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Purpose – Movements typically have great difficulty using the mass media to spread their messages to the public, given the media's greater power to impose their frames on movement activities and goals. In this paper, we look at the impact of the political context and media strategies of protesters against the 2009 G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh on media coverage of the protests.

Methodology – We employ field observations, interviews with activists and reporters, and a content analysis of print coverage of the demonstrations by the two local daily newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Findings – We find that protesters were relatively successful in influencing how they were portrayed in local newspaper stories and in developing a sympathetic image of their groups’ members. Specifically, we find that activist frames were present in newspaper coverage and activists were quoted as frequently as city officials.

Research implications – We argue that events such as the G-20 meetings provide protesters with opportunities to gain temporary “standing” with the media. During such times, activists can use tactics and frames to alter the balance of power in relations with the media and the state and to attract positive media coverage, particularly when activists develop strategies that are not exclusively focused on the media. We argue that a combination of political opportunities and activist media strategies enabled protest organizers to position themselves as central figures in the G-20 news story and leverage that position to build media interest, develop relationships with reporters, and influence newspaper coverage.

The design methods currently proposed by the codes prescribe the strength assessment of structures to be based on their strength limit state. These design methods can be applied to isolated steel members to determine their design strengthin fire. The real response of a structural member is, however, more complex due to the thermal expansion and the presence of restraints against this expansion by the surrounding structure. It is therefore imperative to study the response of a structural member at high temperature in a way which includes its interaction with its surroundings. This paper focus on the numerical investigation of steel beams in structural frames connected to concrete filled tubular (CFT) columns through reverse channel connections and comparison to hand calculation procedures. Finite element models (FEM) of the sub-frames were validated against fire tests conducted on sub-frames and then their results were compared to the proposed simplified hand calculation procedures (HCM).

The purpose of this paper is to describe the fundamental concept of Honda's robotized friction stir welding (FSW) technology, its implementation to mass produced vehicles and the future impact on the automobile industry.

Based on an interview with engineers who developed the new technology at Honda Automobile R&D Center, the report describes the secret of the new technology.

The robotized FSW technology is the world's first to weld dissimilar metals for mass produced vehicles, and makes it possible to use standard industrial robots in FSW process.

The report is the first one outside Japan that details the new technology.

The British Building Regulations allow the application of performance based design methods to ensure the fire resistance of buildings. This has led to significant amounts of research and testing on the fire performance of structures. This research generated the understanding that steel framed buildings have an inherent fire resistance, which has in turn resulted in the development of specialist numerical calculation tools as well as simplified design methods for the fire design of steel-framed structures. The paper describes the practical application of these structural fire engineering methods using a large retail and cinema complex in the UK as a case study. The finite element software Vulcan has been used to analyse the behaviour of large parts of this multi-storey building during a number of likely design fire scenarios in order to optimise the amount of applied passive fire protection to the structure. The building is constructed as a steel composite structure with normal down-stand composite beams supporting a composite floor on trapezoidal metal deck. This type of structure is ideal to utilise the benefits of tensile membrane action during a fire which can be used to omit fire protection from off grid secondary beams. Due to the size and the multiple usage and changing floor construction of the buildings five different sub-frames haven been analysed. In the UK a number of simplified methods are currently applied to justify partially protected steel structures. These methods are based on individual bays only and therefore do not consider the effects of the surrounding structure. In order to investigate the differences further, the behaviour of the large sub-frame models has been compared with the results of individual bay analysis methods.

In fire condition, the time to failure of a timber connection is mainly reliant on the wood charring rate, the strength of the residual wood section, and the limiting temperature of the steel connectors involved in the connection. The purpose of this study is to experimentally investigate the effects of loaded bolt end distance, number of bolt rows, and the existence of perpendicular-to-wood grain reinforcement on the structural fire behavior of semi-rigid glued-laminated timber (glulam) beam-to-column connections that used steel bolts and concealed steel plate connectors.

In total, 16 beam-to-column connections, which were fabricated in wood-steel-wood bolted connection configurations, in eight large-scale sub-frame test assemblies were exposed to elevated temperatures that followed CAN/ULC-S101 standard time-temperature curve, while being subjected to monotonic loading. The beam-to-column connections of four of the eight test assemblies were reinforced perpendicular to the wood grain using self-tapping screws (STS). Fire tests were terminated upon achieving the failure criterion, which predominantly was dependent on the connection’s maximum allowed rotation.

Experimental results revealed that increasing the number of bolt rows from two to three, each of two bolts, increased the connection’s time to failure by a greater time increment than that achieved by increasing the bolt end distance from four- to five-times the bolt diameter. Also, the use of STS reinforcement increased the connection’s time to failure by greater time increments than those achieved by increasing the number of bolt rows or the bolt end distance.

The invaluable experimental data obtained from this study can be effectively used to provide insight and better understanding on how mass-timber glulam bolted connections can behave in fire condition. This can also help in further improving the existing design guidelines for mass-timber structures. Currently, beam-to-column wood connections are designed mainly as axially loaded connections with no guidelines available for determining the fire resistance of timber connections exerting any degree of moment-resisting capability.

In order to improve the robustness of bare-steel and composite structures in fire, a novel axially and rotationally ductile connection has been proposed in this paper.

The component-based models of the bare-steel ductile connection and composite ductile connection have been proposed and incorporated into the software Vulcan to facilitate global frame analysis for performance-based structural fire engineering design. These component-based models are validated against detailed Abaqus FE models and experiments. A series of 2-D bare-steel frame models and 3-D composite frame models with ductile connections, idealised rigid and pinned connections, have been created using Vulcan to compare the fire performance of ductile connection with other connection types in bare-steel and composite structures.

The comparison results show that the proposed ductile connection can provide excellent ductility to accommodate the axial deformation of connected beam under fire conditions, thus reducing the axial forces generated in the connection and potentially preventing the premature brittle failure of the connection.

Compared with conventional connection types, the proposed ductile connection exhibits considerable deformability, and can potentially enhance the robustness of structures in fire.

A component-based model for fin-plate connections has been developed to study the robustness of simple beam-to-column connections at elevated temperatures. The key aspect of this component method is the characterisation of the force-displacement properties of each active component at any temperature, represented by a non-linear "spring". The prescribed temperature-dependent characteristics of any given bolt row are governed by the failure mechanism of the weakest component, based on experimental and analytical findings. A major additional complication involves force reversal in components, which may occur because of temperature change, without any physical reversal of displacement. The Masing Rule has been adapted to incorporate this effect for particular force directions. To account for the bolt slip phases, force transitions between tension and compression take place only when positive contact between a bolt and the edge of its bolt hole is re-established. The results of high-temperature tests on connections have been used to substantiate the developed component model. The component-based connection model has also been used to study joint behaviour in structural sub-frame analyses. This approach will enable more valid performance-based assessment of the overall responses of connections, including their robustness, in design fire scenarios.

The purpose of this article is to develop a contextualized definition of the phenomenon of rapidly internationalizing ventures (RIVs) ‐ such as born globals or international new ventures ‐ building upon the commonly noted dimensions of internationalization: speed, degree and scope.

The study builds on a theory informed review of 62 empirical studies on RIVs from the USA and the European Union and an empirical survey among 103 academics in the field of international entrepreneurship.

After specifying the core characteristics of RIVs (speed, degree, and scope of internationalization), it is shown that the discrepancies in definitions result in a dysfunctional fragmentation of empirical results. Thus, research on the phenomenon of RIVs urgently needs contextualized definitions because the three core characteristics are context‐sensitive, and will therefore manifest themselves differently across contexts.

The paper contributes to international entrepreneurship research by introducing a feasible strategy for defining RIVs which ensures the identification of the very same phenomenon across different contexts, thus bridging the gap between different research contexts and enabling a common body of knowledge to evolve.

This insight is particularly important for identifying, analyzing and understanding how managers in RIVs recognize and exploit opportunities in a global sphere and what drives their behaviour and development paths with regard to international activities.

Based upon the theoretically‐driven identification of the core characteristics of RIVs, the paper formulates the concept of contextualized definitions which enable researchers to identify the phenomenon within any specific context. These relative definitions are suitable for identifying the very same phenomenon in diverse contexts.

THE Grasshopper light helicopter was conceived and designed by Mr J. Shapiro, and pursues the philosophy of providing a low cost, simple rotorcraft possessing the maximum safety and flexibility. Carrying a pilot and one passenger, the aircraft can fly over stage lengths up to 200 miles at a speed slightly in excess of 100 m.p.h. while providing vertical take‐off and landing capability, twin‐engined reliability and minimum operating costs. Servotec Ltd. is responsible for the development of the Grasshopper on behalf of Rotorcraft Ltd.