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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Draft Prototype Microreactor Transportation Safety Program

Microreactors are compact reactors capable of producing less than 50 megawatts of electrical energy. Typically, these reactors are factory-fabricated and designed to be easily transportable by truck, rail, vessel, or air. Microreactor designs often assume that the unit can be transported containing either unirradiated or irradiated fuel. The interest in microreactors is driven by several factors, including the need to generate power on at remote locations, at military installations, at facilities such as data centers, and in areas recovering from natural disasters. The U.S. Department of Defense is actively pursuing the microreactor concept to meet the increasing energy demands of military operations that require portable and dense power sources. Commercial vendors are also exploring microreactor concepts. The report Microreactor Transportation Emergency Planning Challenges (Maheras et al. 2024) outlined the emergency planning challenges associated with the transportation of microreactors by road, rail, and by barge/ship. The successful commercial deployment and redeployment of microreactors will also require the development of microreactor transportation safety programs. The elements in these safety programs are not specific to microreactors; however, the transport of microreactors may pose unique challenges in these areas. This report builds on the report Microreactor Transportation Emergency Planning Challenges (Maheras et al. 2024) and develops the elements of a prototype microreactor transportation safety program that describes the elements that should be contained vendor-developed microreactor transportation safety programs, identifying the unique elements associated with microreactor transport. This will provide vendors and their transportation contractors a basis for their transportation planning and will accelerate the commercial deployment and redeployment of microreactors by identifying those issues unique to microreactor transport. The emphasis of this report is on highway transport of microreactors. This is based on a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission transportation package approval strategy of crawl-walk-run, where transport by highway is evaluated first (Coles et al. 2021, 2024, Maheras et al. 2021), then other surface modes (rail and barge/ship), and finally air transport. Evaluation of maritime transport of microreactors was recently initiated (Rigato et al. 2024, Maheras et al. 2025). The report first discusses microreactors in general and microreactor transportation safety program planning assumptions. The report then provides a description of the transportation safety planning process and provides an extensive discussion of the elements of transportation safety programs. Specific elements examined included transportation roles and responsibilities, transportation planning, transportation mode and route selection, carrier selection, transportation packaging, advance notification of shipments, public information and communications, emergency response plans and procedures, inspections, security, safe parking, shipment tracking, weather and road conditions, medical preparedness, training and exercises, and program evaluation. The report then identifies the unique elements of a transportation safety program associated with microreactor transport. These unique elements were in the areas of: the unusual nature of microreactor designs, compensatory measures, increased radiation dose rates in the vicinity of microreactors, transportation package approval versus 10 CFR 50.59, and the use of a risk-informed transportation package approval process.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Communities who experience disproportionate climate change impacts tend to be excluded from resilience planning (Vale, 2014). Those efforts typically follow top-down processes within established governance practices that are inaccessible to marginalized folks and reinforce inequalities (Malloy & Ashcraft, 2020; Adger, 2003). Such participatory planning processes may offer the public little opportunity to influence the process itself or the outcomes (Smith & McDonough, 2001). They might ignore important public values or alternative ways of knowing which can be critical assets in resilience (Few et al., 2007). Designing communities for climate action and resilience means creating opportunities for everyone to meaningfully shape those decisions and experience related benefits. Having the opportunity to shape one’s community is necessary for human flourishing (Allen, 2016). Resilience planning that shifts power into communities and focuses on social vulnerability can affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changed world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aspires to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build social capital and community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several western Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different towns navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, our findings will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings. References: Adger, W. N. (2003). Social capital, collective action, and adaptation to climate change. Economic Geography, 79, 387-404. Allen, D. (2016). Toward a connected society. Our compelling interests: The value of diversity for democracy and a prosperous society, 71-105. Few, R., Brown, K., & Tompkins, E. L. (2007). Public participation and climate change adaptation: avoiding the illusion of inclusion. Climate Policy, 7(1), 46–59. Malloy, J. T., & Ashcraft, C. M. (2020). A framework for implementing socially just climate adaptation. Climatic Change, 160(1), 1–14. Smith, P. D., & McDonough, M. H. (2001). Beyond public participation: Fairness in natural resource decision making. Society & natural resources, 14(3), 239-249. Vale, L. J. (2014). The politics of resilient cities: whose resilience and whose city? Building Research & Information, 42(2), 191–201.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Resilience efforts tend to reinforce injustices. Communities who experience disproportionate climate impacts are often excluded from resilience planning, and those plans do not typically address root causes of social vulnerability. More transformational approaches to resilience would shift decision-making power into communities and affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changing world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aims to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different municipalities navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, my empirical results will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Communities who experience disproportionate climate change impacts tend to be excluded from resilience planning. Those efforts typically follow top-down processes within established governance practices that are inaccessible to marginalized folks and reinforce inequalities. Regenerating the commons includes creating opportunities for everyone to meaningfully shape community resilience decisions and experience related benefits. Resilience planning that shifts power into communities and focuses on social vulnerability can affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changed world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aspires to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build social capital and community cohesion. My research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several western Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different towns navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, our findings will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities or offices of community engagement. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2025

Characterization of Infrasonic Signatures of Earth-Grazing Fireballs as Analogues to Hypersonic Vehicles (Final Report)

Accurate detection, discrimination, and characterization of high-altitude hypersonic events using infrasonic monitoring are critical to planetary defense and global strategic surveillance. This report synthesizes recent advances achieved through rigorous analysis of infrasonic signatures from natural meteoroids, emphasizing shallow entry-angle meteoroids as essentially proxies for artificial hypersonic systems. Meteoroids naturally encompass diverse velocities, trajectories, altitudes, and fragmentation behaviors, enabling systematic validation of empirical period–yield relationships, waveform morphology classifiers, and trajectory-induced back-azimuth deviation models. Integration of adaptive array-processing enhancements within Cardinal software further extends infrasonic detection sensitivity and signal classification reliability. Collectively these advances, based solely on infrasonic signatures or limited optical data, offer robust methodologies for distinguishing natural from artificial hypersonic sources, significantly reducing event geolocation uncertainties and refining source-function determination. The outcomes detailed herein lay foundational groundwork for improved global hypersonic event-surveillance frameworks, supporting improved security preparedness and informing strategic monitoring and defense policies.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

LandScan Mosaic Rapid Population Update: Jamaica After Hurricane Melissa (V1)

During a natural disaster such as Hurricane Melissa, understanding where people are located is critical for situational awareness, operational planning and humanitarian support and consequence assessment. Traditional population datasets focus on mapping populations based on residential, or "business-as-usual" scenarios. However, natural disasters can create disruptions in daily routines of population in addition to the magnitude of the population displacement, depending on the type, duration, context, and location of the event. The Geospatial Science and Human Security Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) produced this latest LandScan Mosaic Rapid Population Update for Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa, a category 5 hurricane that made landfall on Jamaica on October 28 2025. This Rapid Population Update captures the immediate population displacement following the hurricane using a combination of open-source building damage assessment data from Microsoft, flood exposure data from the Global Flood Monitoring service, reported population displacement information, and humanitarian shelter locations from the Jamaican Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management and the underlying LandScan Mosaic Jamaica as a base population.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mississippi's Strategic Resilience: A multi-systems approach to secure, reliable, and adaptable electric grid infrastructure

Mississippi’s electric grid resilience challenges are linked to an intersection of complex socioeconomic, ecological, technological, historical, and political challenges, exacerbated by increasing severe weather like flooding and tornado events. The state’s legacy of underinvestment in critical energy infrastructure, particularly in rural areas and vulnerable floodplains, have stressed an aging grid, creating long-lasting disruptions in electric service during weather-related outages. Effective emergency management and preparedness is further hampered by a lack of coordination across local, county, and regional scales. Using the TASTI-GRID platform and partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Mississippi is developing a comprehensive regional resilience strategy to overcome energy security and reliability challenges, mitigating the impacts of natural hazards, and positioning Mississippi as a resilient and premier destination for residents, businesses, and economic development.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strategic Energy Plan: City of Key West, Florida

This Strategic Energy Plan for the city of Key West, Florida—developed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP)—outlines a comprehensive strategy to advance the city’s energy vision: to improve energy efficiency and independence using local energy resources to foster long-term resilience. To guide this effort, the plan is structured around four focus areas: • Energy efficiency: Reduce overall energy consumption and utility costs across municipal, residential, and commercial buildings. • Local energy generation: Increase the share of energy produced from local sources to enhance energy independence. • Resilience: Strengthen critical infrastructure and community preparedness for flooding, hurricanes, and other natural weather hazards. • Electric transportation: Support the addition of new electric vehicles (EVs) and develop reliable charging infrastructure to reduce reliance on imported fuels. ETIPP provides strategic energy planning, technical assistance, and direct funding to U.S. coastal, remote, and island communities to improve energy resilience. Key West was part of ETIPP’s fourth cohort. As a low-lying island community vulnerable to infrastructure damage due to natural weather hazards, Key West seeks to reduce its dependence on external energy and build long-term sustainability. The Strategic Energy Plan identifies specific challenges, sets clear goals, and proposes actionable opportunities with implementation timelines and key stakeholders. A baseline assessment reveals significant energy consumption in both city-owned and residential/commercial buildings, limited local energy generation, and an early-stage EV market with vulnerable charging infrastructure. The proposed solutions emphasize a multifaceted approach, leveraging both established and innovative technologies, while addressing financial, technical, and community engagement challenges. The baseline assessment provided a snapshot of current energy conditions in Key West, evidencing key challenges and opportunities across the city’s energy priorities. Building on the baseline assessment and extensive input from city staff, local stakeholders, and community partners, a set of targeted opportunities was identified to address Key West’s energy goals. Each was evaluated in terms of its potential benefits, key implementation steps, associated challenges and mitigation strategies, and the city departments and stakeholders best positioned to lead or support progress.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Form Follows Function (F3): A framework for community-based energy resilience planning in the Midwest

This is the final technical report for the Form Follows Function (F3) grant project led by the City of Duluth, MN. F3 was an innovative two-year initiative that created a replicable, human-centered energy resilience planning process specifically designed for smaller, cold-climate communities in the Midwest. F3 demonstrated both systems-level government planning and community-based research techniques to inform renewable investments and community preparedness strategies.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) Project: Multiday and Intraday Energy Availability Product [Slides]

This presentation will provide an overview of the development of a Multi-Day Energy Availability Product under the DOE ENERGISE project, conducted in collaboration with Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the National Laboratory of the Rockies, Polaris, and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Existing market clearing processes are limited to day-ahead and real-time horizons, which may result in insufficient pricing signals and compensation for resource availability over multi-day timeframes (e.g., incentives for fuel procurement and energy-limited resource preparedness). This effort aims to develop a new market product and associated clearing process to value and procure resource energy availability over a multi-day horizon. The team will present progress to date and solicit advisory group feedback on proposed methodologies and preliminary findings.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

From War to Work: Risks, Challenges, and Evidence-Based Strategies Across the Military Deployment Cycle

This report examines what happens when military service members return from deployment and reenter family life and civilian work. Reintegration is an evolving process shaped by an individual’s military experience and potential combat trauma, family dynamics, and workplace conditions, and it occurs within a broader social context. Reintegration varies widely depending on deployment experiences, the preparedness of families, the stability of home and work environments, and whether a person served on active duty or in the reserves. What emerges consistently across U.S., Israeli, and allied nation studies is the same core insight: Reintegration is deeply individual, often nonlinear, and profoundly influenced by the systems surrounding the returning veteran.

Combat Service Support↗
DOE OSTI2026

Halau Uma: Kahikinui Community Cultural, Educational, and Resilience Center Preliminary Design Technical Assistance Summary Report

The Kahikinui Homestead Community in Maui faces energy resilience challenges due to its remote, off-grid location. This report summarizes preliminary technical assistance to design a microgrid for six modular homes using solar PV, wind, and battery storage. Results indicate that a hybrid PV and battery system, supplemented by small wind turbines, offers a cost-effective, resilient solution supporting energy independence and disaster preparedness.

Quiroz, Jimmy Edward [Sandia National Laboratories↗
DOE OSTI2026

Kauhale 'O Kipapa: Kahikinui Community Cultural, Educational, and Resilience Center Preliminary Design Technical Assistance Summary Report

The Kahikinui Homestead Community in Maui faces energy resilience challenges due to its remote, off-grid location. This report summarizes preliminary technical assistance to design a microgrid for six modular homes using solar PV, wind, and battery storage. Findings show hybrid PV and battery systems, supplemented by small wind turbines, offer cost-effective, resilient solutions. This work supports enhanced energy independence and disaster preparedness for the community.

Quiroz, Jimmy Edward [Sandia National Laboratories↗
DOE OSTI2023

Joint Analysis of the Epidemic Evolution and Human Mobility During the First Wave of COVID-19 in Spain: Retrospective Study

Background The initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic placed a tremendous strain on health care systems worldwide. To mitigate the spread of the virus, many countries implemented stringent nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), which significantly altered human behavior both before and after their enactment. Despite these efforts, a precise assessment of the impact and efficacy of these NPIs, as well as the extent of human behavioral changes, remained elusive. Objective In this study, we conducted a retrospective analysis of the initial wave of COVID-19 in Spain to better comprehend the influence of NPIs and their interaction with human behavior. Such investigations are vital for devising future mitigation strategies to combat COVID-19 and enhance epidemic preparedness more broadly. Methods We used a combination of national and regional retrospective analyses of pandemic incidence alongside large-scale mobility data to assess the impact and timing of government-implemented NPIs in combating COVID-19. Additionally, we compared these findings with a model-based inference of hospitalizations and fatalities. This model-based approach enabled us to construct counterfactual scenarios that gauged the consequences of delayed initiation of epidemic response measures. Results Our analysis demonstrated that the pre–national lockdown epidemic response, encompassing regional measures and heightened individual awareness, significantly contributed to reducing the disease burden in Spain. The mobility data indicated that people adjusted their behavior in response to the regional epidemiological situation before the nationwide lockdown was implemented. Counterfactual scenarios suggested that without this early epidemic response, there would have been an estimated 45,400 (95% CI 37,400-58,000) fatalities and 182,600 (95% CI 150,400-233,800) hospitalizations compared to the reported figures of 27,800 fatalities and 107,600 hospitalizations, respectively. Conclusions Our findings underscore the significance of self-implemented prevention measures by the population and regional NPIs before the national lockdown in Spain. The study also emphasizes the necessity for prompt and precise data quantification prior to enacting enforced measures. This highlights the critical interplay between NPIs, epidemic progression, and human behavior. This interdependence presents a challenge in predicting the impact of NPIs before they are implemented.

Public, Environmental & Occupational Health↗
DOE OSTI2023

An Inventory of AI-ready Benchmark Data for US Fires, Heatwaves, and Droughts

Extreme weather events, including fires, heatwaves, and droughts, have significant impacts on earth, environmental, and energy systems. Mechanistic and predictive understanding, as well as probabilistic risk assessment of these extreme weather events, are crucial for detecting, planning for, and responding to these extremes. Records of extreme weather events provide an important data source for understanding present and future extremes, but the existing data needs preprocessing before it can be used for analysis. Moreover, there are many nonstandard metrics defining the levels of severity or impacts of extremes. In this study, we compile a comprehensive benchmark data inventory of extreme weather events, including fires, heatwaves, and droughts. The dataset covers the period from 2001 to 2020 with a daily temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of 0.5°×0.5° (~55km×55km) over the continental United States (CONUS), and a spatial resolution of 1km × 1km over the Pacific Northwest (PNW) region, together with the co-located and relevant meteorological variables. By exploring and summarizing the spatial and temporal patterns of these extremes in various forms of marginal, conditional, and joint probability distributions, we gain a better understanding of the characteristics of climate extremes. The resulting AI/ML-ready data products can be readily applied to ML-based research, fostering and encouraging AI/ML research in the field of extreme weather. This study can contribute significantly to the advancement of extreme weather research, aiding researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in developing improved preparedness and response strategies to protect communities and ecosystems from the adverse impacts of extreme weather events. Usage Notes We presented a long term (2001-2020) and comprehensive data inventory of historical extreme events with daily temporal resolution covering the separate spatial extents of CONUS (0.5°×0.5°) and PNW(1km×1km) for various applications and studies. The dataset with 0.5°×0.5° resolution for CONUS can be used to help build more accurate climate models for the entire CONUS, which can help in understanding long-term climate trends, including changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, predicting future extreme events as well as understanding the implications of extreme events on society and the environment. The data can also be applied for risk accessment of the extremes. For example, ML/AI models can be developed to predict wildfire risk or forecast HWs by analyzing historical weather data, and past fires or heateave , allowing for early warnings and risk mitigation strategies. Using this dataset, AI-driven risk assessment models can also be built to identify vulnerable energy and utilities infrastructure, imrpove grid resilience and suggest adaptations to withstand extreme weather events. The high-resolution 1km×1km dataset ove PNW are advantageous for real-time, localized and detailed applications. It can enhance the accuracy of early warning systems for extreme weather events, helping authorities and communities prepare for and respond to disasters more effectively. For example, ML models can be developed to provide localized HW predictions for specific neighborhoods or cities, enabling residents and local emergency services to take targeted actions; the assessment of drought severity in specific communities or watersheds within the PNW can help local authorities manage water resources more effectively.

Lin, Xinming↗
DOE OSTI2023

PNNL DataHub NIAID Program Project: Modeling Host Responses to Understand Severe Human Virus Infections, Multi-Omic Viral Dataset Catalog Collection

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) "Modeling Host Responses to Understand Severe Human Virus Infections" program project was a highly integrated and comprehensive systems biology research core, funded by the National Institute of Health (U19AI106772) from 2013-06-01 to 2018-05-31, investigating the complex host response to category A, B, and C priority pathogen infections. Resulting project deliverables include an extensive comprehensive collections of linked primary and secondary transformation viral experimental infection data. Here we provide a never before released comprehensive infectious disease collection of primary and secondary transformation multi-Omics data profiling a series of priority pathogen primary experimental studies for enhanced open access to viral Omics lifecycle datasets and project metadata. Using a highly integrated and multidisciplinary approach, linked primary data and metadata supporting secondary normalization datasets, provide critical information necessary for research reproducibility and long-term preservation. Enabling on-demand data access for research community consumption and developer reuse, serves to support new mechanistic insights and discoveries into host-pathogen interactions for aiding future biohazard data preparedness efforts in emergency response to global health crises involving viral infection.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

The development and use of decision support framework for informing selection of select agent toxins with modelling studies to inform permissible toxin amounts

Many countries have worked diligently to establish and implement policies and processes to regulate high consequence pathogens and toxins that could have a significant public health impact if misused. In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132, 1996), as amended by the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-188, 2002) requires that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] establish a list of bacteria, viruses, and toxins that have the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety. Currently, this list is reviewed and updated on a biennial basis using input from subject matter experts (SMEs). We have developed decision support framework (DSF) approaches to facilitate selection of select toxins and, where toxicity data are known, conducted modelling studies to inform selection of toxin amounts that should be excluded from select agent regulations. Exclusion limits allow laboratories to possess toxins under an established limit to support their research or teaching activities without the requirement to register with the Federal Select Agent Program. Fact sheets capturing data from a previously vetted SME workshop convened by CDC, literature review and SME input were developed to assist in evaluating toxins using the DSF approach. The output of the DSF analysis agrees with the current select toxin designations, and no other toxins evaluated in this study were recommended for inclusion on the select agent and toxin list. To inform the selection of exclusion limits, attack scenarios were developed to estimate the amount of toxin needed to impact public health. Scenarios consisted of simulated aerosol releases of a toxin in high-population-density public facilities and the introduction of a toxin into a daily consumable product supply chain. Using published inhalation and ingestion median toxic dose (TD 50 ) and median lethal dose (LD 50 ) values, where available, a range of toxin amounts was examined to estimate the number of people exposed to these amounts in these scenarios. Based on data generated by these models, we proposed toxin exclusion values corresponding to levels below those that would trigger a significant public health response (i.e., amounts estimated to expose up to ten people by inhalation or one hundred people by ingestion to LD 50 or TD 50 levels of toxin in the modeled scenarios).

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Duration of Contagion of Foot-And-Mouth Disease Virus in Infected Live Pigs and Carcasses

Data-driven modeling of incursions of high-consequence, transboundary pathogens of animals is a critical component of veterinary preparedness. However, simplifying assumptions and excessive use of proxy measures to compensate for gaps in available data may compromise modeled outcomes. The current investigation was prospectively designed to address two major gaps in current knowledge of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) pathogenesis in pigs: the end (duration) of the infectious period and the viability of FMDV in decaying carcasses. By serial exposure of sentinel groups of pigs to the same group of donor pigs infected by FMDV A24 Cruzeiro, it was demonstrated that infected pigs transmitted disease at 10 days post infection (dpi), but not at 15 dpi. Assuming a latent period of 1 day, this would result in a conservative estimate of an infectious duration of 9 days, which is considerably longer than suggested by a previous report from an experiment performed in cattle. Airborne contagion was diminished within two days of removal of infected pigs from isolation rooms. FMDV in muscle was inactivated within 7 days in carcasses stored at 4°C. By contrast, FMDV infectivity in vesicle epithelium harvested from intact carcasses stored under similar conditions remained remarkably high until the study termination at 11 weeks post mortem. The output from this study consists of experimentally determined data on contagion associated with FMDV-infected pigs. This information may be utilized to update parameterization of models used for foot-and-mouth disease outbreak simulations involving areas of substantial pig production.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗