<p>Date:</p><p>19^th, June, 2008</p><p>Level:</p><p>Master Thesis EFO 705, 15 credits</p><p>Authors:</p><p>Sixing Guo</p><p>China</p><p>guosixing@hotmail.com</p><p>Pasapoo Upathamwaranon</p><p>Thailand</p><p>pasapoo@hotmail.com</p><p>Title:</p><p>The Internationalization Process of Toyota in Europe: From the Perspectives of Entry Mode and Network Structure</p><p> </p><p>Tutor:</p><p>Leif Linnskog</p><p>Research Problem:</p><p>In European market, what entry mode did Toyota select? Why did they select those entry modes? And how did they manage their internal and external network structure during the entry mode evolution process? </p><p> </p><p>Purpose:</p><p>We describe and explain how Toyota conquered the European market from the perspective of entry mode and network. And we also intend to provide some useful information to the companies that want to gain experience before entering into the European market.</p><p> </p><p>Method:</p><p>We design this thesis as a case study about the entry mode of Toyota in the European market. In order to get an in-depth understanding of the research problem, the qualitative research approach is chosen. During the analysis part, all the information is derived from the secondary documents, such as website, articles and so on.</p><p>Conclusion:</p><p>After the analysis the process of Toyota developed in the European market, we found that after careful consideration about both internal and external factors, Toyota usually prefers to conquer a new market with a relevant low risk entry mode, such as exporting or licensing, in the beginning. Then, with the increase of their experience as well as the growth of network, they began to change to a higher risk level entry mode, like joint venture or wholly owned subsidiaries. During the evolution process, in order to provide an effective way of interaction between headquarters and subsidiaries, Toyota’s structure changed from time to time.</p><p>Keywords:</p><p>Internationalization, Entry mode, Toyota, Network structure</p>

<p><p>Microstrip structures became very attractive with the development of cost-effective dielectric materials. Among several techniques suitable to the analysis of such structures, the discrete mode matching method (DMM) is a full-wave approach that allows a fast solution to Helmholz equation. Combined with a full-wave equivalent circuit, the DMM allows fast and accurate analysis of microstrips lines on multilayered substrates.</p><p> </p><p>The knowledge of properties like dispersion and electromagnetic fields is essential in the implementation of such transmission lines. For this objective a MATLAB computer code was developed based on the discrete mode matching method (DMM) to perform this analysis.</p><p> </p><p>The principal parameter for the analysis is the utilization of different dielectric profiles with the aim of a reduction in the dispersion in comparison with one-layer cylindrical microstrip line, showing a reduction of almost 50%. The analysis also includes current density distribution and electromagnetic fields representation. Finally, the data is compared with Ansoft HFSS to validate the results.</p></p> / The German Aerospace Center has rights over the thesis work

The general expressions for finding the network functions, e.g., the immittance and the scattering parameters, of a general, uniformly coupled n-line structure in an inhomogeneous medium are derived in terms of the normal mode parameters of the system. These are used to compute or to derive the explicit expressions for the elements of the immittance matrix in terms of normal mode parameters. The scattering parameters of a general non-symmetrical directional coupler with arbitrary terminations are derived in terms of the known scattering parameters with a specified set of terminations such as characteristic non-mode converting terminations. The formulation is quite general and can be applied to various coupled guided wave systems, including coupled microstrip lines, slot lines, comb lines, dielectric waveguides and various other uniformly coupled transmission systems. The results obtained are used to present the procedure to determine the optimum terminations for directional couplers and sensitivity of various multiports, including couplers, to changes in terminations. It is shown that the coupler performance can be optimized in terms of the terminating impedances. The analysis and design procedure for both symmetrical and nonsymmetrical four-port coupled structures consisting of the symmetrical three lines in an inhomogeneous medium such as microstrips are presented. Tables and charts for the design of three-line structure are based on the closed form expressions for the immittance parameters. The analysis and design procedure for open-circuited interdigital multiple coupled microstrip line structures for applications as wideband DC blocks and filters are also presented. As in the case of the other microstrip structures, the initial design is based on the TEM assumption and the final geometry is then determined by the exact computation of the frequency response of the two ports. For larger numbers of lines, the design is based on the equivalent even- and odd-mode parameters of the n-line system. For this case, the TEM design equations, derived in terms of even- and odd-mode impedances of a pair of lines, can be translated into a physical configuration by using published results on coupled lines. / Graduation date: 1983

The development, implementation, and testing of a leader-follower based robust nonlinear formation controller is discussed in this thesis. This controller uses sliding mode control on the length and angle between the leader and follower vessels to produce the desired formation. A boat model, assuming planar motion (three degrees of freedom), is used as the bases for the controller. Open loop testing is performed to determine parameter values to match the simulation model to the physical one and, upon tuning of the controller to match, closed loop testing of the controller with a virtual leader is also performed. From these tests it is found that the controller is unstable, thus improvements to the controller, through changes made to the model and to the parameter identification process, are undertaken. Simulations comparing the initial and updated models of the vehicle to open loop data show an improvement in the new model.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-178).

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Device driver is an important part of an operating system. All I/O device accesses must be done through device drivers. Because they reside in the kernel address space, a driver fault may lead to a system failure, which is not acceptable for embedded systems with high dependability requirements. Many embedded systems execute safety-critical tasks and hence a system failure will cause a great loss. Running drivers in user mode can prevent the drivers from damaging the operating system kernel. User mode driver resulted in a large performance degradation when it was proposed during the 1980s. Nonetheless, the performance has been improved due to good implementations of system call and context switch. According to the previous study, the performance of a user mode driver for a Gigabit network card can achieve 93% of that of the kernel mode driver in a Linux-based platform. Although the performance of user mode drivers has been improved, there is still a crucial problem which handicaps user mode drivers from being utilized widely. That is, drivers have to be modified in order to support a given user mode driver framework. In this thesis, we propose a user mode driver framework, which allows a kernel mode driver to be executed in the user space without any code modifications. The framework emulates the kernel-space execution environment in the user space, In this framework, communication between user mode driver process and the kernel is done through I/O request redirection and shared memory. We implemented the framework on an ARM Linux based embedded system platform. The prototype of our framework supports two classes of user mode drivers: character device drivers and network interface drivers. The former includes a LED and a 7-segment user mode device drivers, and the latter consists of an Ethernet user mode device driver. Our work has two contributions. First of all, we enable direct execution of kernel mode drivers in the user space without any driver code modifications.. Second, we evaluate the performance of user mode drivers in an embedded system. To the best of our knowledge, no results about performance of user mode drivers on embedded systems have been reported. According to the experimental results, the performance of our user mode drivers can achieve 61%~99% of that of the kernel mode ones. This demonstrates that the framework we propose can improve the reliability of system under the acceptable costs of performance.

As a result of the prevailing of international global e-commerce, e-negotiation had become a common form of individuals or enterprise's administrators everyday. In addition due to the growing of the internet and communication technology, e-negotiation had not limited the e-mail anymore. An increasing number of individuals or enterprises exploit synchronous way, such as instant messenger to conduct business over the internet. As more organizations and individuals face a choice between these technologies, we need to understand the impact of communication media on negotiation process and outcome. Otherwise, studies comparing traditional mode with CMC negotiations concentrate mainly on the criterion of multiple cues. The possibility to provide immediate feedback, which is determined by the communication mode synchronous vs. asynchronous), has not been considered so far. Therefore, the purpose of this research is based on the criterion of immediate feedback, and to explore how the e-negotiation mode impact negotiation process. Furthermore we also explore how these process impact the result of decision quality. The study shows that when negotiators use synchronous e-negotiation system, they have greater control level, higher ability of evaluation others¡¦ deception and clearer message in the process of negotiation. Furthermore, negotiators¡¦ control level, task-oriented communication, perceptions of others¡¦ deception and message clarity will positive impact decision quality.

Biopotential signals are important to physicians for diagnosing medical conditions in patients. Traditionally, biopotentials are acquired using contact electrodes together with instrumentation amplifiers (INAs). The biopotentials are generally weak and in the presence of stronger common mode signals. The INA thus needs to have very good Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR) to amplify the weak biopotential while rejecting the stronger common mode interferers. Opamp based INAs with a resistor-capacitor feedback are suitable for acquiring biopotentials with low power and low noise performance. However, CMRR of such INA topologies is typically very poor. In the presented research, a technique is proposed for improving the CMRR of opamp based INAs in RC feedback configurations by dynamically matching input and feedback capacitor pairs. Two instrumentation amplifiers (one fully differential and the other fully balanced fully symmetric) are designed with the proposed dynamic element matching scheme. Post layout simulation results show that with 1 percent mismatch between the limiting capacitor pairs, CMRR is improved to above 150dB when the proposed dynamic element matching scheme is used. The INAs draw about 10uA of quiescent current from a 1.5 dual power supply source. The input referred noise of the INAs is less than 3uV/sqrt(Hz).

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