True Blue Marvel Fans Need Read Here

I know everyone gets tired of clicking on the newest Marvel RolePlay link and ending up disappointed. Why are you disappointed. There's quite a few reasons. Let me list them!
-The GM is illiterate
-The other players are illiterate
-1/2 of them are going by what they saw in the movies
-Most of them have never even flipped the page of a single Marvel Comic
-The RolePlay eventually dwindles down to 1-3 lines of dialogue every five minutes
-Nobody can stay committed
-The RolePlay dies before the first event

The list goes on.

But, I am here to provide a literate RolePlay for the Marvel fans who crave adventure, romance, accuracy, complexity, lust, plot, and most of all literacy and detail. Too good to be true, you say? Ha! You poor dear. I'm sorry that you don't know me. Also - This RolePlay is solely X-Men. Its a FanFiction of the Decimation Arc (For those who know what that is) and it took me a while to type this all out, lol. With enough requests, I also have an Avengers plot that I'd like to put into action, but I'd like to try this first. Please take the time to read (: With at least 10 replies, I shall start up the RolePlay!

Picture this...

There's a place in the world called Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. It's in New York. But, it's not a Prep School like many think it to be. Xavier's Academy is home to hundreds of young mutants from all over North America and other continents as well. The place is owned and run by renowned Professor, Charles Xavier. He's the Head Master. But he's not the only adult there. Ororo Munroe was his intended successor. Then you have Doctor Jean Summers and her husband, Scott Summers. Then there was Logan. There were several others as well, some who were Professors, some were just tenants and X-Men, and some worked as Aides to the Professors or around the Academy. Among them were Katherine Pryde, Bobby Drake, Peter Rasputin, Warren Worthington III, Henry McCoy, Remy LeBeau, Lorna Dane, Anna Marie, Kurt Wagner, Laura Kinney, Thriinaendor*, Esteban del Rosario*, Melina del Rosario*, and a young Jubilation Lee. Now, you may be asking yourself "You mentioned some of them being X-Men...What the holy hell is that?" Well. The X-Men is a special ops team of mutants directed by Professor Xavier who's mission is to maintain the peace between mutants and humans while keeping them safe. No, they aren't the type of Superhero team to step in and stop a bank robbery. Unless maybe the criminal is mutant. They try their best to help humans see mutants in a different, better light.

Then...you have their counterpart: The Brotherhood of Mutants. The group was originally nothing short of terrorists. They were mutants who wanted to do nothing more than spend their time subjugating humans to the will of mutants, attempting to forcibly awaken human X-Genes, or simply killing humans. They were formed by Eric Lensherr and soon grew over time in numbers. Among them now are Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother Pietro Maximoff - Also known as The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. They are both the children of Eric Lensherr, the half-siblings of Lorna Dane. Then there's John Allerdyce - They call him Pyro. He's a former student of the Xavier Institute and also Bobby's best friend. But insanely jealous of his friend. You can't forget Callisto, James Madrox, Roger Quark, Cain Marko, Mystique, Frederick Dukes, Mortimer Toynbee, Jason Wyngarde, Angelo Unuscione, Lani Ubana, Telford Porter, and Peter Quinn. As time went on, the Brotherhood seemed to focus a lot more on political movements, attempting to take down and sometimes even succeeding in 'taking care of' anti-mutant figureheads. Their members are all mutants who are either victims of anti-mutant abuse suffered at the hands of humans or mutants who just don't like humans because they view mutants as better in every way. Peace is not an option to them. Humans must go by one way or another.

For the past few years things have been the same as always: Life goes on at the Xavier Estate with about twenty new students every few months, the X-Men take care of business, the Brotherhood try their best to make life hell for the humans, the X-Men thwart many of their plans. It's a vicious circle. The year is now 2012. And so much has changed.

Flashback

Professor Charles Xavier and his wife, Moira Xavier passed away in the year 2005. His funeral was one of the largest that the world had seen. Mutants and humans from all over came out of the woodwork to pay their respects to the man and his wife. It was no secret that he had touched so many lives. Even his brother Cain showed up - He didn't even have a temper that day. Eric Lensherr had shown up, of course. Only to pay respect to Charles - He never liked Moira and always thought that if it hadn't been for her, he and Charles would be on the same side of 'The War'. A statue was erected at the front in his honor and Ororo took over as Head Mistress. Some of the X-Men and Professors left. Others remained. Jean had died back in 2000, the Phoenix dying along with her. Esteban and Melina del Rosario were killed in 2011 on a mission with a vigilante/mercenary mutant group. Many had children. Most of them were attending college. A lot of them had just above average intelligence; They did have the benefit of being raised in a place of learning, after all. Ororo had a daughter that was now grown, having married her long time love, T'Challa - Among the others with children were Remy LeBeau who had a child as a result of a one-night-stand with Professor Delgado - Afterwards, the two got married. Scott raised a child as well, trying his best to make up for Jean's absence in the child's life. Logan never had any children, but he did have his own progeny. A young girl that he had raised since she was twelve. Lorna Dane married her long time crush, Alexander Summers and they had a child. Anna Marie and Bobby Drake got married and had a child - But they moved away from the Xavier Institute and left the country in an attempt to lead a normal life. Jubilation Lee and Peter Rasputin ended up having a child together a few years before getting married and they stuck around to raise their offspring. Kurt wanted a child...But he feared that the child would come out looking like his family - Demonic. He feared the worst for the child and remained single for some time. But he eventually married his long time love, Wanda Maximoff. And they had a son. Katherine Pryde and Warren Worthington ended up having a child - But their child was younger than the others. Even Doctor McCoy decided to leave behind a legacy before his death, having married his long time love, Mystique, helping her to raise her other child as well.

The Brotherhood? Well - A lot of things happened there that lead to the events of now. Just like the X-Men, their members had children. As in accordance with their disposition, they only had children with mutant partners. So it was very rare for a human child to turn up. John Allerdyce's first child was a human - He remembered that Doctor Grey had once said that the X-Gene was most often awakened during times of intense emotion, stress, or trauma. He was a twisted young man who secretly tortured and abused his child in an attempt to awaken their X-Gene. Needless to say, he did. The child had the ability to inflict pain without touching anyone. But from the abuse, her mind was twisted. She killed her father and in her insanity, she committed suicide. Wanda also had a child. He ran away at a young age to live at the Xavier Institute with his cousin who was the child of Pietro and Callisto, raised by his father. Eric was upset that not a single one of his grandchildren shared his vision, hoping that the group he founded would one day be under their control. Mystique had even left his side to be with Hank, taking their son with her after she told him that she was tired of living life fighting all the time. She saw that the mutant x human relations were steady and said she wouldn't live in the dark anymore. With the loss of his grandchildren, child, and love, Eric remained solitary for years. He spoke to no-one. Not his kids and not his dearest of friends. There was arguing that rose up within the Brotherhood and the group split in two. The two separate groups often clashed - One group lead by Angelo was determined to exterminate the humans. The other was lead by Wanda and Pietro. They were moreso for subjugating humans and enslaving them if they couldn't turn them. Over the years, stress and tension rose...Until it was almost too much.

And then...

It was two years ago, between the dates of December 21st and 23rd 2010, when all of the scions returned to Xavier's Institute - At least the ones who hadn't been there. Some had finished college. Some had dropped out. Some didn't even go to college and just had their own agenda. But their parents were getting old and it was time for them to retire. It was time for the kids to take over. The new Head Mistress took the reigns that very New Year. Everything was steady as far as the relations between humans and mutants. Until IT happened. A group calling themselves The Pure Ones had found where Eric was hiding out the rest of his days, having locked onto his location after spotting him at Charles' funeral only a few years prior. They had invested a good amount of time to deciding how he should be killed. Finally, they decided that he was old. In his eighties, nearly. He had given up on life and was as depressed as they came. He wouldn't put up a fight. Taking that risk...they approached. He did wrestle within himself, debating whether he'd fight back or not. By the time he decided he wasn't going to go out like a bitch, an arrow was already driven through his skull; His reflexes just weren't what they once were. But that wasn't the end. In the dead of the night on August 26th, 2012, they mounted Eric and two other mutants onto giant wooden crosses and set them up outside the gates of Xavier's Institute with REPENT written in blood across their foreheads and bible verses across their torsos. Wanda saw it on the news and rushed with her brother to the scene of the crime with the intention of killing each and every human in sight, but was stopped and captured by the X-Men who took her beyond the gates and insisted that they act rationally. Wanda had all but lost her mind at that point and lost it even further to see her child smiling and hanging out with the students as though nothing was wrong. Her grip on reality was all but lost at that point. Wanda was an exceptionally powerful mutant who could even manipulate reality - And that's what she did. She created her own perfect world: Mutants ruled over humans and her family was whole. The X-Men were even close friends of her. Members of the Brotherhood now, even. But there was Logan and his progeny. They knew better. Thanks to Tarot's mutation, they were able to realize what was going on. They went to Wanda and begged of her to make the world right. After hours of an intense conversation, they got Wanda to see just what she was doing. To see the light. See what she was doing wasn't natural. She cursed her father for giving her such a state of mind and decided that the world would just be better off without mutants. But such a big warp right after another wasn't bound to go well. Everything seemed to go back to normal...Nobody remembered what had happened. Hell. They didn't even know it had happened. But there was something wrong. Mutants all across the globe had lost their mutations. They were humans now. Again, for some. Wanda died during the warp. Among those with lost mutations was Quicksilver, Polaris, Beast, Rogue, Iceman, Northstar, Dazzler, Storm, Toad. Many more. The world once held hundreds of thousands of mutants. But now? There were only 201 mutants left. At least recorded, anyways.

It's now September 13th, 2012.

So much has happened after mutants across the globe were depowered. Many humans rejoiced - Some (ex)mutants began searching for a way to regain their mutations while others took it as a blessing in disguise and have been integrating themselves into a normal human life. The remaining mutants? They were hunted. All across the globe, the hunt to find the rest of the mutants began. Religious extremists took 'The Great Purge' as a sign from God and sought to finish his work, joining The Pure Ones. Another group formed as well, calling themselves The Sapien League. They weren't religious fanatics, but simply humans who didn't want mutants around. As a result, mutants from all across the globe reacted in a few ways. Some immediately fled to Xavier's for shelter. Others went into hiding. Others...They did what Magneto would love of them to do. They fought back and took as many human lives as they could. Senator Robert Kelly of Massachusetts approached the U.S. Senate began to push for a bill: Mutant Affairs Control Act that would require mutants to disclose their identities and powers to the government, and work for the government while being labeled as Weapons of Mass Destruction among other things that clearly violated every bit of privacy that they had. It wasn't the first time he had tried for it - The first couple of times, it had been rejected as unconstitutional. But now, with mutant attacks growing more vicious, he has high hopes that it will go through. Even if the bill was rejected again, he was secretly working on Project: Wideawake - A covert operation where mutant-hunting Sentinel robots were being created.

Our story will begin with the first day of school. Barely two weeks after M-Day. All of the remaining mutants who aren't out terrorizing humans and doling out vigilante justice or hiding have arrived at Xavier's Institute and are beginning to settle in. There's to be a meeting to discuss the issues at hand. From there? The IC will decide...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/YWr6MBYJDnc/viewtopic.php

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Decision to give a group effort in the brain

Dec. 23, 2012 ? A monkey would probably never agree that it is better to give than to receive, but they do apparently get some reward from giving to another monkey.

During a task in which rhesus macaques had control over whether they or another monkey would receive a squirt of fruit juice, three distinct areas of the brain were found to be involved in weighing benefits to oneself against benefits to the other, according to new research by Duke University researchers.

The team used sensitive electrodes to detect the activity of individual neurons as the animals weighed different scenarios, such as whether to reward themselves, the other monkey or nobody at all. Three areas of the brain were seen to weigh the problem differently depending on the social context of the reward. The research appears Dec. 24 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Using a computer screen to allocate juice rewards, the monkeys preferred to reward themselves first and foremost. But they also chose to reward the other monkey when it was either that or nothing for either of them. They also were more likely to give the reward to a monkey they knew over one they didn't, preferred to give to lower status than higher status monkeys, and had almost no interest in giving the juice to an inanimate object.

Calculating the social aspects of the reward system seems to be a combination of action by two centers involved in calculating all sorts of rewards and a third center that adds the social dimension, according to lead researcher Michael Platt, director of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

The orbital frontal cortex, right above the eyes, was activated when calculating rewards to the self. The anterior cingulate sulcus in the middle of the top of the brain seemed to calculate giving up a reward. But both centers appear "divorced from social context," Platt said. A third area, the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACCg), seemed to "care a lot about what happened to the other monkey," Platt said.

Based on results of various combinations of the reward-giving scenario the monkeys were put through, it would appear that neurons in the ACCg encode both the giving and receiving of rewards, and do so in a remarkably similar way.

The use of single-neuron electrodes to measure the activity of brain areas gives a much more precise picture than brain imaging, Platt said. Even the best imaging available now is "a six-second snapshot of tens of thousands of neurons," which are typically operating in milliseconds.

What the team has seen happening is consistent with other studies of damaged ACCg regions in which animals lost their typical hesitation about retrieving food when facing social choices. This same region of the brain is active in people when they empathize with someone else.

"Many neurons in the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACCg) respond both when monkeys choose a drink for themselves and when they choose to give a drink to another monkey," Platt said. "One might view these as sort of mirror neurons for the reward system." The region is active as an animal merely watches another animal receiving a reward without having one themselves.

The research is another piece of the puzzle as neuroscientists search for the roots of charity and social behavior in our species and others. There have been two schools of thought about how the social reward system is set up, Platt said. One holds that there is generic circuitry for rewards that has been adapted to our social behavior because it helped humans and other social animals like monkeys thrive. Another school holds that social behavior is so important to humans and other highly social animals like monkeys that there may be some special circuits for it, Platt said.

This finding, in macaques that have only a very distant common ancestor with us and are "not a particularly prosocial animal," suggests that "this specialized social circuitry evolved a long time ago presumably to support cooperative behavior," Platt said.

The research was supported by grants from the Ruth K. Broad Biomedical Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institute of Mental Health (MH095894), and Department of Defense (W81XWH-11-1-0584).

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Steve W C Chang, Jean-Fran?ois Gari?py, Michael L Platt. Neuronal reference frames for social decisions in primate frontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nn.3287

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/VCVs1pkBLcg/121223152732.htm

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Article Submission And Press Release Enhances Link Popularity ...

Number of View: 21

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Source Code : ?http://www.sooperarticles.com

The estimated reading time for this post is 181 seconds

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Source: http://www.earningmaster.com/2012/12/23/article-submission-and-press-release-enhances-link-popularity/

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Antarctic warming concern rises

23 December 2012 Last updated at 13:15 ET By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

A new analysis of temperature records indicates that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming nearly twice as fast as previously thought.

US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere's summer months.

They are worried that the increased melting of ice as a result of warmer temperatures could contribute to sea-level rise.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The scientists compiled data from records kept at Byrd station, established by the US in the mid-1950s and located towards the centre of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS).

Previously scientists were unable to draw any conclusions from the Byrd data as the records were incomplete.

The new work used a computer model of the atmosphere and a numerical analysis method to fill in the missing observations.

The results indicate an increase of 2.4C in average annual temperature between 1958 and 2010.

"What we're seeing is one of the strongest warming signals on Earth," says Andrew Monaghan, a co-author and scientist at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research.

"This is the first time we've been able to determine that there's warming going on during the summer season." he added.

Top to bottom

It might be natural to expect that summers even in Antarctica would be warmer than other times of the year. But the region is so cold, it is extremely rare for temperatures to get above freezing.

Continue reading the main story

This place has very variable weather, some of it is influenced by human acts and some of it isn't ?

End Quote Prof David Bromwich Ohio State University

According to co-author Prof David Bromwich from Ohio State University, this is a critical threshold.

"The fact that temperatures are rising in the summer means there's a prospect of WAIS not only being melted from the bottom as we know it is today, but in future it looks probable that it will be melting from the top as well," he said.

Previous research published in Nature indicated that the WAIS is being warmed by the ocean, but this new work suggests that the atmosphere is playing a role as well.

The scientists say that the rise in temperatures has been caused by changes in winds and weather patterns coming from the Pacific Ocean.

"We're seeing a more dynamic impact that's due to climate change that's occurring elsewhere on the globe translating down and increasing the heat transportation to the WAIS." said Dr Monaghan.

But he was unable to say with certainty that the greater warming his team found was due to human activities.

"The jury is still out on that. That piece of research has not been done. My opinion is that it probably is, but I can't say that definitively."

This view was echoed by Prof Bromwich, who suggested that further study would be needed.

"The tasks now are to look at the relative contributions of natural variability," he said.

"This place has very variable weather - some of it is influenced by human acts and some of it isn't. I think its premature to answer that question right now."

Whatever the source, the researchers are concerned that this warming can lead to more melting and have direct and indirect effects on global sea levels. The direct impacts are the run-off of melting waters into the sea.

But the scientists say this is unlikely to happen for several decades because much of the water is likely to percolate down the ice sheet and refreeze.

Glacial pace

The indirect effect is that it can "pre-condition" the ice shelves that float at the edges of the ice sheet. The scientists say that this is what happened in 2002 on the Antarctic peninsula when the Larsen B shelf collapsed spectacularly in just a month.

"The melt water went down into the crevasses and filled them up," Dr Monaghan said.

"Just like a pothole in the road in wintertime, the water will freeze and expand and break it apart."

He is concerned that a similar situation could now occur on the WAIS.

"What we saw after the breakup of Larsen was that the glaciers that were buttressed by the ice shelves sped up tremendously, by a factor of eight. That's a potential concern of the enhanced melt in west Antarctica if the warming trend we find in summer continues."

The authors say they are confident that the data from Byrd Station is representative of the region because the scientific outpost sits on a plateau and conditions are essentially uniform for a considerable distance.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20804192#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Anne's Food: Broccoli & avocado salad

I hope you're not sick of christmas food, because I still haven't managed to transfer the photos from my camera of some new dishes I've made recently. But I will, I promise. Meanwhile, have some salad! This is a pretty hearty thing, that we ate with steaks and some roasted potatoes. It's absolutely delicious, and would be a good stand-alone dish as well.

Broccoli & avocado salad
serves 2-4 depending on what else you serve

1/2 red onion
1 lemon
Salt
1 head of broccoli

2 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 red pepper, diced
10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Handful basil, finely sliced
Handful cashews
1-2 avocados, diced
50 g feta cheese, crumbled

First, finely chop the red onion, and mix with the squeezed-out lemon in a bowl. Season with a pinch of salt, too.

Next, separate the broccoli into small florets. Peel the stalk and discard the tough outsides, but slice the rest. Cook for three minutes, then plunge into cold water to stop the cooking.

Add the sour cream and olive oil to the lemon dressing, and mix well.

And then - assemble. Just mix everything together, but make sure to don't break up the avocado too much. Use a light hand!

Source: http://annesfood.blogspot.com/2012/12/broccoli-avocado-salad.html

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Psy's 'Gangnam Style' Posts Record 1 Billion YouTube Views: How Did It Happen?

'When I'm reflecting on the year, it was the biggest year ever, not only for my career, but my life and my family's life,' says Psy about his record-smashing 2012.
By Gil Kaufman, with additional reporting by James Montgomery

Psy in his video for "Gangnam Style"
Photo: YG Entertainment

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699341/psy-gangnam-style-one-billion-youtube.jhtml

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Wall Street dealers lose edge in U.S. Treasury auctions as investor clout grows

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dramatic increase in the amount of government bonds that investors purchase directly from the U.S. Treasury Department in its regular debt auctions is reducing the advantage large dealers have traditionally held in the sale process.

The Treasury will not disclose the names of investors who can purchase directly from the government in its auctions but speculation is rife that the participants include an expanding number of the world's largest governments and asset management firms.

BlackRock , the world's largest asset manager, has access to the auctions as a "direct bidder", but does not use it, said Lauren Post, a spokeswoman for the firm in New York. A spokesman for PIMCO, which manages the world's largest bond fund, did not respond to inquiries over whether they have direct bidding access.

Qualified investment funds, insurance companies, banks, and foreign governments may all bid directly in U.S. Treasury auctions, but only the 21 authorized "primary dealers" are required to bid to fulfill their role as market makers in the securities.

"Direct bidders" are showing an increasing presence in the auctions in the last three years, and this week they bought a record share of seven-year notes and the most five-year debt in the auctions in five years.

The shift in the auction procedure is expected to continue, as asset managers increasingly take advantage of the debt sales to buy big positions and leave dealers increasingly in the dark over their purchase plans, while dealers continue to shrink balance sheets weakened by loss making positions taken before the credit crisis of 2007-2009.

"It's becoming more consistent that they are doing that now," said Richard Gilhooly, an interest rate strategist at TD Securities in New York. "They are concealing information and they may think that it might help them get the auction cheaper, because the dealers may bid back thinking the demand isn't there."

Reuters in May reported that China, the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries with more than $1 trillion, has direct bidder status, and market participants surmise other major central banks may also, although this could not be verified.

Japan is close to approaching the size of China's Treasuries holdings, while Switzerland has been dramatically increasing its Treasuries holdings as its central bank accumulates more cash to invest from its foreign exchange intervention against the Swiss franc.

In the auction on Tuesday this week, direct bidders bought 30.4 percent, or $10.62 billion, out of $35 billion in five-year notes, while dealers purchased 37.2 percent, or $12.98 billion.

On Wednesday the bidders bought 23.1 percent, or $6.69 billion in seven-year notes, a record for a those notes. Dealers took 37 percent, or $10.72 billion of the $29 billion sale.

Those recent auctions may have been influenced by year-end demand for low risk assets amid concerns about the impact on U.S. economic growth from the approaching "fiscal cliff" but the results still trail behind a July auction of 10-year notes that stunned dealers.

In that month direct bidders bought 45.4 percent of a 10-year note auction, the largest on record for any Treasuries auction, eclipsing dealer purchases of 14 percent.

LOSING THE INFORMATION ADVANTAGE

The presence of direct bidders in Treasuries auctions has been growing over the past three years, building from a sporadic presence that would involve less than 10 percent of a sale to a consistent attendance that approaches the amount of dealer purchases.

For dealers, the increased presence of direct bidders is making it harder for them to gauge demand for bonds ahead of a sale, and therefore hard to know how aggressively to bid for the debt.

"If you are a direct bidder you're under no obligation to bid, you just have access to go directly to the Fed, which is a complete advantage for you," said Tom Tucci, head of Treasuries trading at CIBC in New York, which is not a primary dealer.

For dealers, "that they are bidding on securities where now they don't see the bids coming, so they are at a disadvantage," he added.

By bypassing a dealer, an investor wanting to purchase a large block of bonds may estimate they can obtain a more favorable price.

Some primary dealers have argued, however, that the shift might cause long-term harm to the auction process, which they say so far has been stable in large part because of support from the Federal Reserve's massive monthly bond purchases.

"The primary dealers are having less information on flows and liquidity. They will take less risk," said Brian Edmonds, head of rates trading at Cantor Fitzgerald, a primary dealer based in New York. "Down the road, you could have sloppy auctions because if the direct bidders step away, primary dealers are not going to fill the void."

STRUCTURAL SHIFT

For large investors with growing assets under management that need to be invested, government debt auctions are one of the few places they can buy in large amounts with sufficient liquidity, and also without tipping their hand over their positions.

"They are trying to get large size because they have much larger portfolios than before," said TD's Gilhooly.

While asset managers grow their investments, dealers have pared back assets and shrunk their balance sheets, because they are still hurting from risky loans bought and made before the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Countries which have been active in curbing the appreciation of their currencies in order to help their exporters, may now also have the ability to buy Treasuries in large quantities and direct access may be more appealing, analysts said.

According to U.S. Treasury data released earlier this week, Japan's Treasuries holdings were $1.135 trillion in October, up nearly $130 billion from a year earlier, while Switzerland's U.S. bond ownership grew to $194.4 billion from $143.9 billion 12 months earlier.

China's Treasuries holdings fell to $1.162 trillion in October from $1.256 trillion a year earlier, but analysts have said China has been storing their Treasuries in overseas accounts which are not counted as a part of its official U.S. bond holdings.

(Editing by Clive McKeef)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-dealers-lose-edge-u-treasury-auctions-175524568--sector.html

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