And in several Asian countries, companies that want to do business with the government electronically must conform to the standard.

ECONOMIST: Putting it all together

In such cases, people who work in the office will conform to the social standard and work many more hours.

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To conform to the Labrador breed standard, males should weigh between 65 to 80 pounds, and females 55 to 70 pounds.

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Cupertino's decision means that many federal agencies might not be able to buy those products, since 95 percent of its electronics purchasing must conform to the EPEAT standard.

ENGADGET: Apple pulls out of EPEAT green registration, may not be able to sell computers to federal agencies

The Wi-Fi standard is itself technically still a draft, so manufacturers could find their cutting-edge products too ahead of the curve if their hardware doesn't conform to the industry standard.

WSJ: Higher-Speed Wi-Fi? Not So Fast

The CPI was first created in 1996 to conform to the requirement for a standard, European-wide, measure of inflation for the purposes of European monetary union.

BBC: New inflation measure proposed