This thesis examines factors that influence the daily number of trip departures and arrivals at over 100 hubs comprising Hamilton, Ontario’s (Canada) bike share program – SoBi (Social Bicycles) Hamilton. SoBi operates all year, and during its first year of operation (April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016), over 200,000 trips were generated on SoBi bikes. The study utilizes data from SoBi Hamilton, the 2011 Canadian Census, the 2011 Transportation Tomorrow Survey, Environment Canada, and Hamilton’s Open Source Data initiative. From these master files, daily trips, meteorological data, temporal variables, socio-demographic and built environment attributes were obtained to generate a comprehensive suite of explanatory variables to explain the daily trips at each hub. A multilevel regression approach was used to understand the associations between bike share usage at each hub and each suite of explanatory variables at two temporal scales: total daily trips at hubs and total daily trips across four time periods of the day. Findings demonstrate that weather and temporal attributes play a significant role in trip departures and arrivals. In addition, hub attributes vary in significance throughout different times of the day for trip departures and arrivals. Overall, the methodology and findings allow us to identify factors that increase SoBi usage, which can also benefit city planners and engineers who are implementing a bike share system with the goal of maximizing bike share activity in urban centers. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Travelers visiting friends and relatives as a purpose of travel are known as VFR travelers. First defined by the travel and tourism industry, the term was used to compile expenditure data on this type of traveler and their impact in tourism markets. The increased international travel of this population drew attention of travel medicine researchers. Researchers found these travelers to be subject to greater risk of infectious disease stemming from travel destinations with increased risk of exposure to local pathogens, extended trip durations, and barriers to pre-travel advice. As a result, they are of public health interest as well. The travel medicine discipline researches this population to understand their specific risks and ways to improve their travel health education. Part of the VFR traveler definition as it is presently stated includes country of birth; the purpose of visiting friends and relatives is not sufficient. Varying definitions amongst medical researchers to describe this population has slowed the progress of drawing conclusions about their risks and recommending methods to improve their health education. [TRUNCATED] / 2999-01-01

This thesis examines the published writing about the British Caribbean, by white women, in the years 1770-1845. The study includes travel accounts, published histories, natural histories, diaries, letters and novels, which represent a range of views on slavery from anti-slavery to pro-slavery. White women's writing from the Caribbean remains a neglected topic, despite pioneering work about North America, and some of the texts I examine have not previously been used in a study of slavery in the British West Indies. As well as using these `new' sources, the thesis also makes a theoretical contribution to the study of slavery in the Caribbean. Texts are deconstructed in order to analyse the powerful images of `race' and racism present in women's writing. It is argued that white women travellers and novelists played an important role in imperialism in contributing to contemporary discourses on racism and white superiority. I suggest that even `anti'-slavery texts contained powerful negative images of slaves and of the free black and mixed-origins populations. The thesis also suggests that white women accepted white male patriarchy in slave society, and even contributed to their own gender oppression by their glorification of stereotypical female gender characteristics.

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