However the bulk of the course has remained a standard block of core material.

CNN: Degrees go for specialist redesign

This allows it to hit a key bacterial target that Glaxo had been unable to block with standard carbon chemistry.

FORBES: Magazine Article

To be sure, Obama has been battered by a series of struggles, starting with the economy, but including a series of events that were at least initially beyond his control -- from the Gulf oil disaster to a Republican minority that by any objective standard has tried to block him at every single turn -- and dragged down his approval ratings.

CNN: The Sweep: How did Obama lose his mojo?

"We are seeing an unwelcome trend in today's marketplace to use standard- essential patents to block markets, " said the ITU secretary general Hamadoun Toure when the event was announced.

BBC: Tech firms and regulators meet at UN patent pow-wow

This would bring to six the number of Aegis platforms in Japan's inventory, giving it a considerable infrastructure to provide for an early and potentially highly effective anti-missile defense of the Home Islands by equipping these ships with both the lower-tier Standard Missile (SM) 2 Block IVA missile and upper-tier SM3 Block II missile as they become available.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

Some Class 2 lenses beat the standard: Avaira, for example, block at least 75% of UV-A radiation and 99% of UV-B radiation, according to the package insert.

WSJ: Contacts Lenses That Let In Sun, But Block UV Rays

Central to the Scotland Bill is a recommendation that Scotland should take charge of half the standard income tax rate - 10p - with a corresponding cut in the block grant Scotland gets from the Treasury.

BBC: Scotland Bill Committee part 2

The reason is that as a new kid on the block, NBNK would be given what's known as "standard status" by the Financial Services Authority, whereas the Co-operative - with its longer history and considerable size in financial services - already has so-called "advanced status".

BBC: Co-op set to become big banker

After the 1968 Ronan Point tower block partial collapse in London, in which four people died, new British Standard Structural Design Codes for concrete were introduced to prevent it happening again.

BBC: WTC collapse forces skyscraper rethink

But NBNK, as the new kid on the block, does not have advanced status and might not get it for years: it would have standard status.

BBC: Why Co-Op may be front runner for Lloyds�� branches