11.   High-profile retailers like Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn were also credited with accelerating the trend toward luxury goods, if only by reaction.

12.   It is such fears, about sexual harassment suits, that have helped accelerate the trend toward non-fraternization rules.

13.   Mortgage delinquencies are also rising in line with rising consumer debt and any further increase in rates could accelerate that trend, economists say.

14.   On the West Coast, the trend has been accelerated by Frank Stronach, the Canadian horseman who purchased Santa Anita last year.

15.   Some management experts believe that rapid improvements in information technology will accelerate the trend toward outsourcing.

16.   The departure of many senior officers would accelerate a trend in which the experience level of supervisors has dropped in recent years.

17.   The dream of signing the next Martinez or Sosa or Guerrero or Rivera should accelerate the trend.

18.   The decisions now being made by apple growers like Anthony Porpiglia could accelerate the trend.

19.   The first cradle-to-grave environmental analysis of a major commodity is expected to accelerate trends under way in the paper industry.

20.   The end of the cold war, oddly enough, has accelerated the trend.