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Moderately thick circular cylindrical shells are widely used as supporting structures or storage cavities in structural engineering, rock engineering, and aerospace engineering. In practical engineering, shells often work with micro-cracks or defects. The existence of micro-crack damage may result in the disturbance of dynamic behaviours and even induce accidental dynamic disasters. The free vibration frequency and mode are important parameters for the dynamic performance and damage identification analysis. In particular, stiffness weakening of the local damage region leads to significant changes in the vibration mode, which makes it difficult for the mesh generated in the conventional finite element method to capture a high-precision solution of the local oscillation.

In response to the above problems, this study developed an adaptive finite element method and a crack damage characterisation method for moderately thick circular cylindrical shells. By introducing the inverse power iteration method, error estimation, and mesh subdivision refinement technique for the analysis of finite element eigenvalue problems, an adaptive computation scheme was constructed for the free vibration problem of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells with circumferential crack damage.

Based on typical numerical examples, the established adaptive finite element solution for the free vibration of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells demonstrated its suitability for solving the high-precision free vibration frequency and mode of cylindrical shell structures. The any order frequency and mode shape of cracked cylindrical shells under the conditions of different ring wave numbers, crack locations, crack depths, and multiple cracks were successfully solved. The influences of the location, depth, and number of cracks on the disturbance of dynamic behaviours were analysed.

This study can be used as a reference for the adaptive finite element solution of free vibration of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells with cracks and lays the foundation for further development of a high-performance computation method suitable for the dynamic disturbance and damage identification analysis of general cracked structures.

The purpose of this paper is to present a numerically adaptive finite element (FE) method for accurate, efficient and reliable eigensolutions of regular second- and fourth-order Sturm–Liouville (SL) problems with variable coefficients.

After the conventional FE solution for an eigenpair (i.e. eigenvalue and eigenfunction) of a particular order has been obtained on a given mesh, a novel strategy is introduced, in which the FE solution of the eigenproblem is equivalently viewed as the FE solution of an associated linear problem. This strategy allows the element energy projection (EEP) technique for linear problems to calculate the super-convergent FE solutions for eigenfunctions anywhere on any element. These EEP super-convergent solutions are used to estimate the FE solution errors and to guide mesh refinements, until the accuracy matches user-preset error tolerance on both eigenvalues and eigenfunctions.

Numerical results for a number of representative and challenging SL problems are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness, efficiency, accuracy and reliability of the proposed method.

The method is limited to regular SL problems, but it can also solve some singular SL problems in an indirect way.

Comprehensive utilization of the EEP technique yields a simple, efficient and reliable adaptive FE procedure that finds sufficiently fine meshes for preset error tolerances on eigenvalues and eigenfunctions to be achieved, even on problems which proved troublesome to competing methods. The method can readily be extended to vector SL problems.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Traditional visions of masculinity are inextricably linked to some tropes believed as ‘essential’ in men such as valour or strength. If a man fails in comply with these ‘essences’, then he fits into a form of deviant masculinity that transforms him into an Other.

Now, what happens with the issues of ageing in masculinity? The ageing man slowly but naturally loses all the aspects that made him ‘manly’ enough, becoming instead a double of himself. Men are doomed to fail as their bodies start to malfunction.

Two horror films highlight ageing and failed masculinity as a way to engage with these new concerns. Bubba Ho-Tep (Don Coscarelli, 2012) and Late Phases (Adrián García Bogliano, 2014) revolves around two aged heroes (Elvis Presley in the former, an ageing war veteran in the latter) who live within retirement communities. There, in the last years of their life, both men must face supernatural menaces: a walking mummy and a werewolf respectively. Facing supernatural horror, the ageing heroes must compensate their failing masculinity – a body that does not work as well as it used to do – with new forms of empathy and manliness.

Uniting film studies with investigations on masculinity and ageing, we propose to read these two films to point the ways in which both stories engage with the cultural politics of ageing masculinity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the elective affinity between sport science and elite football by situating it first, within the wider political economy of football and second, within the dynamics of the market and work situation faced by elite players in the modern game.

The methodology underpinning this paper continues this movement by considering the impact on market and work situation of elite footballers due to wider social structures and the distribution of social power peculiar to the football industry. It is premised on the view that observed events and contingent relations and processes are linked to more enduring social structures and that knowledge must take account of all three.

The resulting impact of sport science on elite football is contradictory, facilitating, on the one hand, the development of football as an aesthetic experience, while on the other hand, threatening to transform the football spectacle into a mundane exercise in the search for increased functional peak performance for its own sake.

The value of this paper is that it considers salaries and player power to determine value by exploring the impact on market and work situation of elite footballers set in the context of wider social structures and the distribution of social power peculiar to the football industry.

Elite footballers yield immense power over their market situation, which sport science has the potential to enhance and sustain by fine honing peak fitness. The football club’s relative lack of control of the player’s market situation necessitates the appliance of sport science to help maximize control over the player’s work situation.

The paper demonstrates that sport science develops elite footballers to peak fitness, while also developing footballers as commodities; and this latter aspect if taken too far may potentially transform football into a mundane exercise in the search for increased functional peak performance for its own sake.

The paper draws together the relatively neglected analysis of the football labour process with the increasing interventions of sport science to football and sets this within a broader political economy of football.

The relative recency of online, networked distance education poses a question for teachers: Do the standards that were developed for the delivery of classroom‐based education apply to this newer ‘virtual’ educational environment? The author argues that the answer is broadly ‘Yes’, but identifies a significant gap in current standards.

The premise that the U.S. Supreme Court never veers too far off from the dominant national political coalition (Dahl, 1957) has become widely accepted among social scientists today. To fulfill that promise, however, the confirmation process for justices must serve as a plebiscite through which the public can ratify or reject future justices based on their views. Unfortunately, modern confirmation hearings have become an exercise in obfuscation, providing little meaningful dialogue on important issues. Because conservative Republican presidents have made the lion's share of appointments in recent times, social conservatives have most often benefited from a process that has severed the link between Supreme Court nominees and the polity they must serve.