Shell See Royal Dutch Shell plc
shell structure In building construction, a thin, curved plate structure shaped to transmit applied forces by compressive, tensile, and shear stresses that act in the plane of the surface. They are usually constructed of concrete reinforced with steel mesh (see shotcrete). Shell construction began in the 1920s; the shell emerged as a major long-span concrete structure after World War II. Thin parabolic shell vaults stiffened with ribs have been built with spans up to about 300 ft (90 m). More complex forms of concrete shells have been made, including hyperbolic parabo¬ loids, or saddle shapes, and intersect¬ ing parabolic vaults less than 0.5 in.
(1.25 cm) thick. Pioneering thin- shell designers include Felix Candela and Pier Luigi Nervi.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft orig. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (b. Aug. 30, 1797, Lon¬ don, Eng.—-d. Feb. 1, 1851, London)
English Romantic novelist. The only daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, she met and eloped with Percy B. Shelley in 1814.
They married in 1816 after his first wife committed suicide. Mary Shel¬ ley’s best-known work is Franken¬ stein (1818), a narrative of the dreadful consequences of a scien¬ tist’s artificially creating a human
Sheffield plate chamber candlestick by Matthew Boulton, c. 1820; in the Shef¬ field City Museum, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
COURTESY OF SHEFFIELD CITY MUSEUM; MOTTERSHAW PHOTOGRAPHY
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, detail of an oil painting by Richard Rothwell, first exhibited 1840; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Shelley ► Sheridan I 1737
being. After her husband’s death in 1822, she devoted herself to publi¬ cizing his writings and educating their son. Of her several other novels, the best. The Last Man (1826), is an account of the future destruction of the human race by a plague.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (b. Aug. 4 Sussex, Eng.—d. July 8, 1822, at sea off Livorno, Tuscany) English Romantic poet. The heir to rich estates, Shelley was a rebellious youth who was expelled from Oxford in 1811 for refusing to admit author¬ ship of The Necessity of Atheism.
Later that year he eloped with Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a tavern owner. He gradually channeled his passionate pursuit of personal love and social justice into poetry. His first major poem, Queen Mab (1813), is a utopian political epic revealing his progressive social ideals. In 1814 he eloped to France with Mary Woll- stonecraft Godwin (see Mary Shel¬ ley); in 1816, after Harriet drowned herself, they were married. In 1818 the Shelleys moved to Italy. Away from British politics, he became less intent on social reform and more devoted to expressing his ideals in poetry. He composed the verse tragedy The Cenci (1819) and his master¬ piece, the lyric drama Prometheus Unbound (1820), which was published with some of his finest shorter poems, including “Ode to the West Wind” and “To a Skylark.” Epipsychidion (1821) is a Dantean fable about the rela¬ tionship of sexual desire to spiritual love and artistic creation. Adonais (1821) commemorates the death of John Keats. Shelley drowned at age 29 while sailing in a storm off the Italian coast, leaving unfinished his last and possibly greatest visionary poem, The Triumph of Life.
shellfish Any aquatic mollusk, crustacean, or echinoderm that has a shell. Oysters, mussels, scallops, and clams rank among the most commercially important. Certain gastropod mollusks, such as abalone, whelk, and conch, are also marketed. The main crustaceans are shrimp, lobster, and crab. Among echinoderms, sea urchins and sea cucumbers are locally popular. After being harvested, all shellfish are highly perishable. Many types are cooked live to protect the consumer against the effects of spoilage.
sheltie See Shetland sheepdog Shen-hsi See Shaanxi
Shenandoah National Park National park, Blue Ridge Mountains, northern Virginia, U.S. Formed in 1935, the park consists of 193,537 ac (78,322 ha) and is noted for its scenery, which affords some of the wid¬ est views in the eastern states. It is heavily forested with hardwoods and conifers; wildlife includes deer, foxes, and numerous birds.
Shenandoah Valley Valley, chiefly in Virginia, U.S. The valley is about 150 mi (241 km) long and 25 mi (40 km) wide, extending south¬ west from Harpers Ferry, W.Va., and lying between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains. It is drained by the Shenandoah River. The route of the famous 19th-century Valley Turnpike (now an interstate highway) was used earlier by Native Americans and later became a main artery for westward expansion. The Shenandoah Valley was the scene of military operations throughout the American Civil War. Today its many parks, lime¬ stone caverns, and scenic drives are tourist attractions. In 2005 the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley opened in Winchester, Va.
sheng \'shaq\ Chinese "sage" or "saint" In Chinese belief, a mor¬ tal who attains extraordinary or supernatural powers by self-cultivation and serves as a model for others. Confucius used the term to refer to exemplary rulers of the past.
Shensi See Shaanxi
Shenyang Vshon-'yaqV or Shen-yang formerly Mukden Ymuk-dsnX City (pop., 2003 est.: 3,995,500), capital of Liaoning province, northeastern China. An ancient city, it was the Manchu capital (1625-44) before the establishment of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty. After 1895 it was
fought over by Russia and Japan in the struggle for Manchuria. It was occupied by the Japanese (1931—45). Taken by the communist forces in 1948, it was a base for their conquest of the Chinese mainland. It is one of China’s leading industrial cities; its manufactures include machinery, wires and cables, textiles, and chemicals. It is also a cultural and educa¬ tional centre.
Shepard, Alan B(artlett), Jr. (b. Nov. 18, 1923, East Derry, N.H., U.S.—d. July 21, 1998, Monterey, Calif.) U.S. astronaut. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served in the Pacific during World War II. In 1959 he became one of the original seven Mercury program astro¬ nauts. In May 1961,23 days after Yury A. Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth, Shepard made a 15-minute suborbital flight that reached an altitude of 115 mi (185 km). He later commanded the Apollo 14 flight (1971), the first to land in the lunar highlands. Retiring from NASA and the navy in 1974, he entered private business.
Shepard, Roger N(ewland) (b. Jan. 30, 1929, Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.) U.S. psychologist and cognitive scientist. He received a Ph.D. from Yale University and later worked at Bell Laboratories (1958-66) and taught at Stanford University (from 1968). He is known for his work in multidimensional scaling, the use of spatial models to show similarities and dissimilarities among data. He has also examined the phenomena of “mental rotation,” a form of image transformation. He received the National Medal of Science in 1995.
Shepard, Sam orig. Samuel Shepard Rogers (b. Nov. 5, 1943, Fort Sheridan, Ill., U.S.) U.S. playwright and actor. He worked as an actor and rock musician before turning to play writing; his early one-act dramas and experimental plays were performed Off-Broadway in the 1960s, win¬ ning several Obie Awards. His successful full-length plays, noted for their often surreal images drawn from the American West, science fiction, and popular culture, include The Tooth of Crime (1972), Curse of the Starv¬ ing Class (1976), Buried Child (1979, Pulitzer Prize), True West (1980), Fool for Love (1983; film, 1985), and Simpatico (1996). He wrote the screenplay for Paris, Texas (1984) and acted in numerous movies, includ¬ ing Days of Heaven (1978) and The Right Stuff ( 1983).