for Learfield’s multimedia rightsholder Wolfpack Sports Properties. It’s an important decision, even though radio is no longer the primary delivery mechanism for athletics now that most games are televised, streamed or shared digitally in other ways.
“Learfield will manage in collaboration with and consultation with athletics on that process,” Winchester says. “Right now, it’s about getting through this season, celebrating Gary and all that he has done and seeing what happens next.”
]]>That’s when she got a call from the chair of the board of directors of the State Employees’ Credit Union for an immediate face-to-face meeting.
“I haven’t had a shower,” she said.
“That’s OK,” was the answer, “come over now.”
At that meeting, the lifelong employee of the nation’s second-largest credit union was offered the chance to become the 2.8 million-member financial cooperative’s first female chief executive officer effective July 1, an elevation long in the making for a proud daughter of North Carolina and member of NC State’s 1987 centennial class.
What in her life has changed since moving from her previous chief operating officer’s role into the C suite overlooking downtown Raleigh?
“Well, I’ve taken a shower every Saturday morning since then,” Brady says, laughing. “You never know what might happen.”
Life does come fast and differently in the CEO’s chair. Brady has learned to be even more prepared every day in the organization where she’s worked for the past 36 years.
I learned early on that there is something different about SECU and its mission, something special about working here.
Brady never set her sights on ascending to the top of the org chart as she worked her way up from being an accounting technician at the 801 Hillsborough Street branch, barely a mile from NC State’s Memorial Tower and about halfway between campus and SECU’s executive building attached to the North Carolina Museum of Natural History on Salisbury Street.
That first job came after she answered a blind newspaper classified ad, not knowing which company had advertised the position.
“I thought I would be here for two years and then move on,” she says. “I learned early on that there is something different about SECU and its mission, something special about working here.”
Throughout her time at SECU, Brady has worked in accounting, audit, loan administration, marketing and corporate training. She started the credit union’s consumer education group and then oversaw human resources, communications and marketing, and the SECU Foundation before taking over as chief operating officer in 2021. Unlike most financial institutions, SECU has a tradition of long-tenured staff and promoting from within, something Brady appreciates from her many different opportunities through the years.
“It taught me the value of the front-line staff and that when provided opportunities, our folks can learn, grow, thrive and give back to SECU in a big way,” she says. “Our people are our secret sauce.”
Membership in the not-for-profit SECU is open to all state of North Carolina employees and immediate family members. All full-time NC State University employees and their families are eligible, with benefits that include favorable mortgage rates, low-interest credit cards, loans and all traditional banking services, along with low or no fees. There are members in all 50 states and dozens of countries around the world.
Like NC State, the credit union has a presence in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties, with a total of 275 branches; some 7,700 full-time employees; another 600 part-time employees, interns and contract workers; and some 3,200 local volunteers.
Originally founded at the height of the Depression to serve state employees and teachers, with 17 inaugural members and $437 in deposits, SECU now has more than $50 billion in assets.
“I was here when we celebrated our first $1 billion,” Brady says. “It was a big deal then, and the organic growth to $50 billion has been amazing.”
Taking over the top job at SECU was a big honor for Brady, mainly because of the organization’s tradition of promoting loyal and dedicated employees.
The mother of three adult children — the youngest of whom is currently enrolled in the NC State sports management program and works with the Wolfpack football video support team — never really considered what it meant to be the institution’s first female CEO.
Until she started talking to colleagues and front-line personnel she’s known for many years.
“I do believe I underestimated the importance of this to quite a number of women here,” says Brady, who began her tenure last fall with a statewide listening tour in six cities. “As I went across the state and talked to our female employees and managers, they often say, ‘Thank you for breaking the glass ceiling,’ and ‘Thank you for being a mentor.’ I still receive those today.
“It’s not so much that I felt pride of being the first female CEO, it’s that others — especially those who might work here — take pride in it for me. It was eye-opening.”
Navy Federal, the largest of the nation’s 4,800 credit unions, was also led by a female CEO, Mary McDuffie, until she retired on March 1.
It’s not so much that I felt pride of being the first female CEO, it’s that others — especially those who might work here — take pride in it for me.
Brady admits that while she didn’t graduate at the top of her class at NC State, she worked hard and took on every opportunity SECU presented. She also earned a Master of Business Administration from Meredith College in December 1991.
So if being SECU’s first female CEO paves the way for others to advance in their careers, she’s all for it.
“The fact is, if I can get here, others can for sure,” says Brady, who is the second NC State alumnus to lead the credit union. “It’s not about being the smartest person at a company, but about surrounding yourself with talent and having willingness to work hard in any situation.”
“I think that resonates with any company.”
The climb up that ladder began in her hometown of Wilson, North Carolina, where she attended James B. Hunt Jr. High School. She was also selected for the unique Governor’s School of North Carolina, a summer program for high-achieving students from each of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
Does she have big plans for the organization? Only to embrace the founding values that were established when the credit union was formed in the basement of the Agricultural Building, while also making the necessary tweaks to guide it into the future.
Those are all primary lessons she took with her from her NC State roots — lessons she hopes to convey as an inaugural member of the Poole College of Management’s financial advisory board.
About midway through her NC State studies, Brady enrolled in a cooperative education program in accounting, which was then part of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. She spent two semesters in the accounting department of a manufacturing company in Spartanburg, South Carolina, giving her real-world experience as she pursued her degree, and teaching her lessons she’s valued ever since.
“NC State pushed me to go outside my comfort zone and to explore possibilities,” she says. “Personally, I think that’s why I am sitting in this position today. To be successful, I believe you need a good work ethic and you need to be open to change. NC State’s co-op program gave me the opportunity to highlight my skill offerings, but also tested my adaptability for change.
“That’s something I’ve tried to bring to every job I’ve had here.”
The transition from COO to CEO has not been as easy as just moving to the office next door on the 11th floor of SECU headquarters.
Brady is working to help SECU navigate some needed changes, including technology updates and the introduction of tier-based pricing on consumer loans. That’s the percentage rate charged to members based on credit scores, something that is common among banks and nearly all credit unions but is counter to SECU’s longstanding policy of charging the same rates for all loans.
“The fact is, higher-credit-score members were choosing to take their loan business elsewhere, and we very much want to be able to serve all of our members with the best rates possible,” she says.
Brady contends that SECU needs to be more adaptable, especially coming out of the pandemic shutdowns that wreaked havoc with many customer-based organizations — but without turning its back on the member services that have made it so successful through the years.
So she’s proudly adaptable, even if that’s not always popular.
She’s now trying to navigate bringing different concepts to a necessarily conservative-minded organization, from lending changes to SECU’s first rewards credit card, and eventually to small-business services that have previously been unavailable to the membership.
There are tripwires across the landscape, especially for an organization that strategically has built a strong statewide reputation over nine decades. That reputation is an important foundation, even if it means being comfortable with members shopping elsewhere for more favorable terms or not having SECU as their primary financial institution.
“Our employees don’t receive commissions or bonuses for product sales or penetration, so you will never have to question that what we are recommending to you is the best thing for you,” she says. “That’s something I love about what we do here.”
Brady, 58, can’t say how long she will stay in the CEO’s chair, but she has ideals and ideas she would like to pursue while there.
“This is something I learned from my mom, probably when I started my first job as a babysitter at 13 years old: Leave something better than you found it,” Brady says. “That’s what I intend to do. And that’s what our team intends to do.”
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