An Analytical Framework for Further Research
If the Doha Round proceeds in the same way as its predecessor, informing the negotiating process with research results will not be easy. The Uruguay Round made erratic progress. A Draft Final Act had been produced by the end of 1991, but the agricultural proposals were rejected by the European Union (EU) (Croome 1995: 328). There followed two years in which most of the “action” took place in bilateral talks between the EU and the United States (USA) from which other states were largely excluded. Even when the formal negotiations were re-launched in July 1993, there were at least three tracks: the discussion in the formal General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) groups; the personal “facilitating” of the new GATT Director General, Peter Sutherland, who ‘kept up a punishing series of whirlwind visits to top-level political leaders in the major countries’ (Croome 1995: 349), and bilateral negotiations between the EU and USA, with their respective chief negotiators, Sir Leon Brittan and Mickey Kantor, having from November ‘a crucial series of meetings ... that were to continue with only short breaks over a period of more than three weeks’ (Croome 1995: 364).
The Role of International and National Agencies in Trade-Related Capacity Building
With increased recognition that trade can bring significant benefits to developing countries, and the launch of a new trade round, bilateral and multilateral agencies have begun to mobilise resources for trade-related capacity building (TRCB). The biggest challenge is to ensure that available resources are effectively utilised to deliver tangible benefits to developing countries. This paper argues that the effective delivery of TRCB relates specifically to two areas: in-country to help formulate appropriate trade positions as well as to place trade reform in the context of the country's overall development strategy that will promote a supply response and facilitate pro-poor growth; and secondly within the global rule making process to ensure that implementation of WTO rules and efforts to negotiate and implement future disciplines makes sense from a development perspective, and that TRCB is considered in the context of other competing development needs. The paper elaborates an issues based approach to bring the main providers to TRCB and bilateral donors together to support recipient countries to include a trade agenda in their overall development strategy and to facilitate developing country participation and implementation of WTO agreements that could be formulated within the global trade rules. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.
Engineering bio-inks for 3D bioprinting cell mechanical microenvironment
Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting has become a promising approach to construct­ing functional biomimetic tissues for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In 3D bioprinting, bio-inks are essential for the construction of cell microenviron­ment, thus affecting the biomimetic design and regenerative efficiency. Mechanical properties are one of the essential aspects of microenvironment, which can be char­acterized by matrix stiffness, viscoelasticity, topography, and dynamic mechanical stimulation. With the recent advances in functional biomaterials, various engineered bio-inks have realized the possibility of engineering cell mechanical microenviron­ment in vivo. In this review, we summarize the critical mechanical cues of cell micro­environments, review the engineered bio-inks while focusing on the selection princi­ples for constructing cell mechanical microenvironments, and discuss the challenges facing this field and the possible solutions for them.