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NACDA Directors' Cup

The NACDA Directors' Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the NACDA Learfield Directors' Cup or simply as the Directors' Cup, is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and universities in the United States with the most success in collegiate athletics. Points for the NACDA Directors' Cup are based on order of finish in various championships sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) or, in the case of Division I Football, media-based polls. A first-place finish in a sport earns 100 points, second place 90 points, third place 85 points, fourth place 80 points, and lesser values for lower finishes (exact numbers beyond fourth place depend on the sport and division.

The award originated in 1993 and was presented to NCAA Division I schools only. In 1995, it was extended to Division II, Division III, and NAIA schools as well, then extended further to junior colleges in 2011 based on standings from the NATYCAA Cup. Each division receives its own award.

The physical award is a Waterford Crystal trophy. Prior to 2003, the sponsor of the NACDA Directors' Cup was retail merchandiser Sears, and the award was known as the Sears Cup. Beginning in the 2003–04 season, the sponsor was the United States Sports Academy. In 2007–08, Learfield Sports assumed the sponsorship of the Directors' Cup. Learfield Sports rebranded to Learfield IMG College in 2016 and to simply Learfield in 2021.

History
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill won the award in its inaugural year, but then Stanford University won the Division I award for 25 straight years until the streak was broken in 2020–21 by the University of Texas. Texas repeated in 2022, Stanford regained the cup in 2023, and Texas won again in 2024.

In Division II, UC Davis won six of the first eight awards, but its athletic program moved to Division I in 2003 and Grand Valley State has won 16 of the 19 awards since as of 2024 (the title went unawarded for two years due to COVID-19). The only other current Division II member with an award is 1999 winner Adams State. All other Division II winners (Bakersfield, California Baptist, and Grand Canyon) are now members of Division I.

Williams College has had by far the most success in Division III, having won the Cup 22 of the 27 times it has been awarded for that division. The only other D-III member with more than one Cup is 2023 and 2024 winner Johns Hopkins.

The NAIA division was dominated by Simon Fraser University of British Columbia in its early years, but in 2002, SFU transferred most of its sports programs to Canada's college athletics federation, then known as Canadian Interuniversity Sport and now as U Sports. SFU left U Sports in 2011 and has since become a full member of NCAA Division II. From 2004–05 to 2011–12, Azusa Pacific University assumed the mantle at the NAIA level, winning eight consecutive championships before moving to NCAA Division II in the 2012–13 season. Oklahoma City University has been the most successful school since that year, with three Directors' Cups in the 2010s and four overall.

For two-year colleges, Iowa Central Community College has been the most successful school, winning five of the 10 titles.

Scoring system

 * NCAA Division I: Counts top 19 sports at each school with the following breakdowns:
 * Four of which must be baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball and women's volleyball
 * The next highest 15 sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings (except men's water polo)
 * For FBS Football: the top 25 teams are awarded points based on their final rank in the Coaches Poll. 26th place is considered a tie between every non-ranked bowl winner, and the next available rank is considered a tie between every non-ranked bowl loser.
 * NCAA Division II: Counts top 15 sports at each school with the following breakdowns:
 * Four of which must be baseball, men's basketball, women's basketball and women's volleyball
 * The next highest 11 sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings (except men's water polo)
 * NCAA Division III: Counts top 18 sports at each school with the following breakdowns:
 * Four of which must be men's basketball, men's soccer, women's basketball and women's soccer
 * The next highest 14 sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings (except men's water polo)
 * NAIA: Counts top 13 sports at each school with the following breakdowns:
 * Four of which must be men's basketball, men's soccer, women's basketball and women's volleyball
 * The next highest 9 sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, will be used in the standings
 * Junior/Community Colleges: The highest scoring institution in the NATYCAA Cup standings among the NJCAA Scholarship, NJCAA Non-Scholarship, and State Associations divisions will be declared the Directors' Cup winner.

Tiebreaking
If two teams have the same number of points at the end of the season, the tiebreaker is the number of national championships won. If still tied the next tiebreaker is the number of second-place finishes, then third-place finishes and so on until one team wins. The tiebreaker is only used for first place.

Criticism
The scoring structure has been criticized for several reasons, especially due to the number of sports counted per division. Although the number of sports counted in the scoring is based on the average number of sports sponsored by a team in that division, certain schools offer many more or many fewer sports than that. For example, Stanford's dominance at the Division I level is partially attributable to them sponsoring 36 sports teams (of which 31 are NCAA sports), the most in Division I outside of the Ivy League, which does not grant athletic scholarships, and Ohio State, which sponsors 37 sports teams (of which 32 are NCAA sports). This gives Stanford more opportunities to win titles than most other schools, especially considering that some of the sports Stanford sponsors are not played by very many other schools (5 out of 31 have championship fields under 20 teams, and one [namely men's gymnastics] has fewer than 20 sponsoring schools), all but guaranteeing a substantial number of points for the few schools that do (NACDA awards significantly fewer points for teams that finish lower than fourth in sports with less competition, but the top four teams (except in 8-team and 4-team bracket sports) always receive 100, 90, 85, and 80 points respectively). Ohio State, which sponsors teams in more NCAA sports than Stanford (5 of which, like Stanford, have championship fields under 20 teams) has never won the Cup (Ohio State has finished second 3 times, third twice, fourth 3 times, and in the top ten 7 more times).

Another common criticism is the fact that four sports are required to be counted despite some schools not sponsoring those sports. While every Division I school sponsors men's basketball, and all but two (The Citadel and VMI) sponsor women's basketball, a significant number of D-I schools do not sponsor the other two "mandatory counters" of baseball and women's volleyball. In the 2023–24 school year, 21 schools did not sponsor women's volleyball and 53 did not sponsor baseball, giving those schools an inherent disadvantage as they must count a sport for which they are guaranteed to receive no points.

Other reasons for criticism are over the way NACDA awards points in "National Collegiate" sports, which are sports where Division I, II, and III schools all compete directly against each other instead of being separated. The NCAA considers National Collegiate championships equivalent to Division I, therefore Division III schools are allowed to grant athletic scholarships in those sports, but NACDA counts points earned in National Collegiate competitions toward whatever division a team primarily competes in. Similarly, several otherwise Division III schools compete in Division I for men's ice hockey (despite Division III having its own ice hockey tournament), so there have been instances where two different Division III teams earn 100 points in the sport.

Multiple suggestions have been made to change the scoring system. Some of the most popular of these include making each sport worth a proportional number of points to the number of schools that compete in it, to get rid of the limit on the number of sports counted, then divide a school's total points by the number of sports it sponsors, and to count the median number of teams per division instead of the average (the median number of teams at a Division I school, for example, is 16, which is substantially lower than the 19 sports that are currently counted). However, NACDA has never seriously considered any of these suggestions.

Past scoring system
From the creation of the award until the 2017–18 season the scoring was as follows:

 * NCAA Division I: Counted up to 20 total sports at each school, with a maximum of 10 sports counted for each gender
 * NCAA Division II: Counted up to 14 total sports at each school, with a maximum of 7 sports counted for each gender
 * NCAA Division III: Counted up to 18 total sports at each school, with a maximum of 9 sports counted for each gender
 * NAIA: Counted up to 12 total sports at each school, with a maximum of 6 sports counted for each gender
 * Junior/Community Colleges: Same as current

Past winners

 * Results for years and schools shown in italics represent current standings and are not yet final.
 * These results are for the "final" standings, calculated after spring sports end.

NCAA Division I
Stanford and Florida are the only schools to finish within the top 10 every season. Stanford has never finished below second.

NAIA
Schools in italics no longer compete in the NAIA.

title: NACDA Directors' Cup


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FIPS 10-4

The FIPS 10-4 standard, Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions, was a list of two-letter country codes that were used by the U.S. Government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. The standard was also known as DAFIF 0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 (November 2003) and as DIA 65-18 (Defense Intelligence Agency, 1994, "Geopolitical Data Elements and Related Features").

The FIPS 10-4 codes are similar to (but sometimes incompatible with) the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes. The standard also includes codes for the top-level subdivision of the countries, similar to but usually incompatible with the ISO 3166-2 standard.

History
On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency continued to maintain the FIPS 10-4 codes in an informal document titled "Geopolitical Entities and Codes" (GEC) until December 31, 2014, retiring the GEC on March 31, 2015.

On January 23, 2013, the U.S. Department of Defense released the first edition of "Geopolitical Entities, Names and Codes" (GENC), a U.S. federal government profile of ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-2. GENC is designed to be compatible with ISO 3166 but reflect U.S. government diplomatic recognition and naming decisions by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names; it is intended to be the basis for a future U.S. national profile of the ISO standards.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: FIPS 10-4


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Murray–Darling basin

The Murray–Darling Basin is a large geographical area in the interior of southeastern Australia, encompassing the drainage basin of the tributaries of the Murray River, Australia's longest river, and the Darling River, a right tributary of the Murray and Australia's third-longest river. The Basin, which includes six of Australia's seven longest rivers and covers around one-seventh of the Australian landmass, is one of the country's most significant agricultural areas providing one-third of Australia's food supply. Located west of the Great Dividing Range, it drains southwest into the Great Australian Bight and spans most of the states of New South Wales and Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, and parts of the states of Queensland (the lower third) and South Australia (the southeastern corner).

The Basin is 3375 km in length, with the Murray River being 2508 km long. Most of the 1061469 km2 basin is flat, low-lying and far inland, and receives little direct rainfall. The many rivers it contains tend to be long and slow-flowing, and carry a volume of water that is large only by Australian standards.

The Snowy Mountains Scheme provides some security of water flows to the Murray–Darling Basin, providing approximately 2,100 gigalitres (7.4×1010 cu ft) of water a year to the Basin for use in Australia's irrigated agriculture industry, which is worth about A$3 billion per annum, representing more than 40% of the gross value of the nation's agricultural production.

The original inhabitants
The Basin was once home to a large number of Aboriginal people whose traditional lifestyle and cultures were gradually altered by the arrival of Europeans, while others were outright killed by the settlers. Although some tribes organised resistance, such as the Maraura, whose territory lay around the Rufus River above Renmark and the Tanganekald near The Coorong, they were eventually either killed, exiled, or succumbed to disease.

Native fauna
The Murray–Darling Basin is home to many native animal species. The true numbers may not be known, but a fairly confident estimate has been made of these animals and the current status of their population. The study found that there were:

 * 80 species of mammals, with 62 extinct and 10 endangered
 * 55 species of frogs, with 18 endangered
 * 46 species of snakes, with five endangered
 * five species of turtles, with none endangered
 * 34 species of fish, with up to half of them either threatened or of conservation significance

Historical records show that the previous abundances of fish provided a reliable food source. The bountiful fish became concentrated when the early stages of a flood left shallow water across the floodplain. Today, roughly 24 native freshwater fish and another 15-25 marine and estuarine species are existent in the Basin, a very low biodiversity.

2018–2019 fish kill
Over Christmas 2018 and January 2019 there were two mass deaths of fish in the waters of the Basin, the first numbering 10,000, the second in the hundreds of thousands. Species affected were Murray cod, golden perch, silver perch and bony herring. Some blamed the draining of water from the Menindee Lakes by WaterNSW, with only 2.5% of the original water volume in the lakes being left; after the first fish kill, both the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and WaterNSW blamed the ongoing drought affecting Australia, while the DPI blamed the second kill on a disruption of an algal bloom caused by a sudden fall in temperature.

2023 fish kill
In March 2023, millions of fish were reported dead along the Darling River at Menindee, following a heatwave. As the cleanup began, police attributed the cause to (naturally occurring) hypoxic blackwater. Initial investigations by the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) included single water samples at six sites and were criticised as inadequate. Subsequently it was announced that the New South Wales government will treat the deaths as a "pollution incident", thus giving the EPA greater investigative powers; earlier testing was described as being primarily intended to ensure public safety.

Introduced species
Four varieties of carp were used to stock up fish dams. Since then they have made their way into the river systems, where they spread quite quickly. Human introduction, possibly by anglers using small carp illegally as live bait, has also increased their distribution. These fish are very mobile, breed rapidly and can survive in very shallow water and through long periods of very low dissolved oxygen content.

Carp are a problem because they feed by sucking gravel from the riverbed and taking all the edible material off it, before returning the rest to the water. This stirs up all the sediment, reducing the quality of the water. A project for developing daughterless carp shows promise for eliminating carp from the river system.

Cane toads have entered the upper reaches of the Darling Basin and there are several reports of individuals being found further down the system. Cane toads compete with native amphibians and are toxic to native carnivores.

Phyla canescens has invaded wetlands and floodplains with heavy clay soils in the Murray–Darling Basin, to the detriment of the native vegetation; the plant does best in habitats that are inundated occasionally, although it cannot compete with the grass Paspalum distichum and the sedge Eleocharis plana in more heavily inundated sites.

Physiography
This area is one of the physiographic provinces of the larger East Australian Basins division, and encompasses the smaller Naracoorte Platform and Encounter Shelf physiographic sections.

Total water flow in the Murray–Darling Basin 1885 to the present has averaged around 24000 GL per year. This is the lowest rate of the world's major river systems. About 6.0 percent of Australia's total rainwater falls into the Basin. In most years only half of this quantity reaches the sea and in dry years much less. Estimated total annual flows for the Basin have ranged from 5000 GL in 1902 to 57000 GL in 1956. Despite the magnitude of the Basin, the hydrology of the streams within it is quite varied.

These waters are divided into four types:

 * The Darling and Lachlan basins. These have extremely variable flows from year to year, with the smallest annual flow being typically as little as 1 percent of the long-term mean and the largest often more than ten times the mean. Periods of zero flow in most rivers can extend to months and in the drier parts (Warrego, Paroo and Lower Darling Basins) to years. Flows in these rivers are not strongly seasonal. In the northern regions the majority of floods occur in the summer from monsoonal penetration. For most of the Darling and Lachlan catchments it is typical to see high or low flows begin in winter and extend to the following autumn (see El Niño). High water extraction rates for irrigation and mining have heavily compromised these rivers.
 * The southwestern basins (Campaspe, Loddon, Avoca, Wimmera). These have a marked winter rainfall maximum and relatively lower precipitation variability than the Lachlan or Darling. However, the age and infertility of the soils mean that run-off ratios are exceedingly low (for comparison, around a tenth that of a European or North American catchment with a similar climate ). Thus, variability of runoff is very high and most of the terminal lakes found in these basins very frequently dry up. Almost all runoff occurs in the winter and spring and, in the absence of large dams for regulation, these rivers are often seasonally dry during summer and autumn.
 * A number of small catchments in South Australia, of which the largest are the Angas River flowing through Strathalbyn and the Finniss River further west, are part of the Murray–Darling Basin. These catchments lead to Lake Alexandrina, one of the lakes at the end of the Murray system. The Angas River is often dry in summer because of high levels of water extraction. The Finniss River has permanent flow into Lake Alexandrina but was cut off by a weir for several years of drought in the early 21st century.
 * The Murray, Murrumbidgee and Goulburn (except the Broken River which resembles the southwestern basins) basins. Because these catchments have headwaters in alpine country with relatively young peaty soils, the runoff ratios are much higher than in other parts of the Basin. Consequently, although gross precipitation variability is no lower than in the Lachlan or Darling basins, runoff variability is markedly lower than in other parts of the Basin. Typically these rivers never cease to flow and the smallest annual flow is around 30 percent of the long-term mean and the largest around three times the mean. In most cases the flow peaks very strongly with the spring snow melt and troughs in mid-autumn.

The two principal rivers of the Basin, the Murray and Darling, bring water from the high ranges of the east and carry it west then south through long flat and dry inland areas, often resulting in alluvial channel wetlands, such as The (Great) Cumbung Swamp, at the terminus of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers. Nevertheless, these waters are subject to major diversions for municipal drinking supplies and irrigated agriculture that began in the 1890s. Currently, 4 major reservoirs, 14 lock and weir structures, and five coastal barrages interject the water flowing down the Murray–Darling. Of the approximately 13000 GL of flow in the Basin, which studies have shown to be divertible, 11500 GL are removed for irrigation, industrial use, and domestic supply. Agricultural irrigation accounts for about 95 percent of the water removed, including for the growing of rice and cotton. This extraction is highly controversial among scientists in Australia, regarding the agriculture industry's high water use in a region extremely short of water (as much due to exceptionally low run-off coefficients as to low rainfall). These extensive irrigation systems require a reliable supply of water, not the unpredictable flows that characterise the Murray–Darling. These structures and irrigation implements were ideal when there was a steady flow of water. However, during "the Big Dry", as the early 2000s drought came to be known, Australian farmers experienced a scarcity unlike ever before. The drought was so severe that numerous rivers and streams such as the Murray–Darling stopped flowing. The Basin contains more than 30,000 wetlands. Eleven of these are protected under the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands of International Importance.

Rivers in the Murray–Darling Basin
The rivers listed below comprise the Murray–Darling Basin and its direct significant tributaries, with elevations of their confluence with the downstream river. The tributary with the highest elevation is Swampy Plain River that rises in the Snowy Mountains, below Mount Kosciuszko at an elevation of 2120 m, and ends merging with the Murray River, descending 1860 m.

The ordering of the Basin, from downstream to upstream, is:

Background
The Basin affects five states and territory governments, which according to the Constitution, are responsible for managing water resources. The River Murray Commission was established in 1917. Under the River Murray Waters Agreement, which did not include Queensland though about a quarter of the Basin lays in the state, the commission was an advisory body with no authority for enforcement of provisions. For a long time the commission was only concerned with water quantity until salinity became a problem. This led to minor reforms in 1982 in which water quality became part of the commission's responsibilities.

However, it was soon recognised that a new organisational structure which considered the national perspective was needed for effective management. The Murray–Darling Basin Agreement was first adopted in 1985 but it wasn't until 1993 that its full legal status was enacted. The Agreement led to the creation of a number of new organisations under what is known as the Murray–Darling Basin Initiative. These included the Murray–Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Murray–Darling Basin Commission.

Murray–Darling Basin Plan
The Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) was formed in 2008 to manage the Murray–Darling Basin in an integrated and sustainable manner, in conjunction with the Basin states. The MDBA is responsible for preparing and overseeing a legally-enforceable management plan. In October 2010, MDBA released a draft Murray–Darling Basin Plan (MDBP) for consultation. After a difficult consultation process, on 22 November 2012, Tony Burke, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, signed the Murray–Darling Basin Plan, which passed the Australian Parliament's disallowance period on 19 March 2013.

Community consultation
The MDBA's draft Murray–Darling Basin Plan, titled the Guide to the Proposed Murray–Darling Basin Plan, was released in October 2010 as the first part of a three-stage process to address the problems of the Murray–Darling Basin. The Plan was in response to the 2000s Australian drought, and designed to secure the long-term ecological health of the Murray–Darling Basin. This entailed cutting existing water allocations and tree growth environmental flows. The Basin Plan was designed to set environmentally sustainable limits on the quantities of water that may be taken from Basin water resources, to set Basin-wide environmental, water quality and salinity objectives, to develop efficient water trading regimes across the Basin, to set requirements for state water resource plans and to improve water security for all Basin users. It also intends to minimise social and economic impacts whilst achieving the plan's environmental outcomes.

With the release of the Guide to the Proposed Murray–Darling Basin Plan there have been a number of protests and voiced concerns about the plan in rural towns that the MDBA visited to present the plan to consultation meetings. More than 5,000 people attended a MDBA meeting in Griffith where Griffith Mayor, Mike Neville, said the plan would "obliterate" Murrumbidgee valley communities. Other groups also echo this feeling, such as the Victorian Farmers Federation and Wine Group Growers' Australia. Conversely, support for the Murray–Darling Basin plan has been received by various groups, including Australian Conservation Foundation, and Environment Victoria.

New legal advice from Commonwealth government lawyers is changing the plan. The Government's interpretation is that the plan must give equal weight to the environmental, social, and economic impacts of proposed cuts to irrigation.

Environmentalists and South Australian irrigators, at the end of the river in South Australia, say that the authority should stick to its original figure.

In October 2010, a parliamentary inquiry into the economic impacts of the plan was announced.

In late October 2010 the Water Minister, Tony Burke, played down the prospect of a High Court challenge to the Murray–Darling Basin plan, as confusion continued over new legal advice released by the Government. In response to community concerns that MDBA had put environmental issues first over social and economic needs, Burke released new advice on the requirements of the Water Act. Burke stated that the Act does allow for the authority to "optimise" the needs of all three areas, but constitutional lawyer, George Williams, had cast doubts over the interpretation of the laws, stating it could be subject to a legal challenge.

The MDBA announced in November 2010 that it might be forced to push back the release of its final plan for the river system until early 2012.

The then MDBA chairman, Mike Taylor, reassured the public meeting that more work is being done to look at how the proposed cuts would affect regional communities. He stated: "Importantly, we want to make sure the social and economic impacts—which under any sort of scenario is very significant—were fully teased out". Taylor resigned as he allegedly believed that the overriding principle should be the environmental outcome which was in conflict with the Gillard Government and following a period of sustained criticism of the Authority and the implementation of the proposed draft Basin plan. He was replaced by former New South Wales Planning Minister, Craig Knowles.

In late May 2012, the revised plan was forwarded to state water ministers. It did not alter the recommendation to cut 2750 GL of water entitlements.

Following much negotiation between the Commonwealth and State governments and numerous submissions from interested stakeholders and the community, the Basin Plan became law in November 2012 and can now be implemented.

title: Murray–Darling basin


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Talk:Eusebius (disambiguation)

Removals and reasons
Please add these back when articles are present or anticipated:

Non-article entries

 * Eusebius, archbishop of Tarragona (Spain) in 610-632.

May 2005
If you look at Special:Whatlinkshere/Eusebius you'll see that all the articles (and there are lots) that link to Eusebius want "the" Eusebius, that is, Eusebius of Caesarea. So I propose that the disambiguation page be at Eusebius (disambiguation) with Eusebius a redirect to Eusebius of Caesarea. Gdr 15:24, 2005 May 4 (UTC)
 * I was bold and made the move. Gdr 18:42, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

Another Eusebius of Caesarea?
According to the page for Basil of Caesarea, he succeeded a Eusebius of Caesarea in 370, who certainly could not be the same as the famous historian. Alas, I do not see a page for him anywhere, and cannot find information on him otherwise, except that he ordained Basil a priest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.156.208.210 (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You're looking for Eusebius of Samosata. And no, I don't have the relationship between Samosata and Caesarea. See Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm. Student7 (talk) 15:18, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Primary Topic?
I read a fair amount of early Christian history and only today found out that there were other people named Eusebius. Before making Eusebius of Caesarea the primary, I checked these results on WikiNav to see what people were looking for. If I understood correctly, the top 5 or 6 results all relate to that Eusebius, not the others.

I also removed 'onomastic' from the wiktionary box, I'm not sure what that was doing there. Unclevinny (talk) 01:38, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Eusebius (disambiguation)


text:
Thomas Weinandy

Thomas Gerard Weinandy (born January 12, 1946, in Delphos, Ohio) is an American Roman Catholic priest and a leading scholar. He is a prolific writer in both academic and popular works, including articles, books, and study courses.

Biography
Weinandy entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1966, was solemnly professed in 1970, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1972. He earned a BA in philosophy at St. Fidelis College, Herman, Pennsylvania, in 1969, an MA in systematic theology at Washington Theological Union in 1972, and a doctorate in historical theology at King's College London in 1975. He lived in and was an active member of the Mother of God Community, Washington, for 14 years before leaving to teach at Oxford University.

His major fields of specialty are history of Christology, especially patristic, medieval and contemporary, history of trinitarian theology, history of soteriology, and philosophical notions of God. He has held academic positions at Georgetown University, Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Loyola College, Baltimore. Weinandy served at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2005.

He was the Warden of Greyfriars (1993–2004; Honorary Fellow 2004) and tutor and lecturer in history and doctrine in the Faculty of Theology. He was chairman of the Faculty of Theology from 1997 to 1999. He is a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the Catholic Theological Society of Great Britain, the North American Patristics Society and the Association Internationale D'Etudes Patristiques, as well as the Academy of Catholic Theology. Since 2005, he has been the Executive Director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), until he was replaced in early 2013. The Secretariat provides staff support for USCCB Committees on Doctrine, on Pastoral Practices, and on Science and Human Values, as well as for Ad Hoc Committees on Health Care Issues and the Review of Scripture Translations.

The Human Origins Initiative of the Smithsonian Institution invited Weinandy to participate as a member of the Broader Social Impacts Committee, made up of individuals from diverse religious communities, to reflect publicly on the exhibition ‘What Does It Mean To Be Human?’ and on human origins.

In October 2010, Weinandy participated in the Seventh Round of the Catholic-Reformed Dialogue concluded in Henryville, Indiana. That dialogue was jointly sponsored by the USCCB Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the Presbyterian Church-USA, the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ.

Weinandy assisted in the development of content for an iPhone app to guide Catholics through the act of confession, understood to be the first endorsed by the U.S. Catholic Church. "It has been approved by Bishop Kevin Rhoades", said Weinandy.

In March 2011, Weinandy participated in a telephone press conference with scholars from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish backgrounds the day before the release of Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week. Weinandy said that Pope Benedict "sees Jesus as someone the world is longing to meet, and he’s doing his best to try to provide that opportunity."

In a May 2011 address to the Academy of Catholic Theology in Washington, DC, Weinandy, warned of a "crisis" in Catholic theology, precipitated by theologians who "often appear to possess little reverence for the mysteries of the faith as traditionally understood and presently professed within the church." The Secretariat for Doctrine had previously criticized a book on the Trinity by St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson of Fordham University in New York, leading to a defense of Johnson by many theologians as well as Fordham faculty. Weinandy's address did not mention any theologian by name. "Theology may be the only academic pursuit where one can seemingly be considered a theologian without actually having to know the subject matter," he said. "It would appear at times that a theologian need not actually know God." Describing the theological crisis, Weinandy said: "Much of what passes for contemporary Catholic theology, often is not founded upon an assent of faith in the divine deposit of revelation as proclaimed in the sacred scriptures and developed within the living doctrinal and moral tradition of the church."

Weinandy responded to a July 2012 article in Newsweek written by theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss describing how confirmation of existence of the Higgs Boson particle could get rid of the idea of a supernatural creator permanently. "While the Higgs particle may help us in understanding the relationship between mass and matter, it does not explain why the Higgs particle itself exists," Weinandy said. "There must be a being whose very nature demands that it exists and, because of this, is able to bring other beings into existence."

Pope Francis honored Weinandy with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal for his work on behalf of the Pontiff and the Church, one of the highest honors in the Catholic Church, in 2013.

Weinandy teaches at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, and the Gregorian University in Rome.

In 2014, Pope Francis appointed Weinandy to the International Theological Commission for a five-year term.

In 2017, Weinandy wrote a letter charging that Francis is fostering "chronic confusion", "demeaning" the importance of doctrine, appointing bishops who "scandalize" believers with dubious "teaching and pastoral practice", giving prelates who object the impression they will be "marginalized or worse" if they speak out, causing many faithful Catholics to "lose confidence in their supreme shepherd". Weinandy resigned from his position as consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine.

Publications
Some of his books on religion have been translated into several languages including Romanian and Polish. He has also published many scholarly articles in various journals including The Thomist, New Blackfriars, Communio, First Things, Pro Ecclesia, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, and the International Journal of Systematic Theology. He has written many popular articles including those for New Covenant, National Catholic Register, Pastoral Life, Canadian Catholic Review, New Oxford Review, the Arlington Catholic Herald, and The Family.

Weinandy is one of many distinguished contributors to Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on His Papacy. His essay Hope for Today says “[Pope Benedict] perceives that all men and women today both desperately need hope and search for a reason for hope. He is convinced that true authentic hope is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Authored by Thomas Weinandy

 * Receiving the Promise: The Spirit's Work of Conversion, 1985 (ISBN 0-932085-01-6)
 * The Lord Jesus Christ: An Introduction to Christology and Soteriology
 * In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ, 1993, (ISBN 0-567-09643-2)
 * The Father's Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity, 1995 (ISBN 0-567-09721-8)
 * Sacrament of Mercy: A Spiritual and Practical Guide to Confession, 1997, (ISBN 0-8198-6992-9)
 * Does God Change? The Word's Becoming in the Incarnation, 2000, (ISBN 0-932506-42-9)
 * Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Volume 3, The Book of Glory and the Passion and Resurrection Narratives. 2022, The Catholic University of America.
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida
 * Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Volume 3, The Book of Glory and the Passion and Resurrection Narratives. 2022, The Catholic University of America.
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida
 * Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Volume 3, The Book of Glory and the Passion and Resurrection Narratives. 2022, The Catholic University of America.
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida
 * Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Volume 3, The Book of Glory and the Passion and Resurrection Narratives. 2022, The Catholic University of America.
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida
 * Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the Gospel of John, Volume 3, The Book of Glory and the Passion and Resurrection Narratives. 2022, The Catholic University of America.
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida
 * Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity Between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy, 2022, Catholic University of America
 * The Trinity: Eternity and Time, 2022, Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, Florida

title: Thomas Weinandy


text:
Modifier

Modifier may refer to:
 * Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning
 * Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun
 * Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an ambiguous manner
 * Modifier key, a kind of key on a computer keyboard that changes the semantics of other keys (e.g. the shift key)
 * In 3D computer graphics, an attribute that modifies a polygonal mesh to change its geometry, but preserves the original vertex data
 * Car tuner, one who modifies the performance or appearance of a vehicle
 * Alphanumeric or numeric two-digit characters used to indicate certain circumstances or changes made to procedural, surgical, service, and supplies codes in the HCPCS clinical coding system
 * Light modifier, tools or accessories employed in photography and videography to shape, control, or direct light emitted from a light source. These modifiers serve to alter the quality, direction, and intensity of light, thereby enabling photographers and videographers to achieve specific effects or moods in their images. Light modifiers come in various categories and types, each with its own unique characteristics and applications.

title: Modifier


text:
Repurchase agreement

A repurchase agreement, also known as a repo, RP, or sale and repurchase agreement, is a form of short-term borrowing, mainly in government securities. The dealer sells the underlying security to investors and, by agreement between the two parties, buys them back shortly afterwards, usually the following day, at a slightly higher price.

The repo market is an important source of funds for large financial institutions in the non-depository banking sector, which has grown to rival the traditional depository banking sector in size. Large institutional investors such as money market mutual funds lend money to financial institutions such as investment banks, either in exchange for (or secured by) collateral, such as Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities held by the borrower financial institutions. An estimated $1 trillion per day in collateral value is transacted in the U.S. repo markets.

In 2007–2008, a run on the repo market, in which funding for investment banks was either unavailable or at very high interest rates, was a key aspect of the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the Great Recession. During September 2019, the U.S. Federal Reserve intervened in the role of investor to provide funds in the repo markets, when overnight lending rates jumped due to a series of technical factors that had limited the supply of funds available.

Repo facility
In a repo, the investor/lender provides cash to a borrower, with the loan secured by the collateral of the borrower, typically bonds. In the event the borrower defaults, the investor/lender gets the collateral. Investors are typically financial entities such as money market mutual funds, while borrowers are non-depository financial institutions such as investment banks and hedge funds. The investor/lender charges interest (the repo rate), which together with the principal is repaid on repurchase of the security as agreed.

A repo is economically similar to a secured loan, with the buyer (effectively the lender or investor) receiving securities for collateral to protect himself against default by the seller. The party who initially sells the securities is effectively the borrower. Many types of institutional investors engage in repo transactions, including mutual funds and hedge funds.

Although the transaction is similar to a loan, and its economic effect is similar to a loan, the terminology differs from that applying to loans: the seller legally repurchases the securities from the buyer at the end of the loan term. However, a key aspect of repos is that they are legally recognised as a single transaction (important in the event of counterparty insolvency) and not as a disposal and a repurchase for tax purposes. By structuring the transaction as a sale, a repo provides significant protections to lenders from the normal operation of U.S. bankruptcy laws, such as the automatic stay and avoidance provisions.

Collateral
Almost any security may be employed in a repo, though highly liquid securities are preferred as they are more easily disposed of in the event of a default and, more importantly, they can be easily obtained in the open market where the buyer has created a short position in the repo security by a reverse repo and market sale; by the same token, non liquid securities are discouraged.

Treasury or Government bills, corporate and Treasury/Government bonds, and stocks may all be used as "collateral" in a repo transaction. Unlike a secured loan, however, legal title to the securities passes from the seller to the buyer. Coupons (interest payable to the owner of the securities) falling due while the repo buyer owns the securities are, in fact, usually passed directly onto the repo seller. This might seem counter-intuitive, as the legal ownership of the collateral rests with the buyer during the repo agreement. The agreement might instead provide that the buyer receives the coupon, with the cash payable on repurchase being adjusted to compensate, though this is more typical of sell/buybacks.

Overcollateralization (haircut)
Further, the investor/lender may demand collateral of greater value than the amount that they lend. This difference is the "haircut." These concepts are illustrated in the diagram and in the equations section. When investors perceive greater risks, they may charge higher repo rates and demand greater haircuts.

Reverse repo facility
Whereas a repo facility is a security-buying party acting as a lender of cash to security sellers who effectively borrow cash at interest (the repo rate), with the security they sell serving as collateral, a reverse repo facility  is a security-selling party allowing buyers with cash to effectively lend it to the facility at interest with the security they purchase serving as collateral. An example is a bank with cash deposits who loans it to a reverse repo facility to earn interest on it and contribute to their own collateral requirements (as deposit banks) with the collateral they obtain in the transaction.

Tri-party repo
In a tri-party repo, a third party facilitates elements of the transaction, typically custody, escrow, monitoring, and other services.

Structure and other terminology
The following table summarizes the terminology:

History
In the United States, repos have been used from as early as 1917 when wartime taxes made older forms of lending less attractive. At first, repos were used just by the Federal Reserve to lend to other banks, but the practice soon spread to other market participants. The use of repos expanded in the 1920s, fell away through the Great Depression and WWII, then expanded once again in the 1950s, enjoying rapid growth in the 1970s and 1980s in part due to computer technology.

According to Yale economist Gary Gorton, repo evolved to provide large non-depository financial institutions with a method of secured lending analogous to the depository insurance provided by the government in traditional banking, with the collateral acting as the guarantee for the investor.

In 1982, the failure of Drysdale Government Securities led to a loss of $285 million for Chase Manhattan Bank. This resulted in a change in how accrued interest is used in calculating the value of the repo securities. In the same year, the failure of Lombard-Wall, Inc. resulted in a change in the federal bankruptcy laws pertaining to repos. The failure of ESM Government Securities in 1985 led to the closing of Home State Savings Bank in Ohio and a run on other banks insured by the private-insurance Ohio Deposit Guarantee Fund. The failure of these and other firms led to the enactment of the Government Securities Act of 1986.

In 2007–2008, a run on the repo market, in which funding for investment banks was either unavailable or at very high interest rates, was a key aspect of the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the Great Recession.

In July 2011, concerns arose among bankers and the financial press that if the 2011 U.S. debt ceiling crisis led to a default, it could cause considerable disruption to the repo market. This was because treasuries are the most commonly used collateral in the US repo market, and as a default would have downgraded the value of treasuries, it could have resulted in repo borrowers having to post far more collateral.

During September 2019, the U.S. Federal Reserve intervened in the role of investor to provide funds in the repo markets, when overnight lending rates jumped due to a series of technical factors that had limited the supply of funds available.

Market size

The New York Times reported in September 2019 that an estimated $1 trillion per day in collateral value is transacted in the U.S. repo markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports daily repo collateral volume for different types of repo arrangements. As of 24 October 2019, volumes were: secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) $1,086 billion; broad general collateral rate (BGCR) $453 billion, and tri-party general collateral rate (TGCR) $425 billion. These figures however, are not additive, as the latter 2 are merely components of the former, SOFR.

The Federal Reserve and the European Repo and Collateral Council (a body of the International Capital Market Association) have tried to estimate the size of their respective repo markets. At the end of 2004, the US repo market reached US$5 trillion. Especially in the US and to a lesser degree in Europe, the repo market contracted in 2008 as a result of the financial crisis. But, by mid-2010, the market had largely recovered and, at least in Europe, had grown to exceed its pre-crisis peak.

Repo expressed as mathematical formula
A repurchase agreement is a transaction concluded on a deal date tD between two parties A and B:

 * (i) A will on the near date $t_N$ sell a specified security S at an agreed price PN  to B
 * (ii) A will on the far date tF (after tN) re-purchase S from B at a price PF which is already pre-agreed on the deal date.

If positive interest rates are assumed, the repurchase price PF can be expected to be greater than the original sale price PN.

The (time-adjusted) difference $\frac{P_F - P_N}{P_N}\cdot\frac{365}{t_F - t_N}$ is called the repo rate, which is the annualized interest rate of the transaction. $\frac{P_F - P_N}{P_N}\cdot\frac{t_F - t_N}{365}$ can be interpreted as the interest rate for the period between near date and far date.

Ambiguity in the usage of the term repo
The term repo has given rise to a lot of misunderstanding: there are two types of transactions with identical cash flows:

 * (i) a sell-and-buy-back as well as,
 * (ii) a collateralized borrowing.

The sole difference is that in (i) the asset is sold (and later re-purchased), whereas in (ii) the asset is instead pledged as a collateral for a loan: in the sell-and-buy-back transaction, the ownership and possession of S are transferred at tN from a A to B and in tF transferred back from B to A; conversely, in the collateralized borrowing, only the possession is temporarily transferred to B whereas the ownership remains with A.

Maturities of repos
There are two types of repo maturities: term, and open repo.

Term refers to a repo with a specified end date: although repos are typically short-term (a few days), it is not unusual to see repos with a maturity as long as two years.

Open has no end date which has been fixed at conclusion. Depending on the contract, the maturity is either set until the next business day and the repo matures unless one party renews it for a variable number of business days. Alternatively it has no maturity date – but one or both parties have the option to terminate the transaction within a pre-agreed time frame.

Types
Repo transactions occur in three forms: specified delivery, tri-party, and held in custody (wherein the "selling" party holds the security during the term of the repo). The third form (hold-in-custody) is quite rare, particularly in developing markets, primarily due to the risk that the seller will become insolvent prior to maturation of the repo and the buyer will be unable to recover the securities that were posted as collateral to secure the transaction. The first form—specified delivery—requires the delivery of a prespecified bond at the onset, and at maturity of the contractual period. Tri-party is essentially a basket form of transaction and allows for a wider range of instruments in the basket or pool. In a tri-party repo transaction, a third party clearing agent or bank is interposed between the "seller" and the "buyer". The third party maintains control of the securities that are the subject of the agreement and processes the payments from the "seller" to the "buyer."

Due bill/hold in-custody repo / bilateral repo
In a due bill repo, the collateral pledged by the (cash) borrower is not actually delivered to the cash lender. Rather, it is placed in an internal account ("held in custody") by the borrower, for the lender, throughout the duration of the trade. This has become less common as the repo market has grown, particularly owing to the creation of centralized counterparties. Due to the high risk to the cash lender, these are generally only transacted with large, financially stable institutions.

Tri-party repo
The distinguishing feature of a tri-party repo is that a custodian bank or international clearing organization, the tri-party agent, acts as an intermediary between the two parties to the repo. The tri-party agent is responsible for the administration of the transaction, including collateral allocation, marking to market, and substitution of collateral. In the US, the two principal tri-party agents are The Bank of New York Mellon and JP Morgan Chase, whilst in Europe the principal tri-party agents are Euroclear and Clearstream with SIX offering services in the Swiss market. The size of the US tri-party repo market peaked in 2008 before the worst effects of the crisis at approximately $2.8 trillion and by mid-2010 was about $1.6 trillion.

As tri-party agents administer the equivalent of hundreds of billions of USD of global collateral, they have the scale to subscribe to multiple data feeds to maximise the universe of coverage. As part of a tri-party agreement the three parties to the agreement, the tri-party agent, the repo buyer (the Collateral Taker/Cash Provider, "CAP") and the repo seller (Cash Borrower/Collateral Provider, "COP") agree to a collateral management service agreement which includes an "eligible collateral profile".

It is this "eligible collateral profile" that enables the repo buyer to define their risk appetite in respect of the collateral that they are prepared to hold against their cash. For example, a more risk averse repo buyer may wish to only hold "on-the-run" government bonds as collateral. In the event of a liquidation event of the repo seller the collateral is highly liquid thus enabling the repo buyer to sell the collateral quickly. A less risk averse repo buyer may be prepared to take non investment grade bonds or equities as collateral, which may be less liquid and may suffer a higher price volatility in the event of a repo seller default, making it more difficult for the repo buyer to sell the collateral and recover their cash. The tri-party agents are able to offer sophisticated collateral eligibility filters which allow the repo buyer to create these "eligible collateral profiles" which can systemically generate collateral pools which reflect the buyer's risk appetite.

Collateral eligibility criteria could include asset type, issuer, currency, domicile, credit rating, maturity, index, issue size, average daily traded volume, etc. Both the lender (repo buyer) and borrower (repo seller) of cash enter into these transactions to avoid the administrative burden of bi-lateral repos. In addition, because the collateral is being held by an agent, counterparty risk is reduced. A tri-party repo may be seen as the outgrowth of the 'due bill repo. A due bill repo is a repo in which the collateral is retained by the Cash borrower and not delivered to the cash provider. There is an increased element of risk when compared to the tri-party repo as collateral on a due bill repo is held within a client custody account at the Cash Borrower rather than a collateral account at a neutral third party.

Whole loan repo
A whole loan repo is a form of repo where the transaction is collateralized by a loan or other form of obligation (e.g., mortgage receivables) rather than a security.

Equity repo
The underlying security for many repo transactions is in the form of government or corporate bonds. Equity repos are simply repos on equity securities such as common (or ordinary) shares. Some complications can arise because of greater complexity in the tax rules for dividends as opposed to coupons.

Sell/buybacks and buy/sell backs
A sell/buyback is the spot sale and a forward repurchase of a security. It is two distinct outright cash market trades, one for forward settlement. The forward price is set relative to the spot price to yield a market rate of return. The basic motivation of sell/buybacks is generally the same as for a classic repo (i.e., attempting to benefit from the lower financing rates generally available for collateralized as opposed to non-secured borrowing). The economics of the transaction are also similar, with the interest on the cash borrowed through the sell/buyback being implicit in the difference between the sale price and the purchase price.

There are a number of differences between the two structures. A repo is technically a single transaction whereas a sell/buyback is a pair of transactions (a sell and a buy). A sell/buyback does not require any special legal documentation while a repo generally requires a master agreement to be in place between the buyer and seller (typically the SIFMA/ICMA commissioned Global Master Repo Agreement (GMRA)). For this reason, there is an associated increase in risk compared to repo. Should the counterparty default, the lack of agreement may lessen legal standing in retrieving collateral. Any coupon payment on the underlying security during the life of the sell/buyback will generally be passed back to the buyer of the security by adjusting the cash paid at the termination of the sell/buyback. In a repo, the coupon will be passed on immediately to the seller of the security.

A buy/sell back is the equivalent of a "reverse repo".

Securities lending
In securities lending, the purpose is to temporarily obtain the security for other purposes, such as covering short positions or for use in complex financial structures. Securities are generally lent out for a fee and securities lending trades are governed by different types of legal agreements than repos.

Repos have traditionally been used as a form of collateralized loan and have been treated as such for tax purposes. Modern Repo agreements, however, often allow the cash lender to sell the security provided as collateral and substitute an identical security at repurchase.

Reverse repo
A reverse repo is simply the same repurchase agreement from the buyer's viewpoint, not the seller's. Hence, the seller executing the transaction would describe it as a "repo", while the buyer in the same transaction would describe it a "reverse repo". So "repo" and "reverse repo" are exactly the same kind of transaction, just being described from opposite viewpoints. The term "reverse repo and sale" is commonly used to describe the creation of a short position in a debt instrument where the buyer in the repo transaction immediately sells the security provided by the seller on the open market. On the settlement date of the repo, the buyer acquires the relevant security on the open market and delivers it to the seller. In such a short transaction, the buyer is wagering that the relevant security will decline in value between the date of the repo and the settlement date.

Uses
For the buyer, a repo is an opportunity to invest cash for a customized period of time (other investments typically limit tenures). It is short-term and safer as a secured investment since the investor receives collateral. Market liquidity for repos is good, and rates are competitive for investors. Money Funds are large buyers of Repurchase Agreements.

For traders in trading firms, repos are used to finance long positions (in the securities they post as collateral), obtain access to cheaper funding costs for long positions in other speculative investments, and cover short positions in securities (via a "reverse repo and sale").

United States Federal Reserve use of repos
When transacted by the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve in open market operations, repurchase agreements add reserves to the banking system and then after a specified period of time withdraw them; reverse repos initially drain reserves and later add them back. This tool can also be used to stabilize interest rates, and the Federal Reserve has used it to adjust the federal funds rate to match the target rate.

Under a repurchase agreement, the Federal Reserve (Fed) buys U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. agency securities, or mortgage-backed securities from a primary dealer who agrees to buy them back within typically one to seven days; a reverse repo is the opposite. Thus, the Fed describes these transactions from the counterparty's viewpoint rather than from their own viewpoint.

If the Federal Reserve is one of the transacting parties, the RP is called a "system repo", but if they are trading on behalf of a customer (e.g., a foreign central bank), it is called a "customer repo". Until 2003, the Fed did not use the term "reverse repo"—which it believed implied that it was borrowing money (counter to its charter)—but used the term "matched sale" instead.

Reserve Bank of India's use of repos
In India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) uses repo and reverse repo to increase or decrease money supply in the economy. The rate at which the RBI lends to commercial banks is called the repo rate. In case of inflation, the RBI may increase the repo rate, thus discouraging banks to borrow and reducing the money supply in the economy. As of September 2020, the RBI repo rate is set at 4.00% and the reverse repo rate at 3.35%.

Lehman Brothers' use of repos as a mis-classified sale
The investment bank Lehman Brothers used repos nicknamed "repo 105" and "repo 108" as a creative accounting strategy to bolster their profitability reports for a few days during reporting season, and mis-classified the repos as true sales. New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo alleged that this practice was fraudulent and happened under the watch of accounting firm Ernst & Young. Charges have been filed against E&Y, with the allegations stating that the firm approved the practice of using repos for "the surreptitious removal of tens of billions of dollars of securities from Lehman’s balance sheet in order to create a false impression of Lehman’s liquidity, thereby defrauding the investing public".

In the Lehman Brothers case, repos were used as Tobashi schemes to temporarily conceal significant losses by intentionally timed, half-completed trades during the reporting season. This mis-use of repos is similar to the swaps by Goldman Sachs in the "Greek Debt Mask" which were used as a Tobashi scheme to legally circumvent the Maastricht Treaty deficit rules for active European Union members and allowed Greece to "hide" more than 2.3 billion Euros of debt.

Risks

While classic repos are generally credit-risk mitigated instruments, there are residual credit risks. Though it is essentially a collateralized transaction, the seller may fail to repurchase the securities sold, at the maturity date. In other words, the repo seller defaults on their obligation. Consequently, the buyer may keep the security, and liquidate the security to recover the cash lent. The security, however, may have lost value since the outset of the transaction, as the security is subject to market movements. To mitigate this risk, repos often are over-collateralized as well as being subject to daily mark-to-market margining (i.e., if the collateral falls in value, a margin call can be triggered asking the borrower to post extra securities). Conversely, if the value of the security rises there is a credit risk for the borrower in that the creditor may not sell them back. If this is considered to be a risk, then the borrower may negotiate a repo which is under-collateralized.

Credit risk associated with repo is subject to many factors: term of repo, liquidity of security, the strength of the counterparties involved, etc.

Certain forms of repo transactions came into focus within the financial press due to the technicalities of settlements following the collapse of Refco in 2005. Occasionally, a party involved in a repo transaction may not have a specific bond at the end of the repo contract. This may cause a string of failures from one party to the next, for as long as different parties have transacted for the same underlying instrument. The focus of the media attention centers on attempts to mitigate these failures.

In 2008, attention was drawn to a form known as repo 105 following the Lehman collapse, as it was alleged that repo 105s had been used as an accounting trick to hide Lehman's worsening financial health. Another controversial form of repurchase order is the "internal repo" which first came to prominence in 2005. In 2011, it was suggested that repos used to finance risky trades in sovereign European bonds may have been the mechanism by which MF Global put at risk some several hundred million dollars of client funds, before its bankruptcy in October 2011. Much of the collateral for the repos is understood to have been obtained by the rehypothecation of other collateral belonging to the clients.

During September 2019, the U.S. Federal Reserve intervened in the role of investor to provide funds in the repo markets, when overnight lending rates jumped due to a series of technical factors that had limited the supply of funds available.

title: Repurchase agreement


text:
Talk:ACT (test)

Needs revision
"Don't forget that they curve your score so if you get a 34 expect to get a 32 or a 26. It has happened." This line seems to contain some valuable information, but it is quite poorly presented. --Torrify92, 23 Feb 2009

Answers on p2p network?
Who put in that several students found answers to the ACT on a p2p network? A statement of that magnitutde definately needs a source being cited along with it. Unless someone can find out where that info came from, I think it should be removed --Ichiroska

Incorrect Article Title
The official title of the ACT is the "ACT Assessment". It may be noted that a google search on "ACT Examination" within ACT.com or ACTStudent.com turns up only 3 results, while "ACT Assessment" turns up 644. A search of the whole Internet shows this article as the first result out of 37,000 for "ACT Examination". Comparatively, ACT.org is the top result out of 222,000 for "ACT Assessment".

BTW, does anyone have anything solid that suggests that the test was ever called "American College Test"? ACT says that the company itself used to be called The American College Testing Program, Inc., but doesn't mention other names for the assessment itself. This information does sound verifiable, but would somebody please provide a source to confirm it? --Jack 17:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The official name of the test was quietly changed from "ACT Assessment" to "The ACT" sometime in the last year or so. It was never called "The American College Test." --Zoofroot 05:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Separate Article for ACT
American College Testing (the company that administers the ACT Assessment) has no article on WikiPedia.com. ACT actually administers more than one Assessment-- while the ACT Assessment, of course, is by far the most popular. For practical purposes, ACT is the common name of the assessment, but also refers to the company itself. --Jack 18:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

SAT Slam
The SAT focuses on deception and tricks to fool students? This may be true, but I'm pretty sure it's not NPOV. Furthermore, can we say for sure that the ability to spot tricks is not a good (or acceptable) measure of intelligence or ability or whatever college entrance exams are supposed to test nowadays?

Paullusmagnus 12:57, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Major Changes
I am currently in the process of revamping this article and any suggestions would be helpful. --TAOW

Minor statistical inconsistency, but the article states anything above and including a 31 is the in 99th percentile, whereas when I got a 31 in late 2005, it was the 98th percentile.

The cumulative percentages given on score reports are based on the most recent three full academic years of scores, while the ones in the national press release are based on the most recent graduating class and only count the highest score for each student that tested more than once. Both ranks change yearly. --Zoofroot 05:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a big discrepancy between the way the SAT makes information about its scores in a given state or school district available to the public and the way the ACT does not do so with any great speed or accessibility. This may contribute to the political push in favor of the ACT in some states, including North Carolina where this is happening at both the local and legislative levels. Something the article should consider addressing. Ftjrwrites (talk) 18:08, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Analogies
Note that the analogies will be removed from the SAT in March. The reference here should probably be changed soon.

The SAT does try to trick students, but this isn't a secret and stating such shouldn't violate NPOV for the reason mentioned above: the ability to identify a "trap" is an acceptable measure of academic aptitude. On both Math and Verbal sections, as the question number increases the questions not only become more difficult but "tricky" because obstensibly obvious (but wrong) answers are given as choices. Additionally, on the Math section, the wrong answers are chosen by assuming common mistakes, wheras the ACT is more likely to randomly generate incorrect answers. In this way the SAT's mode of deception is patterned and thus is more fact than opinion. Of course, this is an article on the ACT. And while we're on the subject, the SAT long favored students with highly developed verbal skills because of the vocab necessary for a high score. The ACT, because it had trig, favored strong math students. The new versions of each tests have moderated these advantages (ie, removal of analogies on SAT and inclusion of higher level math problems), but they still exist. Jordan
 * Hmm, pretty interesting stuff.

On the "trick" issue, the problem that makes it not NPOV is the choice of words like "trick." Logically, when constructing multiple choice tests, including options that may seem attractive but are incorrect would be an important part of good test. A test that does not attempt to lure participants into the wrong answer is a less effective test. "Trick" isn't inaccurate, but it's unnecessarily pejorative. An objective discussion and comparison of the two tests might note that the ACT's quality may be questioned because it's incorrect choices are not compelling enough to entice test takers. Ftjrwrites (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

chocolateluvr88
This article previously had that the ACT includes algebra 2 and trigonemtry, which aren't included on the SATs. But, the new SATs do include algebra 2, so I eliminated that from the sentence.

--chocolateluvr88 11:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

ACT SAT Conversion Chart
I just added a conversion chart from the College Board site, but I could use some help putting it into table form. Captain Jackson 05:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Out of 36 or 37
I just reverted an edit changing the maximum score for 36 to 37. I reverted it since it seems that the online information here says it is out of 36. Does anyone with more information illuminate? --Hansnesse 00:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I took the ACT in 2001. The highest score is indeed 36. Jade Peat 02:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

disambiguation
could we do a disambiguation page? ACT is also the acronym for Arlington Coalition on Transportation let me know what you think...Anlace 03:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The what? I'm just being facetious. My opinion is that the acronym sounds fairly general and should probably link to a disambig near the top, as pages are wont to do, betimes. - DaoKaioshin (talk) 01:03, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Not the most notable ACT
I challenge the fact you have redirected ACT to this article, I question if this is by the most notable usagage of the acronym. If not then the redirect should be to the disambiguation page or the most notable term. --Martyman- (talk) 02:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You actually have to go through two ACT disambiguation pages to get to the article.

Name Change
"ACT received its current name following a name change in 1997." What was it called before? I'm assuming that the author was referring to the organization, and not the test, but it isn't clear from the article.

How quaint
I believe the phrase "how quaint" should be removed; it is used as a sarcastic knock at the NCAA.

graph has no scale
The graph (Actgraph.jpg) has no scale indicated along the left side. There are 10 horizontal lines, so perhaps it represents a scale from 0 to 100. But this should be specifically defined. Scott Crevier 20:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The graph is a density curve. Therefore the area under the curve should equal one.  In order for it to be one, the top of the y-axis should be about .1 (or 10%).  I'm not sure if this is implied or should be stated.  Perhaps a second opinion here? --  >|<  sha blog  talk  / cont  16:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

ACT on p2p network
My friend told me he aquired information from Kazaa on the ACT. He got the answers and ended up with a 30 on the ACT with no help.

-I dont' think this is really probable. There are about 20 different test booklets, all different questions, of the same ACT test. When you take it, you are required to fill in a circle on your answer sheet saying which booklet you tested from. To guarantee a high score on the ACT by cheating, you'd have to match the answers you found with the booklet you're given, which is memorizing a little under 300 ABCDE sequences. To entirely ENSURE that you could do this no matter what booklet you are given, you would have to memorize thousands of ABCDE sequences. If you have the memory to do that, you don't need to download answers from the internet.

 * Or the test proctor can just hand out test booklets with the answers written on them. That's what they did at American River College when the Black Chalks test happened.  It's an easy way to discredit the tester.  If answers were seen written on the test booklet after the testing session, then the student's test could be discredited.  An easy answer for this is to tell the proctor immediately after finding the alterations, but that could go wrong, too.  An example of that is the federal 300-C clerical tests, which used the same tactics to interfere with an applicant's test.  The federal government has since discontinued the 300-C tests, maybe ACT should consider discontinuing theirs, also.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.157.30 (talk) 15:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Guessing penalty
"The ACT (unlike the SAT) does not take points off for wrong answers..." It could be my "old timers" disease setting in, but my recollection of the ACT policy on guessing answers is just the opposite of this statement; you are/(were) penalized for guessing answers on the ACT and not so on the SAT. I remember distinctly NOT guessing answers on problems that I could not solve on the ACT and I ended up being one of those fortunate few in 1975? who scored a perfect 36. One of my peers who was actually a better student than I did guess at an answer (that ended up being incorrect) and scored a 35. (Yes, we were both exceptional mathematics students). Maybe there was a change at some time, but I remember this quite distinctly.

Tony

I don't know how things were back in the day, but this is how it has been for at least the last decade: On the ACT, an incorrect answer is treated the same as one you leave blank. On the SAT, if a correct answer is worth 1 point and a blank answer is worth 0, then an incorrect answer is worth -.25.

The ACT changed significantly in 1989; for example, the score ranges for each subtest and maybe the composite were different. --Zoofroot 05:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Percentiles
Just did some recent changes, hopefully they're for the better. I added a percentiles chart, and altered the format section. This: http://www.act.org/news/data/06/pdf/National2006.pdf is an absolutely excellent source of raw data directly from ACT itself. I suggest you reference that source before changing any data, of course data can be skewed to do some 'amazing' things, so I did not want to delve to deeply and do any reinterpretation and create data overload. Huerndy 19:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

SAT-ACT conversion
The article sates that there is no "official" conversion method for the two tests, but i was able to find one from the College Board: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/satACT_concordance.pdf.

Could this be considered an "offical" chart? I added it to the article, but did not note it as such. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.164.65.186 (talk) 23:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Historical comparison of ACT scores?
Unlike today, when I took the ACT in 1986 the maximum possible scores for each of the tests were:

English: 33 Social Studies: 34 Science: 35 Math: 36

Thus, a perfect score on all of the individual tests did not result in a composite score of 36. Does anyone know whether the maximum score at that time was 34 or 35 (depends on rounding, I suppose) or when all of the tests were changed to a maximum of 36? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.211.163.209 (talk) 00:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

This is just not true. It has historically had 36 in all four domains as the maximum score, as well as the aggregate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.68.116.144 (talk) 03:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The score number on ACT has gone up and down over the years. When I re-took it in '90 the max was 30. When I took it in '73 the max was 36. Previously, this article contained a chart for converting older different max point versions with the current version. What was the source of that info? I can't find it. I would like to see if a way could be found to re-incorporate in the current version of this article.75.49.237.183 (talk) 20:45, 30 July 2009 (UTC)devildave

Histogram
I am thinking that the graph "Average distribution of ACT scores" should be later in the article where score is talked about. If no one objects in seven days this will be done. Zginder 12:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC) I moved it.Zginder 20:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC) That is not accurate. The four sections were different before Oct 1989. I still have my score sheet from 1980. The maximum was 35 and each section had a different maximum. The ACT folks have verified this for me at the archives section of their company.– — … ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · § 192.91.172.36 (talk) 17:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

That is not accurate. The four sections were different before Oct 1989. I still have my score sheet from 1980. The maximum was 35 and each section had a different maximum. The ACT folks have verified this for me at the archives section of their company.– — … ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · § 192.91.172.36 (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.172.36 (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

That is not accurate. The four sections were different before Oct 1989. I still have my score sheet from 1980. The maximum was 35 and each section had a different maximum. The ACT folks have verified this for me at the archives section of their company.– — … ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · § 192.91.172.36 (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.172.36 (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy of Score conversions
On May 5, 2007, user:71.136.45.125 (whose only contributions are this edit) added inserted the following bolded sentence:

 * Although there is no official conversion chart, the College Board, who administers the SAT, released an unofficial chart based on results from 103,525 test takers who took both tests between October 1994 and December 1996 (in earlier years, ACT scores were deleted after a certain time period at some community colleges or they were just never reported to ACT in Iowa. Therefor, these statistics are not entirely valid) here. Several colleges have also issued their own. The following is based on the University of California's conversion chart.

Now, to me this seems to be unreferenced WP:OR, but my knowledge of the history of this test is anything but comprehensive. Can any other editor vouch for its credibility, or more importantly, find a source? (In the interim I have put a verify source tag on it.) --YbborTalk 16:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As there has been no discussion for three days, I have decided to be bold and remove the content pending further discussion. --YbborTalk 13:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Coordination of article improvement
To coordinate the improvement of the article and to address the issues brought forward during the peer review, I am making this section of discussion for the list of things to do and the comments on them etc. Zginder 22:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Expansion of sections
 * I am adding a section about each of the five tests. Zginder 23:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Each test now has a section although they all need expanding. Zginder 12:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Write a Criticism section

 * Write a better lead

 * Reduce redundancies

 * Provide additional citations.

 * Citing secondary sources

Source of ACT scores
I can not find the source used for the score precentile chart. This chart is edited often, but I can not tell when it is vandalism because the source is not cited. Zginder(talk) (Contrib) 03:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Essay Writing Prompts
In the article, in the table of times and questions, it says for the writing portion of the test that there is one prompt. I believe that there were two (or possibly more) that you were given a choice between, but I am unsure. Just another guy trying to be a Chemical Engineer, Nanobiotechnologist, and Mathematician (talk) 08:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * From http://www.actstudent.org/testprep/descriptions/writingdescript.html : "The test consists of one writing prompt that will define an issue and describe two points of view on that issue. You are asked to respond to a question about your position on the issue described in the writing prompt. In doing so, you may adopt one or the other of the perspectives described in the prompt, or you may present a different point of view on the issue." So it seems only one prompt (which is how I remember it), but of course, there's more than one position available to you. --YbborTalk 13:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There is only one prompt per test. Zginder(talk) (Contrib) 13:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

University of California's conversion chart
This conversion chart either has changed or is flawed. They do not use the composite instead, "[T]he University multiplies the sum of your converted math, reading and science scores by two-thirds, then adds the converted English/writing score." the article is misleading. Zginder(talk) (Contrib) 15:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"In February 2005, an optional writing test was added to the ACT, mirroring changes to the SAT later that year."
Maybe there was talk of adding a writing test to the SAT, and ACT beat them to it. In this situation you can't really be sure... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.249.115 (talk) 07:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed reworking of ACT & Disambig pages
I've given some rationale for changing the way we currently use the ACT page (currently disambig), and was hoping to get some consensus for change, so I was hoping regular editors of this page might comment at talk:ACT.--YbborTalk 11:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

English/Writing Combined Subscore
The following sentences "If a student were to score poorly on the writing section, then the score would be reduced from 25 to 23 at the most. A two point demerit is the maximum allowed for a writing penalty." are incorrect. I personally had my subscore reduced by 4, from a 36 English subscore to a 32 combined English/writing subscore, by doing poorly on the essay section at the end of the exam. I would have simply removed this section of the article, but I was not sure if there was a good way to do that given the structural context of the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hyphessobrycon (talk • contribs) 04:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

COMPASS
My school doesn't use ACT, they use COMPASS (which is provided by the ACT group) Should there be a mention about it as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by KyprosNighthawk (talk • contribs) 20:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

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Graph doesn't match data
The first table in the section ACT (test) gives cumulative percentile scores. By subtracting each from its predecessor, the non-cumulative scores are revealed to be as follows:

There is significant rounding error, since this is based on a graph that rounds to a single percentage point. Nonetheless, this makes it clear that the most common scores are 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and these scores are approximately equally common. So a frequency graph should be a bell curve whose top is relatively level from 19 to 23.

This is radically different from what is shown in the graph, which has a very sharp peak at 20. According to this graph -- whatever the vertical scale might be -- a score of 20 is almost twice as common as a score of 23.

One of these is wrong!

Finally, the table says that "the percentile of students at or below" the ACT score of 36 is 99.96%. In other words, 0.04% of ACT takers scored higher than 36. This is impossible. — Lawrence King ( talk ) 21:05, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

 * This section needs to be updated and corrected, perhaps using more recent data such as that found here. Erjwiki (talk) 16:16, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

 * I've updated the chart; the percentile numbers should be consistent now. The graph is out of date and should be updated as well. Sometime soon, hopefully! Erjwiki (talk) 22:05, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

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Out of date info
The lede says:

 * . In 2013, ACT announced that students would be able to take the ACT by computer starting in the spring of 2015. The test will continue to be offered in the paper format for schools that are not ready to transition to computer testing.

This is massively out of date. 2015 is in the past. If this actually occurred in Spring 2015, it needs to be written in the past tense; if it did not happen, then this should be removed (or at least, removed from the lede). — Lawrence King ( talk ) 21:26, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposed Removal of "Use by high IQ societies" section
This section is really quite useless and irrelevant. It was probably added by members of those societies for self-promotion. I propose removing it in its entirety. ΣΨ (talk) 08:58, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Data Not Available
Just in case anyone was wondering (and in regards to the update template at the top of the article), normally I would update data here such as number of test takers, average scores in 2019 in each of the test sections, the state-by-state ACT vs SAT map, etc. But for unknown reasons ACT, Inc. has not made public the data for the class of 2019. So far, only this report has been made available. I've contacted several media outlets but there doesn't seem to be much interest in figuring out why. Weird. Erjwiki (talk) 19:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:ACT (test)


text:
File talk:Champs elysees.700px.jpg

I have never been to Paris. Is it possible to take a photograph above the exact centre of the Champs Elysees? A photo similar to this one with perfect symetry would be awesome. - Gaz 12:59, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

title: File talk:Champs elysees.700px.jpg


text:
Schwandorf (district)

Schwandorf is a Landkreis (district) in Upper Palatinate in the eastern part of Bavaria, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the east clockwise) Cham, Regensburg, Neumarkt, Amberg-Sulzbach, Neustadt an der Waldnaab, and the Czech Plzeň Region.

Geography
The main rivers of the district are the Naab and the Regen.

Climate
The climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Cfb". (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).

History
The district was created in 1972 by merging the previous districts of Burglengenfeld, Oberviechtach, Nabburg, Neunburg vorm Wald, and the previously district-free city Schwandorf.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms shows the lion of the Palatinate to the left. The tower in the right half symbolizes the many fortresses and castles in the district. The wavy line and the mill wheel at the bottom stand for the many rivers and watermills in the district.

Politics
Schwandorf (electoral district)

title: Schwandorf (district)