Let ${\mathcal X}$ be a locally compact metric space and let ${\mathcal A}$ be any of the Lipschitz algebras ${\operatorname{Lip}_{\alpha}{\mathcal X}}$, ${\operatorname{lip}_{\alpha}{\mathcal X}}$ or ${\operatorname{lip}_{\alpha}^0{\mathcal X}}$. In this paper, we show, as a consequence of rather more general results on Banach algebras, that ${\mathcal A}$ is $C$-character amenable if and only if ${\mathcal X}$ is uniformly discrete.

Let $T$ be a contraction on a complex, separable, infinite dimensional Hilbert space and let $\sigma \left( T\right) $ (resp. $\sigma _{e}\left( T\right) )$ be its spectrum (resp. essential spectrum). We assume that $T$ is an essentially isometric operator, that is $I_{H}-T^{\ast }T$ is compact. We show that if $D\diagdown \sigma \left( T\right) \neq \emptyset ,$ then for every $f$ from the disc-algebra, \begin{equation*} \sigma _{e}\left( f\left( T\right) \right) =f\left( \sigma _{e}\left( T\right) \right) , \end{equation*} where $D$ is the open unit disc. In addition, if $T$ lies in the class $ C_{0\cdot }\cup C_{\cdot 0},$ then \begin{equation*} \sigma _{e}\left( f\left( T\right) \right) =f\left( \sigma \left( T\right) \cap \Gamma \right) , \end{equation*} where $\Gamma $ is the unit circle. Some related problems are also discussed.

We show that for compact orientable hyperbolic orbisurfaces, the Laplace spectrum determines the length spectrum as well as the number of singular points of a given order. The converse also holds, giving a full generalization of Huber's theorem to the setting of compact orientable hyperbolic orbisurfaces.

The growth properties at infinity for eigenfunctions corresponding to embedded eigenvalues of the Neumann Laplacian on horn-like domains are studied. For domains that pinch at polynomial rate, it is shown that the eigenfunctions vanish at infinity faster than the reciprocal of any polynomial. For a class of domains that pinch at an exponential rate, weaker, $L^2$ bounds are proven. A corollary is that eigenvalues can accumulate only at zero or infinity.

The spectra of the Toeplitz operators on the weighted Hardy space $H^2(Wd\th/2\pi)$ and the Hardy space $H^p(d\th/2\pi)$, and the singular integral operators on the Lebesgue space $L^2(d\th/2\pi)$ are studied. For example, the theorems of Brown-Halmos type and Hartman-Wintner type are studied.