Social media is a cost-effective marketing tool, and in a 2014 survey, 75% of small business owners reported that they used social media to market. However, many of these businesses merely set up social media profiles and do not use social media to its full potential. Microenterprise owners face barriers such as lack of time, financial resources, and marketing knowledge, preventing them from adopting social media as a marketing tool. This multiple case study explored what strategies microenterprise owners in the artisan economy need to market using social media. Data were collected from 5 custom bicycle framebuilders in a Southwestern U.S. state through semistructured interviews with open-ended questions. Company documents and social media reviews were also used for data collection and triangulation. The diffusion of innovations theory was the conceptual framework of this study to aid understanding of framebuilders' social media adoption process and social media usage. Thematic analysis identified 7 themes that emerged from the data: technological competence, the establishment of social media presence, effective utilization of social media platforms, effective communication skills, the establishment of brand identity, time management, and acquisition of external support. The study findings are expected to help artisan microenterprise owners harness social media and, in turn, improve business practices, increase sales, and promote their crafts, which may lead to positive social outcomes. The results of the study will assist artisan microenterprise owners source materials locally from other small businesses, a process that prevents money from leaving the local economy and helps to build strong communities.

Evidence exists to suggest increasing political interest in cycling-related tourism, particularly as a contributor to economic and social development in rural communities. The former Australian Government’s long-term strategy document for tourism, the Tourism White Paper, has also identified cycling-related tourism as a potential contributor to strengthening competitive advantage for Australia with respect to tourism. However, little theory-driven research exists hitherto to guide decision-making regarding prudent provision of infrastructure and services to facilitate the development of cycling-related tourism, while little research exists that aids in our understanding of the travel behaviours and characteristics of bicycle tourists.The present study examined independent bicycle tourists in Australia using a generic model of whole tourism systems as a framework for analysis. The study employed a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques to explore the needs, preferences and behaviours of independent bicycle tourists. In addition, several conditions previously identified in applied literature as possible impediments to the development of independent bicycle tourism in Australia were examined.The results indicated that independent bicycle tourists’ behaviours and thought processes regarding destination selection reflected those put forward in the broader literature addressing special interest tourism, in that the activity to be pursued is more prevalent in driving decision-making than the actual destination(s) to be visited. This was illustrated by the importance attached by the respondents to aspects that directly relate to a destination area’s capacity to support cycling, particularly the presence and quality of cycling infrastructure (specifically roads, paths, trails and signage), endowed resources (appealing natural scenery), supporting industries, and accessibility.Three conditions were confirmed as impediments to the development of independent bicycle tourism in Australia. These impediments included perceptions of cycling on Australian roads as a dangerous practice; perceptions that infrastructure to support independent bicycle touring in Australia is generally inadequate; and perceived difficulties associated with the carriage of bicycles on air, coach and rail services in Australia. This research also identified several limitations regarding the capacity of Leiper’s model of whole tourism systems to articulate tourist flows associated with independent bicycle tourism. These limitations specifically related to the way the tourist destination regions and transit routes elements are conceptually defined in the generic model. An adapted descriptive, theoretical model of whole tourism systems involving independent bicycle tourism was proposed. The adapted model incorporated a geographic ‘hierarchy of destinations’ sub-system and also acknowledged two distinct forms of transit routes: those traversed between the traveller-generating region and the destination area; and those traversed within the destination area by bicycle.

Bibliography: leaves 213-224.

面臨全球化的競爭,中小企業需國際化來增加自己的競爭力。本研究以台灣自行車零組件廠為例，探討中小企業之國際化之原因及策略，且分析原因影響地主國篩選，進入策略及國際化管理，最後提出建議給正在尋找國際化機會之中小企業。 研究內容包含國際化動機，因素影響國際化策略包含資源基礎理論，地主國篩選，進入策略，進入模式及國際化管理。研究發現創始人國際化理想及母國市場規模為主要中小企業之國際化動機。地主國政策影響產品需求也會構成中小企業國際化。不可遷移之資源例如技術背景及廉價勞工都可激勵中小企業之業務及生產方面國際化。 / Facing with increase global competition, SME has to increase their competitiveness through internationalization. The objective of this research is to review the internationalization strategies of SME based on the analysis of case companies of the factors affecting internationalization decision, process and management, and then make recommendation to SME who are seeking for international opportunities. Our research addresses the questions covering motives behind internationalization, factors including resource-based view affecting internationalization decision and host country selection, the entry strategy, process, and internationalization management. Our findings suggested that founder’s ambition and relative size of restricted home market would motivate SME to internationalize. Host country government regulation affecting product demand would also provide an incentive for SME to enter. Immobile resource endowments such as technological know-how and cheap labor will induce firms’ sales and production division to internationalize. During internationalization, SME would consider resource specificity, the amount of resource commitment and control when choosing entry strategy. SME follows Root (1982) process in choosing host country by evaluating the market size and potential. As for the entry process, it is consistent with Uppsala model of internationalization whereby SME increase their international commitment incrementally. During internationalization management, SME are more ethnocentric on the human resource perspective; meanwhile, marketing strategy on product and pricing for SME is rather homogeneous, except for distribution and promotion strategies which are adjusted based on market characteristics and channel structure.

<p>Accurate measurements from sensors measuring the vehicle's lateral behavior are vital in todays vehicle dynamic control systems such as the Electronic Stability Program (ESP). This thesis concerns accurate plausibilisation of two of these sensors, namely the yaw rate sensor and the lateral acceleration sensor. The estimation is based on Kalman filtering and culminates in the use of a 2 degree-of-freedom nonlinear two-track model describing the vehicle lateral dynamics. The unknown and time-varying cornering stiffnesses are adapted while the unknown yaw moment of inertia is estimated. The Kalman filter transforms the measured signals into a sequence of residuals that are then investigated with the aid of various change detection methods such as the CuSum algorithm. An investigation into the area of adaptive thresholding has also been made.</p><p>The change detection methods investigated successfully detects faults in both the yaw rate and the lateral acceleration sensor. It it also shown that adaptive thresholding can be used to improve the diagnosis system. All of the results have been evaluated on-line in a prototype vehicle with real-time fault injection.</p>

This thesis focuses on shared use lane facilities and road user understanding. Shared use lanes (sharrows) are a common solution for road facilities that are too narrow to accommodate a full bicycle lane and where the local jurisdiction wants to reduce dooring crashes. In recent years, engineers have focused on incorporating sustainable transportation into new or reconstructed infrastructure improvements. Bicycle transportation connectivity, as an example, is essential to efficient bicycle commuting. Sharrows pavement marking is a well-engineered design but without education road users do not use it properly resulting in an increased risk of being in a crash. / Graduation date: 2012

<p>The bicycle is an individual means of transport. Many people prefer to cycle over short distances and in congested areas rather than take travel by car or public transport. This is a study of the use of bicycle as an option for commuting to work. It is a comparison between three cities: Stockholm, Copenhagen and London. The comparison is focused on solutions that benefit commuter cyclist and performed by studying cycle policies and other related documents. Results of this study shows that bicycle commuters are a targeted group in cycle policies in all three cities, for commuter traffic to increase booth an enhanced sense of security and the opportunity to travel at a high speed by bicycle is important.. In Stockholm and London efforts to increase the number of cyclists begin by improving the quality of transport for those who already cycle. The cycle network in Copenhagen is more comprehensive and the level of bicycle use and commuting is at significant higher level in comparison to Stockholm and London. The possibility to combine cycling and public transport is a target for all three cities, one important measure is to increase bicycle parking facilities at terminals and other public places.</p><p>Although there are differences in the three cities regarding bicycle commuting today, targets and measures for the futures they do correspond in quite a few places; parallels that could serve as examples of the ways in which a high degree of bicycle commuting can be attained.</p>

Today, numerous alternative modes of mobility are emerging to provide a solution to the problems created by the automobile. This research envisions a future where transportation in urban areas will be dominated by small personal mobility devices (PMDs) instead of automobiles. This Intelligent Mobility System (IMS) would be a car-free zone where people travel by a shared-system of PMDs providing levels of mobility greater than walking but less than a car. This research effort focuses on the operational aspects of this future system by studying PMD performance characteristics as inputs for a computer simulation model of an IMS environment. Therefore, the primary objective of this research is to evaluate the operations of PMDs that are currently used in a variety of settings. GPS recorders are used to log speed and location data each second of pedestrian, bicycle, Segway, and electric cart trips. Segway speed and acceleration are analyzed using three factors, sidewalk width, surface quality, and pedestrian density to study their effect on Segway speed. Pedestrians have the lowest mean speed and the most narrow speed distribution. Segways, bicycles and electric carts have increasingly faster mean speeds and wider speed distributions, respectively. Segways and bicycles were found to have similar acceleration distributions. Segways seem to provide a level of speed and mobility between that of pedestrians and cyclists, meaning that Segways might capture new users by providing a level of mobility and convenience previously unseen. Narrow sidewalk widths, poor sidewalk quality, and heavy pedestrian density all decreased Segway speeds. The researchers suspect that surface quality is likely an independent constraint for Segway speed and that sidewalk width and pedestrian density interact to limit Segway speeds under certain conditions. This research concludes that these external factors may affect PMD speed and should be considered when analyzing PMD mobility, especially in an IMS setting.

The objective of this research is to analyze how the demographic characteristics and reported home locations of Cycle Atlanta smartphone app users compare to those of cyclists reflected by other datasets. The findings of this research show that the majority of Cycle Atlanta users are young, white males belonging to either a very high annual income group or a low annual income group, with fewer users belonging to middle-income groups. Most of the app's users live in east-side, ``intown' Atlanta neighborhoods. Other cyclist data for the Atlanta area show similar trends, although less pronounced than the trends exhibited by Cycle Atlanta users. Because smartphone apps such as Cycle Atlanta are a fairly recent innovation, there is still a great deal of uncertainty as to how equitably they can gather bicycle data. The research presented in this thesis has the potential to empower transportation planners to plan bicycle facilities that will benefit many different facets of the cycling community in Atlanta. This has the potential to increase the mode share of cycling in cities, which will reduce congestion and promote healthier lifestyles.

In this thesis we investigate the problem of designing a control system for a modern bicycle so that the bicycle is stable and follows a path. We propose a multi-loop control architecture, where each loop is systematically designed using linear control techniques. The proposed strategy guarantees that the bicycle asymptotically converges to paths of constant curvature. A key advantage of our approach is that by using linear techniques analysis and controller design are relatively simple. We base our control design on the nonlinear (corrected) Whipple model, which has been previously verified for correctness and experimentally validated. The equations of motion for the nonlinear model are very complicated, and would take many pages to explicitly state. They also have no known closed form solution. To enable analysis of the model we linearize it about a trajectory such that the bicycle is upright and travelling straight ahead. This linearization allows us to arrive at a parameterized linear time-invariant state-space representation of the bicycle dynamics, suitable for analysis and control design. The inner-loop control consists of a forward-speed controller as well as a lean and steer controller. To keep the bicycle at a constant forward speed, we develop a high-bandwidth proportional controller that uses a torque along the axis of the rear wheel of the bicycle to keep the angular velocity of the rear wheel at a constant setpoint. To stabilize the bicycle at this forward speed, lean torque and steer torque are treated as the control signals. We design a state-feedback controller and augment integrators to the output feedback of the lean angle and steer angle to provide perfect steady-state tracking. To arrive at the gains for state feedback, linear-quadratic regulator methods are used. When following a constant-curvature path, a vehicle has a constant yaw rate. Using this knowledge, we begin designing the outer-loop path-following control by finding a map that converts a yaw rate into appropriate lean angle and steer angle references for the inner loop. After the map is completed, system identification is performed by applying a yaw-rate reference to the map and analyzing the response of the bicycle. Using the linear approximation obtained, a classical feedback controller for yaw-rate tracking is designed. In addition to yaw-rate control, to track a path the yaw angle of the bicycle must match that of the path and the bicycle must physically be on the path. To analyze these conditions a linear approximation for the distance between the bicycle to the path is found, enabling construction of a linear approximation of the entire system. We then find that by passing the signal for the difference in yaw rate and the distance through separate controllers, summing their output, and subtracting from the reference yaw rate of the path, the bicycle converges to the path. After developing the general design procedure, the final part of the thesis shows a step by step design example and demonstrates the results of applying the proposed control architecture to the nonlinear bicycle model. We highlight some problems that can arise when the bicycle is started far from the path. To overcome these problems we develop the concept of a virtual path, which is a path that when followed returns the bicycle to the actual path. We also recognize that, in practice, typical paths do not have constant curvature, so we construct more practical paths by joining straight line segments and circular arc segments, representing a practical path similar to a path that would be encountered when biking through a series of rural roads. Finally, we finish the design example by demonstrating the performance of the control architecture on such a path. From these simulations we show that using the suggested controller design that the bicycle will converge to a constant curvature path. Additionally with using the controllers we develop that in the absence of disturbance the bicycle will stay within the intended traffic lane when travelling on a typical rural road.