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The effects of the composition of PBPC grafts from matched related donors (MRDs) and matched unrelated donors (MUDs) have not been compared. In a single-center study, the compositions of 55 MRD PBPC grafts and 33 MUD grafts were studied for their effect on the rate of engraftment in patients who had evidence of donor cell engraftment on day +28. The MUD grafts came more frequently from young male donors and contained more CD34 + cells but similar numbers of colony-forming units granulocyte-macrophage (CFU-GM) and burst forming units-erythroid. The recovery of neutrophils to >500/mm 3 was equally fast in both groups, but recovery of platelets to >20 000/mm 3 was significantly delayed in the MUD group ( P <0.001). The MUD group also required more transfusions of platelets and red cells. Patients receiving grafts containing low numbers of CFU-GM had markedly delayed platelet recovery. The patients with the slowest engraftment tended to have prolonged transportation times. Storage experiments suggested a major loss of viable CD34 + cells and CFU-GM when undiluted PBPC products are stored at room temperature. The data suggest that a fraction of the MUD grafts suffer during transportation. In vitro proliferation assays should be part of the validation and auditing of transportation of MUD grafts.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are highly energetic explosions signaling the death of massive stars in distant galaxies. The Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Observatory together record GRBs over a broad energy range spanning about 7 decades of gamma-ray energy. In September 2008, Fermi observed the exceptionally luminous GRB 080916C, with the largest apparent energy release yet measured. The high-energy gamma rays are observed to start later and persist longer than the lower energy photons. A simple spectral form fits the entire GRB spectrum, providing strong constraints on emission models. The known distance of the burst enables placing lower limits on the bulk Lorentz factor of the outflow and on the quantum gravity mass.

The detection of pulsed gamma rays with energy above 50 MeV from the soft X-ray source 1E0630 + 178 is reported, confirming the identification of Geminga with this X-ray source. The period derivative (11.4 +/- 1.7) x 10 exp -15 s/s suggests that Geminga is a nearby isolated rotating neutron star with a magnetic field of 1.6 x 10 exp 12 gauss, a characteristic age of 300,000 yr, and a spin-down energy loss rate of 3.5 x 10 exp 34 erg/s.

Gamma radiation above 100 MeV in energy has been detected from the radio pulsar PSR1706-44. The gamma emission forms a single broad peak within the pulsar period of 102 ms, in contrast to the two narrow peaks seen in the other three known high-energy gamma-ray pulsars. The emission mechanism in all cases is probably the same, the differences arising from the geometry of the magnetic and rotation axes and the line of sight. Gamma-ray emission accounts for as much as 1 percent of the total neutron star spindown energy in these pulsars, much more than emerges at optical or radio frequencies. Thus, study of this emission is important in understanding pulsar emission and evolution.

The EGRET instrument aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) has completed the first all-sky survey in high-energy gamma rays and has repeatedly viewed selected portions of the sky. Analysis of the region with galactic latitude \\(+10\\arcdeg < b < +40\\arcdeg\\) indicates the presence of nineteen point sources, including nine which can be identified as active galactic nuclei, some of which have been reported previously, as well as ten other sources with no definite counterparts. Using the combined exposures from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the CGRO viewing program, the spectra, time variability, and positions of all detected sources in this region are determined. It is tentatively suggested that one of the unidentified sources might be associated with the radio galaxy Centaurus A.

We measured separate cosmic-ray electron and positron spectra with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. Because the instrument does not have an onboard magnet, we distinguish the two species by exploiting the Earth's shadow, which is offset in opposite directions for opposite charges due to the Earth's magnetic field. We estimate and subtract the cosmic-ray proton background using two different methods that produce consistent results. We report the electron-only spectrum, the positron-only spectrum, and the positron fraction between 20 GeV and 200 GeV. We confirm that the fraction rises with energy in the 20-100 GeV range. The three new spectral points between 100 and 200 GeV are consistent with a fraction that is continuing to rise with energy.

We investigate the Fermi LAT gamma-ray and 15 GHz VLBA radio properties of a joint gamma-ray- and radio-selected sample of AGNs obtained during the first 11 months of the Fermi mission (2008 Aug 4 - 2009 Jul 5). Our sample contains the brightest 173 AGNs in these bands above declination -30 deg. during this period, and thus probes the full range of gamma-ray loudness (gamma-ray to radio band luminosity ratio) in the bright blazar population. The latter quantity spans at least four orders of magnitude, reflecting a wide range of spectral energy distribution (SED) parameters in the bright blazar population. The BL Lac objects, however, display a linear correlation of increasing gamma-ray loudness with synchrotron SED peak frequency, suggesting a universal SED shape for objects of this class. The synchrotron self-Compton model is favored for the gamma-ray emission in these BL Lacs over external seed photon models, since the latter predict a dependence of Compton dominance on Doppler factor that would destroy any observed synchrotron SED peak - gamma-ray loudness correlation. The high-synchrotron peaked (HSP) BL Lac objects are distinguished by lower than average radio core brightness temperatures, and none display large radio modulation indices or high linear core polarization levels. No equivalent trends are seen for the flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) in our sample. Given the association of such properties with relativistic beaming, we suggest that the HSP BL Lacs have generally lower Doppler factors than the lower-synchrotron peaked BL Lacs or FSRQs in our sample.

We report on the first year of Fermi gamma-ray observations of pulsed high-energy emission from the old PSR J2043+2740. The study of the gamma-ray efficiency of such old pulsars gives us an insight into the evolution of pulsars' ability to emit in gammma rays as they age. The gamma-ray lightcurve of this pulsar above 0.1 GeV is clearly defined by two sharp peaks, 0.353+/-0.035 periods apart. We have combined the gamma-ray profile characteristics of PSR J2043+2740 with the geometrical properties of the pulsar's radio emission, derived from radio polarization data, and constrained the pulsar-beam geometry in the framework of a Two Pole Caustic and an Outer Gap model. The ranges of magnetic inclination and viewing angle were determined to be {alpha,zeta}~{52-57,61-68} for the Two Pole Caustic model, and {alpha,zeta}~{62-73,74-81} and {alpha,zeta}~{72-83,60-75} for the Outer Gap model. Based on this geometry, we assess possible birth locations for this pulsar and derive a likely proper motion, sufficiently high to be measurable with VLBI. At a characteristic age of 1.2 Myr, PSR J2043+2740 is the third oldest of all discovered, non-recycled, gamma-ray pulsars: it is twice as old as the next oldest, PSR J0357+32, and younger only than the recently discovered PSR J1836+5925 and PSR J2055+25, both of which are at least 5 and 10 times less energetic, respectively.

We present a detailed statistical analysis of the correlation between radio and gamma-ray emission of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) detected by Fermi during its first year of operation, with the largest datasets ever used for this purpose. We use both archival interferometric 8.4 GHz data (from the VLA and ATCA, for the full sample of 599 sources) and concurrent single-dish 15 GHz measurements from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO, for a sub sample of 199 objects). Our unprecedentedly large sample permits us to assess with high accuracy the statistical significance of the correlation, using a surrogate-data method designed to simultaneously account for common-distance bias and the effect of a limited dynamical range in the observed quantities. We find that the statistical significance of a positive correlation between the cm radio and the broad band (E>100 MeV) gamma-ray energy flux is very high for the whole AGN sample, with a probability <1e-7 for the correlation appearing by chance. Using the OVRO data, we find that concurrent data improve the significance of the correlation from 1.6e-6 to 9.0e-8. Our large sample size allows us to study the dependence of correlation strength and significance on specific source types and gamma-ray energy band. We find that the correlation is very significant (chance probability <1e-7) for both FSRQs and BL Lacs separately; a dependence of the correlation strength on the considered gamma-ray energy band is also present, but additional data will be necessary to constrain its significance.