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To use rigid/deformable image registration in 4D-CT, cine MRI, and T1-VIBE MRI to investigate cardiac/respiratory dose-motion-effects on the dose delivered to LV and LVM, and American Heart Association (AHA) model in lung cancer patients with tumors at upper lobe of the lung. The suggested workflow will let researchers and clinicians to determine the actual dose delivered to the tumor and organs at risk during respiratory and cardiac motion.

It is proved that a profinite group $G$ has fewer than $2^{\aleph_0}$ conjugacy classes of $p$-elements for an odd prime $p$ if and only if its $p$-Sylow subgroups are finite. (Here, by a $p$-element one understands an element that either has $p$-power order or topologically generates a group isomorphic to ${\mathbb Z}_p$.) A weaker result is proved for $p=2$., Comment: Corrected version of a paper to appear in Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. (2022), with expanded explanations

Recent studies have highlighted the relevance of perivascular interactions on aortic wall mechanics. Most of the approaches assume static perivascular structures; however, the beating heart dynamically displaces the neighboring aorta. We develop a model to account for the effect of periaortic interactions due to static and dynamic structures by prescribing a moving elastic foundation boundary condition (EFBC) embedded into an inverse finite element algorithm using in vivo displacements from 2D displacement encoding with stimulated echoes (DENSE) MRI as target data. We applied this method at three different locations of interest, the distal aortic arch (DAA), descending thoracic aorta (DTA), and infrarenal abdominal aorta (IAA) for a total of 27 cases in healthy humans. The model reproduces the target diastole-to-systole deformation and bulk displacement of the aortic wall with median displacement errors below 0.5 mm. The EFBC showed good agreement with the location of anatomical features and was consistent among individuals of similar characteristics. Results show that an energy source acting on the adventitia is required to reproduce the displacements measured at the vicinity of the heart, but not at the abdomen. The average adventitial load as a percentage of the luminal pulse-pressure was found to increase with age and to decrease along the descending aorta, from 61% at the DAA to 37% at the DTA, and 30% at the IAA. This approach offers a patient-specific method to estimate in vivo adventitial loads and aortic wall stiffness, which can bring a better understanding of normal and pathological in vivo aortic function.

Let $(\Omega, \leq)$ be a totally ordered set. We prove that if Aut$(\Omega,\leq)$ is transitive and satisfies the same first-order sentences as the automorphism group of the real line (in the language of groups) then $\Omega$ and and the real line are isomorphic ordered sets. This improvement of a theorem of Gurevich and Holland is obtained as a consequence of a study of centralizers associated with certain transitive subgroups of Aut$(\Omega,\leq)$., Comment: 13 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1606.00312

The authors create a standards restrictiveness index using newly available data on maximum residue levels of pesticides for 61 importing countries. The paper analyzes the impact that food safety standards have on international trade of agricultural products. The findings suggest that more restrictive standards are associated, on average, with a lower probability of observing trade. However, after controlling for sample selection and the proportion of exporting firms in a gravity model, the analysis finds that the effect of standards on trade intensity is indistinguishable from zero. This is consistent with the assumption that meeting stringent standards increases primarily the fixed costs of exporting. Once firms enter the market, however, standards do not impact the level of exports. The analysis also finds a greater marginal effect of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) standards on the probability of trade, relative to other countries'standards, keeping in mind however that on average BRICS standards are less restrictive. The analysis also suggests that exporters in low-income countries are more adversely affected by stricter standards.

Using a new database on Chinese food standards, this paper estimates the impact of volunta-ry and mandatory standards on its agricultural and food exports. The dataset covers seven Chinese products from 1992 to 2008. The findings here indicate that standards have a posi-tive effect on China's export performance. Standards signal to customers that products meet certain quality measures and promote information exchange. The benefits of increased ex-ports outweigh compliance costs. Our results also show that theses positive effects are larger when the standards are consistent with international norms.

Private inspection of international shipments has been used over the last half-century for a variety of purposes. These include prevention of capital flight and improvement of import duty collection, among others. The existing literature has failed to find much impact of these inspection programs on collected tariff revenue or corruption at the border. This paper explores the"facilitation"effect of private inspection programs on trade. The results indicate that private inspection has a positive and significant trade-facilitation effect. These programs raise import volumes for countries using them by approximately 2 to 10 percent. The findings here also suggest that the benefit of private inspection of imports may be associated with reforms and best practices applied by private inspection firms. Private firms'inspection of cargo may promote faster clearance times and process reliability, rather than improved tax collection.

Since 2005, donors and development agencies have increased the overall value of aid for trade and put in place several mechanisms to channel such aid and to ensure that it targets national priorities. This paper reviews recent trends in the allocation of aid for trade and analyses of its effectiveness. It identifies a number of opportunities for concerted action to enhance the impact of aid for trade initiatives, including greater involvement by middle-income countries in the initiative (through improved market access, investment flows, and knowledge transfers); deeper engagement with the private sector -- a key source of information on what works and what does not; a stronger focus on improving the"behind the border"policies that affect the efficiency of key services sectors and help determine firm-level competitiveness; and a stronger focus on monitoring and evaluation of results.

The authors estimate the impact of aggregate indicators of"soft"and"hard"infrastructure on the export performance of developing countries. They build four new indicators for 101 countries over the period 2004-07. Estimates show that trade facilitation reforms do improve the export performance of developing countries. This is particularly true with investment in physical infrastructure and regulatory reform to improve the business environment. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that the marginal effect of infrastructure improvement on exports appears to be decreasing in per capita income. In contrast, the impact of information and communications technology on exports appears increasingly important for richer countries. Drawing on estimates, the authors compute illustrative exports growth for developing countries and ad-valorem equivalents of improving each indicator halfway to the level of the top performer in the region. As an example, improving the quality of physical infrastructure so that Egypt's indicator increases half-way to the level of Tunisia would increase exports by 10.8 percent. This is equivalent to a 7.4 percent cut in tariffs faced by Egyptian exporters across importing markets.

It is assumed that added time to export adds cost to and lowers the volume of trade. Time delays may also affect the composition of trade and can disproportionately reduce trade in time-sensitive goods. This paper investigates the validity of these propositions using the World Bank Doing Business database and Enterprise Surveys for 64 developing countries. The authors find that in countries where there is longer time needed to export firms in time-sensitive industries are less likely to become exporters. Moreover, firms that do export have lower export intensities. Their findings imply that time to export is a significant determinant of comparative advantage. For example, consider two industries that have the same export probability and intensity - but differ in time-sensitivity by one standard deviation. Action taken to cut time to export by 50 percent for one industry opens a 6 percentage point difference between the export probabilities of the two industries. In addition, steps to cut time delays increase export intensities by 1.9 percentage points. This impact applies to industries with different productivity levels -- and those in developing countries with different income levels.

The world economic crisis of 2008 presents clear challenges to prospects for economic growth in developing countries. This is particularly true for emerging economies in East Asia that have relied to a great extent over the past decade on export-led growth. What steps to facilitate trade promise a relatively strong return on investment for East Asia to help sustain trade and growth? The authors examine how port infrastructure affects trade and the role of transport costs in driving exports and imports for the region. They find that port congestion has significantly increased the transport costs to East Asia from both of the United States and Japan. The analysis suggests that cutting port congestion by 10 percent could cut transport costs in East Asia by up to 3 percent. This translates into a 0.3 to 0.5 percent across-the-board tariff cut. In addition, the estimates suggest that the trade cost reduction of investment in port infrastructure in East Asia that translates into higher consumer welfare would far outweigh the cost for physical expansion of the ports in the region.

Product standards can have a dual impact on production and trade costs. Standards may impose additional costs on exporters as it may be necessary to adapt products for specific markets (cost-effect). In contrast, standards can reduce exporters'information costs if they convey information on industrial requirements or consumer tastes that would be costly to collect in the absence of standards (informational-effect). Using a new World Bank database of European standards for electronic products, the authors examine the impact of internationally-harmonized European standards on European Union imports. They find that European Union standards for electronic products that are harmonized to international standards have a positive and significant effect on trade. The results suggest that efforts to promote trade in electronic products could be complemented by steps to promote standards harmonization. This might include, for example, re-starting talks to extend the Information Technology Agreement to non-tariff measures and commitments to harmonize national standards in electronic products.

This paper examines the impact of reducing corruption and improving transparency to lower trade costs in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation region. The authors find, based on a computable general equilibrium model, significant potential trade and welfare gains for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation members, with increased transparency and lower levels of corruption. Results suggest that trade in the region would increase by 11 percent and global welfare would expand by $406 billion by raising transparency to the average in the region. Most of the increase in welfare would take place in member economies undertaking reform. Among the reformers, the gross domestic product of Vietnam, Thailand, Russia, and the Philippines would increase approximately 20 percent. The benefits to Malaysia and China would also be substantial with increased transparency and lower levels of corruption.

The authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.

The authors test the hypothesis that product standards harmonized to de facto international standards are less trade restrictive than ones that are not. To do this, the authors construct a new database of European Union (EU) product standards. The authors identify standards that are aligned with ISO standards (as a proxy for de facto international norms). The authors use a sample-selection gravity model to examine the impact of EU standards on African textiles and clothing exports, a sector of particular development interest. The authors find robust evidence that non-harmonized standards reduce African exports of these products. EU standards which are harmonized to ISO standards are less trade restricting. Our results suggest that efforts to promote African exports of manufactures may need to be complemented by measures to reduce the cost impacts of product standards, including international harmonization. In addition, efforts to harmonize national standards with international norms, including through the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, promise concrete benefits through trade expansion.

The authors present a new database of minimum distance road routes connecting 138 cities in 27 countries across Europe and Central Asia. They use it to show that improved road network quality is robustly associated with higher intraregional trade flows. Gravity model simulations suggest that an ambitious but feasible road upgrade could increase trade by 50 percent over baseline, exceeding the expected gains from tariff reductions or trade facilitation programs of comparable scope. Cross-country spillovers due to overland transit are important: total intraregional trade couldbe increased by 30 percent by upgrading roads in just three countries-Albania, Hungary, and Romania.

Contrary to the prevailing view that the Doha negotiations have achieved little, the authors find that on trade facilitation much progress has been made. This is particularly true in regard to action by development banks and bilateral development agencies to meet client demand for assistance in reform. Active private sector participation has been an important factor driving change. Many agencies have been involved in this work. The authors find that their roles have been consistent with their comparative advantages. As to how the international community can best support continued progress, the authors conclude in favor of a cautious approach to the imposition of new WTO obligations in the area of trade facilitation. On the whole, this is the approach the WTO has taken, for example, by limiting its negotiations on trade facilitation to several specific provisions of the GATT. The WTO can continue to function as a catalyst for reform. It is perhaps uniquely placed to relate the trade facilitation agenda to the overall trade agenda. On design and construction of the relevant infrastructures and capacities to spur development, the development institutions, including bilateral agencies, should continue to lead. The authors find little evidence to support the need for a comprehensive new"platform"or mechanism to channel trade-related aid as part of implementation of any new agreement at the WTO on trade facilitation. They recommend, however, that an innovative approach to using the well established, but under utilized Trade Policy Review Mechanism be considered to increase transparency on where new aid is going over time and to expand understanding of where and how country-based progress has been achieved.

Improved competitiveness is at the top of the agenda for Mexico as it moves to leverage economic progress made over the past decade. The authors evaluate the impact of changes in trade facilitation measures on trade for main industrial sectors in Mexico. They use four indicators of trade facilitation: port efficiency, customs environment, regulatory environment, and e-commerce use by business (as a proxy for service sector infrastructure). The authors use gravity model results to consider how much trade among countries might be increased under various scenarios of improved trade facilitation. They follow a simulation strategy that uses a formula to design a unique program of reform for each country in the sample, and apply it to the case of Mexico. The formula brings the below-average countries in the group half-way to the average for the entire set of countries. After simulating these improvements in trade facilitation in all four areas, the authors find that the total increase in trade flow in manufacturing goods is estimated to be $348.2 billion (about 7.4 percent of total world trade). The analysis indicates that Mexico has a large scope for trade promotion from trade facilitation reform: overall increments from domestic reforms are expected to be on the order of $31.8 billion, equivalent to 22.4 percent of total Mexican manufacturing exports for 2000-03. On the imports side, these figures are $17.1 billion and 11.2 percent, respectively. In total exports as well as in textiles, increases in exports result from improvements in port efficiency and the regulatory environment (that is, the perception of corruption). In turn, exports of transport equipment are expected to get a greater increment from improvements in port efficiency, whereas exports of food and machinery seem to be more related to improvements in the regulatory environment. On the imports side, Mexican improvements in port efficiency appear to be the most important factor, although for imports of transport equipment improvements in service sector infrastructure are also of relative importance.

Trade costs and nontariff barriers are at the forefront of discussions on competitiveness and expanding trade opportunities for developing countries. This paper provides a summary overview of data and indicators relevant to these issues and has been informed by work underway at the World Bank on trade facilitation over the past several years to catalogue data sets and indicators. Although there has been progress in expanding data sets and developing policy-relevant indicators on trade costs and barriers, much more is needed. In order to assess progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, evaluating the impact of development projects, and whether meeting Aid for Trade goals will be met, for example, a dedicated and expansive new effort to collect and assess data is needed. This paper attempts to highlight gaps in data on trade costs and provides insight into the type of new data that might be developed in the future.

The authors examine the impact of trade facilitation on bilateral trade flows. They examine trade facilitation and capacity-building priorities in 12 countries in the Europe and Central Asia region-eight of the current members of the European Union: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,and Slovenia, and three candidate members: Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. The results suggest that behind-the-border factors play an important role in determining bilateral trade flows (controlling for the effects of tariffs, development levels, distance, and regional characteristics of exporters and importers, among other factors). The development of new data sets to expand work related to trade facilitation, including strengthening the empirical work explored here, is a key priority without which intelligent policy and priorities cannot be made. The authors'analysis is based on data from the World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Report 2001-2002, World Competitiveness Yearbook 2000, and Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobaton (2002). The results indicate that more gains in exports than in imports are expected should the values of three out of the four indicators (port efficiency, regulatory regimes, and information technology infrastructure) of the new and candidate member countries improve halfway to the EU15 average. These countries would expect large trade gains as well as improvements in trade balances as their integration into the EU continues. For example, the greatest absolute trade gains-$49 billion and $62 billion respectively-could be expected if their port efficiency and information technology infrastructure reach half the average level of the EU, and 70 percent of trade gains are associated with export expansion.

Standards and technical regulations are an increasingly prominent part of the international trade policy debate. In particular, there has been considerable discussion of whether standards and regulations affect trade costs and export prospects for developing countries. In this paper the authors examine how meeting foreign standards affects firms'export performance, reflected in export propensity and market diversification. The analysis draws on the World Bank Technical Barriers to Trade Survey database of 619 firms in 17 developing countries. The results indicate that technical regulations in industrial countries adversely affect firms'propensity to export in developing countries. In particular, testing procedures and lengthy inspection procedures reduce exports by 9 percent and 3percent, respectively. Furthermore, in the model, the difference in standards across foreign countries causes diseconomy of scale for firms and affects decisions about whether to enter export markets. The empirical analysis presented here implies that standards impede exporters'market entry, reducing the likelihood of exporting to more than three markets by 7 percent. In addition, the authors find that firms that outsource components are more challenged by compliance with multiple standards.

Standards and technical regulations exist to protect consumer safety or to achieve other goals, such as ensuring the interoperability of telecommunications systems, for example. Standards and technical regulations can, however, raise substantially both start-up and production costs for firms. Maskus, Otsuki, and Wilson develop econometric models to provide the first estimates of the incremental production costs for firms in developing nations in conforming to standards imposed by major importing countries. They use firm-level data generated from 16 developing countries in the World Bank Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Survey Database. Their findings indicate that standards do increase short-run production costs by requiring additional inputs of labor and capital. A 1 percent increase in investment to meet compliance costs in importing countries raises variable production costs by between 0.06 and 0.13 percent, a statistically significant increase. The authors also find that the fixed costs of compliance are nontrivial-approximately $425,000 per firm, or about 4.7 percent of value added on average. The results may be interpreted as one indication of the extent to which standards and technical regulations might constitute barriers to trade. While the relative impact on costs of compliance is relatively small, these costs can be decisive factors driving export success for companies. In this context, there is scope for considering that the costs associated with more limited exports to countries with import regulations may not conform to World Trade Organization rules encouraging harmonization of regulations to international standards, for example. Policy solutions then might be sought by identifying the extent to which subsidies or public support programs are needed to offset the cost disadvantage that arises from nonharmonized technical regulations.

The relationships between trade facilitation, trade flows, and capacity building are complex and challenging to assess, both empirically and in implementation. The authors measure and estimate the relationship between trade facilitation and trade flows across 75 countries in global trade, considering four important categories: port efficiency, customs environment, regulatory environment, and service sector infrastructure. A gravity model is employed that accounts for bilateral trade flows in manufactured goods in 2000-01 between the 75 countries, using traditional factors such as GDP, distance, language, and trade areas, and is augmented by the trade facilitation measures in the four categories for each country. The results suggest that both imports and exports for a country and for the world will increase with improvements in these trade facilitation measures. Potential gains from trade facilitation reforms are predicted by using the estimated parameters. The gains from trade facilitation are presented by comparing the gains across geographical regions and trade facilitation categories, and by domestic and partner improvements. The total gain in trade flow in manufacturing goods from trade facilitation improvements in all the four areas is estimated to be $377 billion. All regions gain in imports and exports. Most regions gain more in terms of exports than imports, in large part through increasing exports to the OECD market. The most important ingredient in getting these gains, particularly to the OECD market, is the country's own trade facilitation efforts. The detailed presentation of the results of the analysis may help inform policy decisions and capacity building choices.

The authors analyze the relationship between trade facilitation, trade flows, and GDP per capita in the Asia-Pacific region for the goods sector. They define and measure trade facilitation using four broad indicators. These are constructed using country-specific data for port efficiency, customs environment, regulatory environment, and electronic-business usage. They estimate the relationship between these indicators and trade flows using a gravity model. The model includes tariffs and other standard variables. The authors find that enhanced port efficiency has a large and positive effect on trade. Regulatory barriers deter trade. The results also suggest that improvements in customs and greater electronic-business use significantly expands trade, but to a lesser degree than the effect of ports or regulations. The authors then estimate the benefits of specific trade facilitation efforts by quantifying differential improvement by members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in these four areas. Based on a scenario in which APEC members below average improve capacity halfway to the average for all members, the authors find that intra-APEC trade could increase by $254 billion. This represents approximately a 21 percent increase in intra-APEC trade flows, about halfcoming from improved port efficiencies in the region. Using Dollar and Kraay's estimate of the effect of trade on per capita GDP, these improvements in trade facilitation suggest an increase in APEC average per capita GDP of 4.3 percent.

There have been a number of high profile food safety disputes in trade over the past decade. These include the widely publicized dispute at the World Trade Organization between the U.S. and EU over hormone treated beef. Consumers in some industrialized countries have also expressed concern over the health implications of consuming beef produced with antibiotics and other artificial supplements. Developing countries are affected in a significant way in both how disputes are settled, as well as the balance between risk and safety reflected in how standards are set. This paper examines the impact of drug residue standards on trade in beef and trade affect of setting harmonized international standards. We find that if international standards set by Codex were followed in antibiotics, global trade in beef would rise by over $3.2 billion. Among other developing countries, South African exports would rise by $160 million, Brazil by $200 million, and Argentina's by over $300 million.

How governments regulate food safety and environmental protection, including pesticide residue levels, has important implications for trade. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial held in Doha, Qatar in November 2001, included statements on standards, and their impact on market access for developing countries. These issues will continue to be important in trade policy dialogues. It is assumed - and evidence from recent analysis confirms - that food safety standards can affect the ability of agricultural producers to meet regulatory standards, set by importing countries. The authors explore a fundamental question in food safety and environmental standards: Do regulations on pesticide have an effect on trade? They examine regulatory data from 11 OECD importing countries, and trade data from 19 exporting countries. The results suggest that a 10 percent increase in regulatory stringency - tighter restrictions on the pesticide chlorpyrifos - leads to a decrease in banana imports by 14.8 percent. This represents a significant impact on trade, and affect prospects of developing countries who continue to rely on exports of agricultural commodities, such as bananas. The findings also suggest that the lack of consensus on international standards, and divergent national regulations on pesticides is costly. For example, the authors estimate that if the world were to adopt a standard at a level of regulatory stringency suggested by Codex (the body charged with setting global standards in this area), in contrast with one set at the level in place in the European Union, there would be a U$S 5.3 billion loss in world exports.

The author provides an overview and data relevant to the interests of developing countries as they engage in continuing agricultural trade negotiations set forth in the World Trade Organization Ministerial held in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. He examines country performance in agricultural trade, income levels, and population characteristics, with a focus on developing country members of the Asian Development Bank. The author concludes that trends in agricultural trade in the past 10 years are quite heterogeneous across developing regions. Shares of agriculture in GDP are still high in the East Asia and Pacific and South Asia regions. Moreover, data indicate that trade reform in export partners, particularly OECD countries, will affect a significant share of the population in these developing countries, resulting in rural poverty alleviation. Trade liberalization is expected to benefit net exporter countries, particularly those that are highly open to trade. What is also important, but often neglected, is a country's pattern of specialization between domestic supply and exports. The impact of trade reform through the WTO negotiations, particularly reforms undertaken in exporting partners can therefore have important implications in the post-Doha development agenda.

Food safety standards, and the tradeoff between these standards, and agricultural export growth, are at the forefront of the trade policy debate. How food safety is addressed in the world trade system, is critical for developing countries that continue to rely on agricultural exports. In a fragmented system of conflicting national food safety standards, and no globally accepted standards, export prospects for the least developed countries, can be severely limited. The authors examine the impact that adopting international food safety standards, and harmonizing standards would have on global food trade patterns. They estimate the effect of aflatoxin standards in fifteen importing countries (including four developing countries) on exports from thirty one countries (twenty one of them developing). Aflatoxin is a natural substance that can contaminate certain nuts, and grains when storage, and drying facilities are inadequate. The analysis shows that adopting a worldwide standard for aflatoxin B1 (potentially the most toxic of aflatoxins) based on current international guidelines, would increase nut, and cereal trade among the countries studied, by $ 6.1 billion, compared with 1998 levels. This harmonization of standards would increase world exports by $ 38.8 billion.

This study assesses the impact of adopting international food safety standards and regional harmonization of standards on global trade patterns of cereals, dried fruits and nuts. The paper develops econometric models to estimate the effect of aflatoxin standards in 15 importing countries on the export from 31 (21 developing ) countries in the world. Results are combined to predict how the direction of trade is altered by food safety regulations under alternative scenarios. Adopting international food safety standards recommended by Codex is found to increase the trade among these countries by 5.3 percent. At the level where the increase and decrease in trade flow are break-even, EU countries increase both imports and exports whereas the decrease in trade flow among developing countries outweighs the improved access of these countries to the EU market.

There has been increasing use of technical regulations as instruments of commercial policy in the context of multilateral, regional, and global trade. These nontariff barriers are of special concern to developing countries, which may bear additional costs in meeting mandatory standards. Many industrial and developing countries express frustration with regulations that vary across their export markets, require duplicative conformity procedures, and are continually revised to exclude imports. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the policy debate and methodological issues surrounding product standards and technical barriers to trade. They begin with a review of the policy context driving demand for empirical analysis of standards in trade, then provide an analytical overview of the role of standards and their relationship to trade. They then review methodological approaches that have been used to analyze standards and theirimpact on trade. Their main interest lies in advancing techniques that are practical and may be fruitfully extended to the empirical analysis of regulations and trade. They discuss concrete steps that could be taken to move forward a practical, policy-relevant program of empirical research. Such steps would include: a) administering firm-level surveys in developing countries; b) devising methods for assessing how much standards restrict trade; and c) establishing econometric approaches that could be applied to survey and microeconomic data, to improve understanding of the role of standards in exports.

It is proved that every finitely generated profinite group with fewer than $2^{\aleph_0}$ conjugacy classes of elements of infinite order is finite, Comment: 6 pages