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The University o f Alaska-Fairbanks reindeer program has existed under its current organizational framework since 1981. Program guidance across the three functions o f research, extension, and instruction continues to meet with support both internal and external to the university. The program ’s user group, the Alaska Reindeer Herders Association, is an ideal Land Grant/Sea Grant recipient for such guidance. Several major issues outlined by the Reindeer Herders Association’s first five-year plan have been addressed during the past few years. In most cases the university’s input has helped to resolve the association’s concerns. Currently a new five-year plan is being developed, and the university’s reindeer program is responding by redirecting its efforts toward emerging issues. This report identifies recent accomplishments in the reindeer program , continuing efforts, and projected areas of future effort

Older Age Is Associated with Peripheral Blood Expansion of Naïve B Cells in HIV-Infected Subjects on Antiretroviral Therapy

Older HIV infected subjects were previously found to have significant B cell expansion during initial antiretroviral therapy in a prospective age-differentiated cohort of older and younger (≥45 vs. ≤30 years) HIV-infected subjects initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) through the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. Here to further describe this expansion, using a subset of subjects from the same cohort, we characterized B cell phenotypes at baseline and after 192 weeks of ART in both older and younger HIV-infected groups and compared them to uninfected age-matched controls. We also examined whether phenotypes at baseline associated with response to tetanus and hepatitis A vaccine at 12 weeks. Forty six subjects were analyzed in the HIV infected group (21 older, 25 younger) and 30 in the control group (15 per age group). We observed naïve B cells to normalize in younger subjects after 192 weeks of ART, while in older subjects naïve B cells increased to greater levels than those of controls (p = 0.045). Absolute resting memory (RM) cell count was significantly lower in the older HIV infected group at baseline compared to controls and numbers normalized after 192 weeks of ART (p<0.001). Baseline RM cell count positively correlated with week 12 increase in antibody to tetanus vaccine among both younger and older HIV-infected subjects combined (p = 0.01), but not in controls. The age-associated naïve B cell expansion is a novel finding and we discuss several possible explanations for this observation. Relationship between RM cells at baseline and tetanus responses may lead to insights about the effects of HIV infection on B cell memory function and vaccine responses

The Multi-Object, Fiber-Fed Spectrographs for SDSS and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5-m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Lyman-alpha absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 square degrees of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the Universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near ultraviolet to the near infrared, with a resolving power R = \lambda/FWHM ~ 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 < \lambda < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.Comment: 43 pages, 42 figures, revised according to referee report and accepted by AJ. Provides background for the instrument responsible for SDSS and BOSS spectra. 4th in a series of survey technical papers released in Summer 2012, including arXiv:1207.7137 (DR9), arXiv:1207.7326 (Spectral Classification), and arXiv:1208.0022 (BOSS Overview

B cell phenotype distribution before and after antiretroviral therapy.

<p>Change in phenotype distribution in old and young age groups compared with their respective age-matched controls. 0 and 192 refer to time on ART in weeks; Ctl refer to respective age matched uninfected controls.</p

Absolute B cell phenotype counts before and after antiretroviral therapy.

<p>Changes in absolute B cell count and B cell subset counts at baseline before ART (light grey) and after 192 weeks of ART (dark grey) compared to their age-matched controls (black) in older and younger groups. Only the significant P-values are marked. Bars represent median; error bars represent interquartile ranges. RM: resting memory, TLM: tissue like memory, MA: mature activated, IT: immature transitional.</p

Correlations between antibody responses to vaccines and resting memory count at baseline in HIV infected and uninfected controls.

<p>a. Tetanus vaccine b. Hepatitis A vaccine.</p

Baseline characteristics of study participants.

<p>Baseline characteristics of study participants.</p

Return-volume dynamics in UK futures

It is widely acknowledged in the financial literature that trading in asset markets is mainly induced by the arrival of new information. However, the contemporaneous and dynamic empirical relationships between volume and returns in futures data, with attendant implications for futures market microstructure, remain largely unresolved due to the inconclusive nature of the extant empirical literature. The present paper examines these relationships from the perspective of competing hypotheses in the context of data for three LIFFE futures contracts over a variety of intra-day frequencies. These results indicate not only a positive contemporaneous relationship between volume and absolute returns but also bidirectional causality for most series and frequencies, consistent with the sequential arrival of information hypothesis, but with different speeds of information dissemination across the three markets. Further examination of the contemporaneous and dynamic relationships between volume and actual returns reveals only limited evidence of any statistically significant associations implying market inefficiency, and consistent with an inverse association between informational asymmetry and market efficiency.