Information Flow and Network of Interpersonal Ties in the Fixed-Income Market

The $45 trillion fixed-income market still makes little use of the electronic marketplace. Our research findings show this to be mainly due to the market structure of embedded interpersonal ties, which allow participants to take advantage of information asymmetry for profit taking. This research-in-progress, based on ethnographic data and face-to-face interviews with 72 fixed- income senior managers and traders from 20 financial institutions, provides a unique insight into the information flow and networks of interpersonal ties in a fixed income market for market makers

An analysis of systemic risk in alternative securities settlement architectures

This paper compares securities settlement gross and netting architectures. It studies settlement risk arising from exogenous operational delays and compares settlement failures between the two architectures as functions of the length of the settlement interval under different market conditions. While settlement failures are non monotonically related to the length of settlement cycles under both architectures, there is no clear cut ranking of which architecture delivers greater stability. We show that while, on average, netting systems seem to be more stable than gross systems, rare events may lead to contagious defaults that could affect the all system. Furthermore netting system are very sensitive to the number and initial distribution of traded shares. JEL Classification: C6, D4, G20, O33gross and net systems, Security clearing and settlement, systemic risk

Native vegetation of the southern forests : south-east highlands, Australian alps, south-west Slopes, and SE Corner bioregions

The Southern Forests study area covers an area of about six million hectares of south-eastern New South Wales, south of Oberon and Kiama and east of Albury and Boorowa (latitude 33° 02’–37 ° 06’ S; longitude 146° 56’ – 147° 06’ E). The total area of existing vegetation mapped was three million hectares (3 120 400 hectares) or about 50% of the study area. Terrestrial, wetland and estuarine vegetation of the Southern Forests region were classified into 206 vegetation groups and mapped at a scale between 1: 25 000 and 1: 100 000. The classification was based on a cluster analysis of detailed field surveys of vascular plants, as well as field knowledge in the absence of field survey data. The primary classification was based on 3740 vegetation samples with full floristics cover abundance data. Additional classifications of full floristics presence-absence and tree canopy data were carried out to guide mapping in areas with few full floristic samples. The mapping of extant vegetation was carried out by tagging vegetation polygons with vegetation codes, guided by expert knowledge, using field survey data classified into vegetation groups, remote sensing, and other environmental spatial data. The mapping of pre-1750 vegetation involved tagging of soils mapping with vegetation codes at 1: 100 000 scale, guided by spatial modelling of vegetation groups using generalised additive statistical models (GAMS), and expert knowledge. Profiles of each of the vegetation groups on the CD-ROM* provide key indicator species, descriptions, statistics and lists of informative plant species. The 206 vegetation groups cover the full range of natural vegetation, including rainforests, moist eucalypt forests, dry shrub forests, grassy forests, mallee low forests, heathlands, shrublands, grasslands and wetlands. There are 138 groups of Eucalyptus forests or woodlands, 12 rainforest groups, and 46 non-forest groups. Of the 206 groups, 193 were classified and mapped in the study area. Thirteen vegetation groups were not mapped because of their small size and lack of samples, or because they fell outside the study area. Updated regional extant and pre-1750 vegetation maps of southern New South Wales have been produced in 2005, based on those originally prepared in 2000 for the southern Regional Forest Agreement (RFA). Further validation and remapping of extant vegetation over 10% of the study area has subsequently improved the quality of the vegetation map, and removed some of the errors in the original version. The revised map provides a reasonable representation of native vegetation at a scale between 1: 25 000 and 1: 100 000 across the study area. In 2005 native vegetation covers 50% of the study area. Environmental pressures on the remaining vegetation include clearing, habitat degradation from weeds and nutrification, severe droughts, changing fire regimes, and urbanisation. Grassy woodlands and forests, temperate grasslands, and coastal and riparian vegetation have been the most reduced in areal extent. Over 90% of the grassy woodlands and temperate grasslands have been lost. Conservation of the remaining vegetation in these formations is problematic because of the small, discontinuous, and degraded nature of the remaining patches of vegetation

Forest Carbon Sequestration: Some Issues for Forest Investments

A major problem being faced by human society is that the global temperature is believed to be rising due to human activity that releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, i.e., global warming. The major culprit is thought to be fossil fuel burning, which is releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The problem of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide can be addressed a number of ways. One of these is forestry and forest management. This paper examines a number of current issues related to mitigating the global warming problem through forestry. First, the overall carbon cycle is described, and the potential impact of forests on the buildup of atmospheric carbon is examined. A major focus is the means by which forests and forest management can contribute to the sequestration of carbon. The potential role of forests and forestry in sequestrating carbon to reduce the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now well recognized. A number of alternative approaches to utilizing forestry and forest management for carbon sequestration are examined. These include forest protection; the management of forests for carbon for joint products, i.e., the management of forests to generate both carbon and timber as products; the establishment of plantation forests dedicated to carbon sequestration; and increased production of wood products. Replacing other materials with wood will sequester carbon while reducing energy requirements, thereby reducing carbon emissions. Studies examining the costs of carbon sequestration using forestry are also discussed. The recent Kyoto Protocol (K.P.) explicitly recognizes certain forestry activities as “certifiable” for sequestration credits. But some definitions and aspects of carbon sequestration through forestry were left incomplete or inadequately defined by the Protocol. Furthermore, the KP has changed due to the recent withdrawal of the US for the Protocol (although not from the Kyoto Process). Nevertheless, further clarification is necessary to understand the full potential and set of opportunities from forestry both within the framework of the Protocol and more generally. Alternative types of vehicles for sequestration credits are discussed below,m both within and outside the context of the KP , and their advantages and disadvantages in terms of periods covered and liability are also examined. Finally, some ongoing real-world activities utilizing forestry specifically to sequester carbon are discussed.forests, carbon, sinks, sequestration, forest management, Kyoto Protocol

Depriming of arterial heat pipes: An investigation of CTS thermal excursions

Four thermal excursions of the Transmitter Experiment Package (TEP) were the result of the depriming of the arteries in all three heat pipes in the Variable Conductance Heat Pipe System which cooled the TEP. The determined cause of the depriming of the heat pipes was the formation of bubbles of the nitrogen/helium control gas mixture in the arteries during the thaw portion of a freeze/thaw cycle of the inactive region of the condenser section of the heat pipe. Conditions such as suction freezeout or heat pipe turn-on, which moved these bubbles into the active region of the heat pipe, contributed to the depriming mechanism. Methods for precluding, or reducing the probability of, this type of failure mechanism in future applications of arterial heat pipes are included

The War Goes On

By developing mine risk education and training materials specific to regions and countries, the Golden West Humanitarian Foundation tries to help prevent landmine casualties. Yet deaths and injuries from human interactions with explosive remnants of war continue to occur for many reasons

Evidence and Experience of Procurement in Health Sector Decentralisation

Improving the efficiency, effectiveness, equity and responsiveness of supply chains and procurement processes for pharmaceuticals, vaccines and other health products, which make up a large share of total health expenditure in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), has important implications for health system performance and population health. Decentralised governance of health services provides greater autonomy in planning, management and decision making from national to sub-national level and has occurred in many LMICs largely as a response to the primary healthcare approach promoted by international agencies. Evidence suggests that procurement is more efficient when centralised because of economies of scale and improved purchasing power whilst other health system functions such as financing and planning/budgeting benefit more from local context-specific implementation. Nepal is embarking on a process of decentralisation after adopting a federal approach to local governance. This helpdesk report looks at other countries to summarise key findings and lessons learnt from decentralised procurement

They will need land! The current land tenure situation and future land allocation needs of smallholder farmers in Cambodia

The objective of this background paper is to provide a succinct description of the land tenure situation in Cambodia and, on that basis, discuss the needs smallholder farmers have for land, projected up to the year 2030. The main problem it examines lies at the intersection between, on one hand, the demographic increase in the rural smallholder population and its associated need for land in the future (the demand side) and, on the other hand, the possibility offered by the different land tenure regimes to meet this demand (the supply side); the central question focuses on how supply can meet demand.By looking first at how much land is available under different categories (the supply side), the paper succinctly presents and maps the different land tenure regimes with updated statistics and discusses their main outcomes and shortcomings. On that basis, we present a preliminary assessment of land distribution by main land tenure systems in Cambodia. The land under cultivation by smallholders represents 19 percent of the total area of the national territory and is itself sub-divided into agricultural land with land titles (systematic land registration, 6 percent and land covered by the Order 01, 6 percent), under Social Land Concession arrangements (1 percent) and untitled (6 percent). The forest cover includes forest concessions (10 percent), Community Forestry (2 percent), Protected Areas and Protection Forests (20 percent) and an unclassified forest cover area (14 percent). Economic Land Concessions under operation represent 12 percent while cancelled concessions represent 2 percent of the total territory. The actual tenure of a large non-forested area (14 percent) remains undetermined and further updates are needed to shed light on this issue. The paper suggests that the central problem of the current Cambodian land reform is its ineffectiveness in coordinating the processes of land rights security and formalization in lowland and upland areas, although both regions are closely linked through land-driven migration movements that have intensified over the past 20 years. This has been particularly contentious given the fact that in a parallel process, and driven by a strong, state-based political economy, large land deals have been concentrated in the uplands of the entire country along processes that are exclusionary in nature. The overlap of competing land claims has created a widespread conflict situation in all uplands region of the country. By looking at how much land is needed for family farmers in the future (the demand side), the paper anticipates the land requirements of smallholder farmers by 2030 based on the projected demographic increase in the economically active population in rural Cambodia and on two sets of scenarios i) the transfer of unskilled labour from the agricultural to the secondary and tertiary sectors (industries and services) and ii) the provision of land for smallholder farmers. The analysis suggests that by the year 2030, the transfer of unskilled labour from agriculture to the secondary and tertiary sectors will lag behind the demographic increase in the active rural population. With 2015 as a baseline, the scenarios suggests that by 2030 smallholder farmers will need an additional land area ranging from 320,600 ha (+10 percent in relation to the actual area at the present time) to 1,962,400 (+64 percent), with an average desirable scenario of 1,622.000 ha based on an allocation of 1ha per active labourer (in accordance with the present social concession policy) and on the continuation of the present transfer rate of unskilled manpower from agriculture to the secondary and tertiary sectors (i.e. the transfer of 40.000 workers per year). So the question that needs to be formulated does not revolve around whether or not the rural population will need land in the future, but rather around how this can occur. Along these lines, the paper discusses different options, which are not mutually exclusive, to allocate this land without further impact on the forest cover: i) by redistribution of land from cancelled Economic Land Concessions, ii) through a firmer recognition of swidden agriculture inside Protected Areas, iii) through a far more ambitious Social Land Concession programme and iv) through further reform of the forest concession system. The paper concludes by stressing the need for relevant ministries to engage in open and constructive research-based discussion so that these options can materialize into concrete actions

Optimizing company cash : a guide for financial professionals

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1486/thumbnail.jp