4,796 research outputs found
CLS Bank: Managing Foreign Exchange Settlement Risk
In the foreign exchange market, where average daily turnover is in trillions of dollars and trades span time zones, legal systems, and domestic payments systems, participants take on various risks. The most serious risk is credit risk - the risk that one party will fail to pay. Central banks, private sector financial institutions, and domestic payments systems operators laboured for more than a decade to develop a multi-currency settlement system to deal with these risks. The result, the CLS Bank, began operations in September 2002. It virtually eliminates the credit risk inherent in foreign exchange transactions by providing a payment-versus-payment arrangement for settlement. The CLS Bank is regulated by the Federal Reserve Board in consultation with the central banks that have currencies settling through its system. At present there are seven currencies, including the Canadian dollar. The Bank of Canada acts as banker for the CLS Bank, providing it with a settlement account and making and receiving payments on its behalf through the Large Value Transfer System. With the participation and support of the world's largest foreign-exchange-dealing institutions, and growing membership, the CLS Bank has the potential to become the dominant global mechanism for settling foreign exchange transactions.
Creating a Supportive Culture for Online Teaching: A Case Study of a Faculty Learning Community
This case study describes the creation of a supportive culture for online teaching at a western university that was transitioning to a new learning management system. The case study highlighted the creation of a faculty learning community as one strategy to address the challenge of faculty working through a change process. The faculty learning community provided a space for the development of best practices in teaching, drawing from the pedagogical experiences of teachers from diverse disciplines. The learning community also provided a venue for expanding the technical knowledge level of faculty members with a range of comfort levels with varied technologies
Reflection and Learning amongst diverse student groups in the workplace: examining the experience
Nitrogen Abundances and the Distance Moduli of the Pleiades and Hyades
Recent reanalyses of HIPPARCOS parallax data confirm a previously noted
discrepancy with the Pleiades distance modulus estimated from main-sequence
fitting in the color-magnitude diagram. One proposed explanation of this
distance modulus discrepancy is a Pleiades He abundance that is significantly
larger than the Hyades value. We suggest that, based on our theoretical and
observational understanding of Galactic chemical evolution, nitrogen abundances
may serve as a proxy for helium abundances of disk stars. Utilizing
high-resolution near-UV Keck/HIRES spectroscopy, we determine N abundances in
the Pleiades and Hyades dwarfs from NH features in the 3330 Ang region. While
our Hyades N abundances show a modest 0.2 dex trend over a 800 K Teff range, we
find the Pleiades N abundance (by number) is 0.13+/-0.05 dex lower than in the
Hyades for stars in a smaller overlapping Teff range around 6000 K; possible
systematic errors in the lower Pleiades N abundance result are estimated to be
at the <0.10 dex level. Our results indicate [N/Fe]=0 for both the Pleiades and
Hyades, consistent with the ratios exhibited by local Galactic disk field stars
in other studies. If N production is a reliable tracer of He production in the
disk, then our results suggest the Pleiades He abundance is no larger than that
in the Hyades. This finding is supported by the relative Pleiades-Hyades C, O,
and Fe abundances interpreted in the current context of Galactic chemical
evolution, and is resistant to the effects on our derived N abundances of a He
abundance difference like that needed to explain the Pleiades distance modulus
discrepancy. A physical explanation of the Pleiades distance modulus
discrepancy does not appear to be related to He abundance.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacifi
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