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Many engineering structures exhibit loss of stability under static and dynamic loading. Due to the significance of these phenomena in engineering design this topic has attracted considerable attention during the last decades. In recent years much effort has been made to devise algorithms within finite element analysis to investigate the static stability behaviour of structures. With these methods stable and unstable paths can be traced, and limit or bifurcation points can be computed efficiently. The associated arc‐length or branch‐switching procedures are today standard tools in existing finite element codes.

Large-Scale Assessments in Germany have shown that language-minority students as well as students with special educational needs (SEN) perform significantly less well than language-majority students or students without SEN. This performance gap may be related to a limited accessibility of the tests. One way to test whether assessments allow all students to demonstrate their knowledge in a comparable way is the analysis of differential item functioning (DIF). In this chapter, we evaluate DIF coefficients in order to examine group-specific difficulties in reading comprehension for language-minority students and students with SEN in the German National Educational Assessment.

In the first study, we investigate the assessment of reading literacy of language-minority learners and German monolinguals from low-SES families. We found only a few items with moderate DIF and no items with large DIF. This indicates that the reading assessment was equally valid for second-language learners and German monolingual students.

In our second study, we report about the psychometrically successful development of easy and more accessible reading tasks for students with SEN. Further analyses showed that DIF predominantly occurred in items that captured contents that are not necessarily covered in literacy instruction targeted at students with SEN.

Purpose – This chapter offers an integrative review of psychological and neurobiological differences between younger and older adults that might impact economic behavior. Focusing on key health economic challenges facing the elderly, it offers perspectives on how these psychological and neurobiological factors may influence decision-making over the life course and considers future interdisciplinary research directions.

Methodology/approach – We review relevant literature from three domains that are essential for developing a comprehensive science of decision-making and economic behavior in aging (psychology, neuroscience, and economics), consider implications for prescription drug coverage and long-term care (LTC) insurance, and highlight future research directions.

Findings – Older adults face many complex economic decisions that directly affect their health and well-being, including LTC insurance, prescription drug plans, and end of life care. Economic research suggests that many older Americans are not making cost-effective and economically rational decisions. While economic models provide insight into some of the financial incentives associated with these decisions, they typically do not consider the roles of cognition and affect in decision-making. Research has established that older age is associated with predictable declines in many cognitive functions and evidence is accumulating that distinct social motives and affect-processing profiles emerge in older age. It is unknown how these age differences impact the economic behaviors of older people and implies opportunities for path-breaking interdisciplinary research.

Originality/value of the chapter – Our chapter looks to develop interdisciplinary research to better understand the causes and consequences of age-related changes in economic decision-making and guide interventions to improve public programs and overall social welfare.

This paper aims to proposes and analyzes a novel recovery-based posteriori error estimator for the stationary natural-convection problem based on penalized finite element method.

The optimal error estimates of the penalty FEM are established by using the lower-order finite element pair P₁-P₀-P₁ which does not satisfy the discrete inf-sup condition. Besides, a new recovery type posteriori estimator in view of the gradient recovery and superconvergent theory to deal with the discontinuity of the gradient of numerical solution.

The stability, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are confirmed by several numerical investigations.

The provided reliability and efficiency analysis is shown that the true error can be effectively bounded by the recovery-based error estimator.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the evaluation of desirability/feasibility and adoption intention for the self-service technology of “older” consumers. This study also aims to show that the evaluation of desirability/feasibility and adoption intention varies depending on the type of customer value provided by self-service technology. Moreover, the authors improve the understanding of “older” consumers by comparing the adoption behavior through three proxies that express consumer aging: chronological age, subjective age and future time perspective.

This study was performed as an experimental design by manipulating advertisement messages of self-service technology for online grocery shopping according to customer values. There are two analytic methods applied in this study. First, the current study compares the effects of chronological age, subjective age and the future time perspective on the evaluation and adoption intention of self-service technology by using structural equation modeling. Second, this study examines the moderation effect of customer values by conducting a multi-group analysis.

The results of current research indicate that the future time perspective explains participants’ evaluation and adoption intention of self-service technology compared to chronological age and subjective age. Specifically, participants who perceive their future time to be limited, rather than expansive, negatively assess the expected desirability and feasibility of self-service technology. In addition, the results of the moderation test show that the future time perspective affects more significantly the evaluation and adoption intention of self-service technology when the functional value is emphasized rather than emotional or social value.

The results of this study showed that the effect of future time perspective on expected desirability and feasibility was almost significant in each sub-dimension, but there were relatively few factors influencing trial intention. In this respect, it is necessary to look into the impact of the details of desirability and feasibility along with other variables known to influence the adoption of self-service technology related to aging. It would be meaningful to find and operationalize items that are valid for older consumers, rather than the desirability and feasibility elements typically applied to self-service technology.

This study contributes to the extension of the socioemotional selectivity theory that has been suggested to interpret older consumers’ behaviors. This research applies the concept of future time perspective to the assessment of desirability and feasibility and adoption intention. At the same time, for the marketing managers, the comparison between proxies that represent aging proposes the ways to attract “older” consumers with appropriate emphasis on customer values.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of chronological age on the likelihood to choose a service provider with technological machines versus humans in the context of services.

Two experimental studies were used to collect data. In both experiments, scripts were devised to depict a food ordering situation. The studies, each of which represents two between-subject conditions, were presented to a total of 312 participants.

The results of studies show that as age increases, consumers show a higher visit likelihood with human servers as compared to self-ordering machines. This effect emerges because as age increases, people find it more comfortable and convenient to order from human servers. Nevertheless, when a self-ordering machine is the only option, older and younger people find it equally comfortable and convenient.

This research indicates that as age increases, consumers tend to choose human servers. However, age does not impact willingness to use technology when human service is not available. A limitation of our research is that we look at food ordering contexts only. Another limitation is that most participants were between 18 and 60 years of age.

With a better understanding of the effect of age on preference for service types and the reason behind it, this research helps implement and manage service technologies that may elicit favorable judgments and decisions from consumers.

It demonstrates how, when and why age affects the intention to visit service providers that adopt self-service technologies. This research suggests that as age increases, consumers like human service better, but they do not resist self-service technology.

The aging workforce is becoming an increasingly important topic in today’s labor market. However, most scientific research and organizational policies focus on chronological age as the main determinant of successful aging. Based on life span developmental theories – primarily socioemotional selectivity theory and motivational theory of life span development – the purpose of this paper is to test the added value of using subjective age – in terms of remaining opportunities and remaining time – over and above chronological age in their associations with motivation at work and motivation to work.

Workers from five different divisions throughout the Netherlands (n=186) from a taxi company participated in the survey study.

The results from the regression analyses and structural equation modeling analyses support the hypotheses: when subjective age was included in the models, chronological age was virtually unrelated to workers’ intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and motivation to continue to work for one’s organization. Moreover, subjective age was strongly related to work motivation. Specifically, workers who perceived many remaining opportunities were more intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, and those who perceived a lot of remaining time were more motivated across the board.

The findings indicate that subjective age is an important concept to include in studies focussing on successful aging, thereby contributing to life span developmental theories. Further implications for research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper was to examine age differences in conflict management strategy use, effectiveness and in exposure to customer stressors in service interactions.

Moderated regression and mediation analyses were conducted to test hypotheses in a sample of 444 German service employees from different service branches with frequent customer contact.

Results revealed that older service employees experienced fewer customer stressors. Customer stressors mediated the negative relationship between age and burnout. Age was associated with use of passive avoidant (avoiding) and active constructive (problem solving) conflict management strategies. Furthermore, older employees used those strategies more effectively. Especially when avoiding conflicts, older employees reported more professional efficacy than younger colleagues. In contrast, younger employees benefited considerably less from strategy use and reported higher levels of burnout in general. Thus, results suggest older employees’ effective conflict management and their positive perception of customer stressors contribute to lower levels of burnout.

Results speak against a general deficit model for older workers as they show specific strengths of older employees in social conflicts. Their expertise in dealing with negative social interactions represents an important resource for organizations and training interventions, such as mentoring programs.

This study is one of the first to examine age-related conflict management skills with regard to customer conflicts, employee health and effectiveness of strategy use. It replicates existing findings on age and conflict management and extends them in several ways thereby ruling out alternative explanations for age effects.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relative higher impact of brand experiential value over brand functional value in generating brand equity, consumer–brand identification and positive word-of-mouth (WOM). It also analyzes whether the impact of these brand values in building brand outcomes depends on consumers’ age.

Information was collected from a sample of 332 consumers by personal interviews. Respondents provide information about their consumption experiences with a specific brand from a stated list of 14 experiential and non-experiential brands.

Results suggest that the effect of brand experiential value on brand equity and consumer-brand identification was higher than that of brand functional value. By contrast, positive WOM was more influenced by brand functional value. Furthermore, the results also confirm that as consumers age, brand experiential value exhibits a significant higher effect than brand functional value on brand outcomes.

A potential shortcoming is the common method bias. As far as one questionnaire was used to measure all study constructs, the strength of the causal relationships among constructs may have been inflated.

For brand managers, the key implications concern on how to effectively allocate brand investment to build stronger brand equity and consumer-brand identification and stimulated positive WOM.

Despite the greater importance that the experiential perspective is gaining in the brand literature and the voices proclaiming that experiential value will matter most, this is the first empirical research paper that analyzes that the relative superiority of experiential value over functional value depends on the brand outcomes pursued and consumers’ age.

This chapter aims to provide nuance into the issue of generational cohort differences at work by focusing on the role of contextual moderator variables. Theory and hypotheses derived from the research on generational differences, psychological contracts, and work values are contrasted to a countervailing set of hypotheses derived from theory and research on the confluence of age and Person-Environment (P-E) fit. Complex patterns of interactive effects are posited for both alternatives. The results favored a generational hypothesis regarding the positively valenced construct of job satisfaction but an age-based hypothesis for the negatively valenced construct of turnover intentions. Results are tested using a subset from a large and nationally representative sample of adults from the US workforce (n = 476). Results offer mixed support for both age and generational cohorts, qualified by the specific type of outcome at hand.