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Purpose – This chapter traces the development of cycling in several European countries over the period from the 1880s to the present, with special focus on the two cycling nations, Denmark and The Netherlands.

Methodology – Drawing on a wide array of research on bicycle use in Europe in the twentieth century as well as primary sources, the chapter pays particular attention to the users of the bicycle, their organisations and the mixture of male and female, young and old, and rich and poor, because these users were the people who actually shaped cycling cultures.

Findings – While acknowledging that geographical conditions cannot be fully ruled out as contributing factors, the authors point out that political, social and cultural aspects were all woven together into what would become increasingly distinctive national cycling cultures.

Value – This study provides historical context for recent efforts to increase cycling participation by identifying relevant cultural, social and political factors, and providing insights into the trajectories of Dutch and Danish cycling cultures.

Decision makers and authorities largely ignore cycling when conceptualising and developing programmes to support older mobility and therefore, unsurprisingly, levels of cycling in the United Kingdom are low compared to other northern European nations. Cycling has the potential to play an important role in the active ageing agenda and provide older citizens with a form of independent mobility that enhances personal health and wellbeing. The chapter provides evidence of the important role cycling does and could play in older people’s mobility and outlines ways in which older cycling could be supported and promoted.

Business cycle theory is normally described as having evolved out of a previous tradition of writers focusing exclusively on crises. In this account, the turning point is seen as residing in Clément Juglar's contribution on commercial crises and their periodicity. It is well known that the champion of this view is Schumpeter, who propagated it on several occasions. The same author, however, pointed to a number of other writers who, before and at the same time as Juglar, stressed one or another of the aspects for which Juglar is credited primacy, including the recognition of periodicity and the identification of endogenous elements enabling the recognition of crises as a self-generating phenomenon. There is indeed a vast literature, both primary and secondary, relating to the debates on crises and fluctuations around the middle of the nineteenth century, from which it is apparent that Juglar's book Des Crises Commerciales et de leur Retour Périodique en France, en Angleterre et aux États-Unis (originally published in 1862 and very much revised and enlarged in 1889) did not come out of the blue but was one of the products of an intellectual climate inducing the thinking of crises not as unrelated events but as part of a more complex phenomenon consisting of recurring crises related to the development of the commercial world – an interpretation corroborated by the almost regular occurrence of crises at about 10-year intervals.

Chaos theory—the science that discovers order in nature's seeming randomness—may have utility as a corporate analysis technique. While it's too soon to predict whether chaos theory mathematics will become a new tool for decision makers, these researchers have made some provocative discoveries by analyzing 20 years of data for 19 publicly traded companies.

Under multiaxial random loading, the material stress–strain response is not periodic, which makes it difficult to determine the direction of the critical plane on the material. Meanwhile, existing methods of constant loading cannot be directly applied to multiaxial random loading; this problem can be solved when an equivalent stress transformation method is used.

First, the Liu-Mahadevan critical plane is introduced into multiaxial random fatigue, which is enabled to determine the material's critical plane position under random loading. Then, an equivalent stress transformation method is proposed which can convert random load to constant load. Meanwhile, the ratio of mean stress to yield strength is defined as the new mean stress influence factor, and a new non-proportional additional strengthening factor is proposed by considering the effect of phase differences.

The proposed model is validated using multiaxial random fatigue test data of TC4 titanium alloy specimens and the results of the proposed model are compared with that based on Miner's rule and BSW model, showing that the proposed method is more accurate.

In this work, a new multiaxial random fatigue life prediction model is proposed based on equivalent stress transformation method, which considers the mean stress effect and the additional strengthening effect. Results show that the predicted fatigue lives given by the proposed model are in well accordance with the tested data.

The purpose of this paper is to determine: how the thermal cycling aging affects the ratcheting behavior of anisotropic conductive adhesive film (ACF); how the loading conditions and loading history affect the ratcheting strain and strain rate of ACF with different thermal cycling aging histories.

The ACF of CP6920F was cured at 190°C in an electro-thermal vacuum drying apparatus for 30 s. The cured specimens were put into the thermal cycling chamber (−40-150°C) for aging to 25, 50, 100, 200 and 500 cycles. A series of uniaxial ratcheting tests of aged ACF after different thermal cycles was carried out under stress control at 80°C.

The ACF subjected to larger number of thermal aging cycles exhibits less ratcheting strain under the same loading conditions. The ACF with the same thermal cycling aging history shows more ratcheting strain and a higher ratcheting strain rate when loaded under a larger mean stress or stress amplitude or a lower loading rate. The ratcheting behavior of aged ACF is found to be more sensitive to the lower loading rate. The higher mean stress (or stress amplitude) enhances the deformation resistance and consequently restrains the ratcheting strain of subsequent cycling with a lower mean stress (or stress amplitude). The prior lower loading rate accelerates the plastic deformation more significantly than the higher one.

The influencing trends of thermal cycling aging, loading condition and loading history on ratcheting behavior of ACF are obtained, which is important for the design and safety assessment of ACF joints.

A forecasting method involving construction and interpretation of the business cycle is presented. Definition and development of lead indicators are discussed. These tools provide management with short‐ to medium‐term forecasts of sales activity. Insights into the reasonableness of the forecasts and guidance for appropriate management actions are discussed. Data from an actual company are used to illustrate computation and interpretation procedures.

The study looks at the characteristics of upswings and downswings for UK housing cycles. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse cycles in house prices and housing affordability on the characteristics of persistence, magnitude and severity.

The paper draws upon the triangular methodology of cycles and utilises housing data from the last three decades.

From an empirical perspective, the study obtained four main results. First, the graphical trajectory of cycles in house price and housing affordability is highly synchronized. Second, upturns in both cycles tend to be longer than downturns on average. Third, the recent upturn in house prices and housing affordability is characterised by larger duration, magnitude and severity than the earlier case. Fourth, the latest downturn in both cycles is highly synchronised in terms of time occurrence, persistence, magnitude and severity; in addition, in both cases, the latest downturn is considerably smaller than the previous one. The study additionally indicates that on average the length of a complete house price and housing affordability cycle is 19 years on a peak-to-peak basis.

This paper is essentially exploratory and raises a number of questions for further investigation. Future research should, first, arrive at a more nuanced definition of affordability and, second, examine causality. The fact that two phenomena appear to have some significant synchronicity is not an indication that they are interdependent, although logic would suggest they might be.

This is among the few papers that analyses cycles in UK house prices. It is the first study that draws attention to the housing affordability cycle and the first to compare cycles in house prices with cycles in housing affordability.

The purpose of this paper is to explore cycling tourists’ experience in Singapore using an exploratory case study.

Tourist’s spontaneous reviews (n=409) posted on TripAdvisor were collected and analyzed through Leximancer.

The software identified 31 concepts grouped into five dominant themes of tourists’ experiences. In order of relative importance, the themes were tour, bike, guide, experience, and cycling. It revealed that most tourists have a favorable impression of their cycling experience in Singapore.

The findings suggest cycling tours can provide tourists with pleasurable experiences. Tourists embark on cycling tours in Singapore to learn more about the city and enjoy new experiences. However, to meet tourists’ expectations, bicycles must be well-maintained and accessible. In addition, tour guides should be attentive and knowledgeable. These have a direct effect on tourists’ satisfaction level with cycling tours.