We investigate the existence and stability of solutions for higher-order two-point boundary value problems in case the differential operator is not necessarily positive definite, i.e. with superlinear nonlinearities. We write an abstract realization of the Dirichlet problem and provide abstract existence and stability results which are further applied to concrete problems.

We study the vector $p$-Laplacian $$\left\}\begin{array}{c}-\left(\right|u^{\text{'}}{{|}^{p-2}{u}^{\text{'}})}^{\text{'}}=\nabla F(t,u)\text{a.e.}t\in [0,T],u\left(0\right)=u\left(T\right),u^{\text{'}}\left(0\right)=u^{\text{'}}\left(T\right),1<p<\infty .\hfill \end{array}\right.(*)$$ We prove that there exists a sequence $\left(u_n\right)$ of solutions of ($*$) such that $u_n$ is a critical point of $\varphi$ and another sequence $\left(u_n^{*}\right)$ of solutions of $(*)$ such that $u_n^{*}$ is a local minimum point of $\varphi$, where $\varphi$ is a functional defined below.

The existence of positive solutions for a nonlocal boundary-value problem with vector-valued response is investigated. We develop duality and variational principles for this problem. Our variational approach enables us to approximate solutions and give a measure of a duality gap between the primal and dual functional for minimizing sequences.

The existence of nonnegative radial solutions for some systems of m (m ≥ 1) quasilinear elliptic equations is proved by a simple application of a fixed point theorem in cones.

We study the existence of one-signed periodic solutions of the equations $$\begin{array}{ccc}& x^{\text{'}\text{'}}\left(t\right)-a^2\left(t\right)x\left(t\right)+\mu f(t,x\left(t\right),x^{\text{'}}\left(t\right))=0,\hfill & \hfill x^{\text{'}\text{'}}\left(t\right)+a^2\left(t\right)x\left(t\right)=\mu f(t,x\left(t\right),x^{\text{'}}\left(t\right)),\end{array}$$ where $\mu >0$, $a:(-\infty ,+\infty )\to (0,\infty )$ is continuous and 1-periodic, $f$ is a continuous and 1-periodic in the first variable and may take values of different signs. The Krasnosielski fixed point theorem on cone is used.