Editorial of the Special Issue on Following User Pathways: Key Contributions and Future Directions in Cross-Platform Social Media Research

Social media and the resulting tidal wave of the available data have changed the ways and methods researchers analyze communities at scale. But the full potential for social scientists (and others) is not yet achieved. Despite the popularity of social media analysis in the past decade, few researchers invest in cross- platform analyses. This is a major oversight as a majority of online social media users have multiple social media accounts. Missing are the models and tools necessary to undertake analysis at scale across multiple platforms. Especially promising in support of cross-platform analysis is the mixed-method approach (e.g., qualitative and quantitative methods) in order to better understand how users and society interact online. This special issue“Following User Pathways”addresses methodological, analytical, conceptual, and techno- logical challenges and opportunities of cross-platform analysis in social media ecosystems

Stabilized plane and axisymmetric Lobatto finite element models

High order elements are renowned for their high accuracy and convergence. Among them, Lobatto spectral finite elements are commonly used in explicit dynamic analyses as their mass matrices when evaluated by the Lobatto integration rule are diagonal. While there are numerous advanced first and second order elements, advanced high order elements are rarely seen. In this paper, generic stabilization schemes are devised for the reduced integrated plane and axisymmetric elements. Static and explicit dynamic tests are considered for evaluating the relatively merits of the stabilized and conventional elements. The displacement errors of the stabilized elements are less than those of the conventional Lobatto elements. When the material is nearly incompressible, the stabilized elements are also more accurate in terms of the energy error norm. This advantage is of practical importance for bio-tissue and hydrated soil analyses.postprin