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The vehicle sideslip angle is an important state of vehicle lateral dynamics and its knowledge is crucial for the successful implementation of advanced driver-assistance systems. Measuring the vehicle sideslip angle on a production vehicle is challenging because of the exorbitant price of a physical sensor. This paper aims to present a novel framework for virtually sensing/estimating the vehicle sideslip angle. The desired level of accuracy for the estimator is to be within +/− 0.2 degree of the actual sideslip angle of the vehicle. This will make the precision of the proposed estimator at par with expensive commercially available sensors used for physically measuring the vehicle sideslip angle.

The proposed estimator uses an adaptive tire model in conjunction with a model-based observer. The performance of the estimator is evaluated through experimental tests on a rear-wheel drive vehicle.

Detailed experimental results show that the developed system can reliably estimate the vehicle sideslip angle during both steady state and transient maneuvers, within the desired accuracy levels.

This paper presents a novel framework for vehicle sideslip angle estimation. The presented framework combines an adaptive tire model, an unscented Kalman filter-based axle force observer and data from tire mounted sensors. Tire model adaptation is achieved by making extensions to the magic formula, by accounting for variations in the tire inflation pressure, load, tread-depth and temperature. Predictions with the adapted tire model were validated by running experiments on the Flat-Trac® machine. The benefits of using an adaptive tire model for sideslip angle estimation are demonstrated through experimental tests. The performance of the observer is satisfactory, in both transient and steady state maneuvers. Future work will focus on measuring tire slip angle and road friction information using tire mounted sensors and using that information to further enhance the robustness of the vehicle sideslip angle observer.

The issue of mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) in Indian banking industry is serious and attracting attention of academia and policy planners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis whether NPAs in Indian commercial banking have reached at alarming state where they start affecting the technical efficiency levels adversely or not.

The efficiency score have been computed using case model (model with NPAs as bad/undesirable output) vs control model (model without NPAs as bad/undesirable output) methodology under meta-frontier data envelopment analysis framework.

It has been noticed that the effect of NPAs on overall technical efficiency and its various components is insignificant. The comparison of the case models (i.e. model with NPAs as bad output) with the control models (i.e. model without NPAs) reveals insignificant difference in average efficiency scores and rank distribution of commercial banks. The major source of inefficiency is technology gap (i.e. structure, setup and objectives of banking) among public, domestic private and foreign private categories of banks.

Though NPAs are increasing in Indian banking industry and specifically in Indian public sector banks because of their compulsory lending to priority sector yet the banks have huge scope to extend credit to priority sector as the NPAs have not reached at alarming stage where they start affecting adversely the efficiency performance.

Given the fact that the banking penetrations, structure and objectives differ significantly across ownership, separate frontiers for each ownership (public, private and foreign banks) category has been used to evaluate the technical efficiency levels of 81 commercial banks operating in India over the period 2005 to 2013.

The present chapter aims to find out whether overtourism in Haridwar exists from the residents' point of view or there is still room for growth. Additionally, this research also presents various ideas of how different regulations can control and manage tourists, as the number is increasing and the number will become higher at some point in time. The chapter is also carried out using quantitative research methods and, therefore, using a questionnaire answered by people living in Haridwar for at least 5 years. The results were analysed and presented by using mean and standard deviation. The results have shown that the residents do feel like there is a lot of tourism in Haridwar, especially religious tourism. Though this does not mean that all tourist sites are affected by this opinion, in general, residents do not think that there is too much tourism in the city yet, and according to the results, there is still room for growth for the number of tourists. Though this growth could also be limited to the locations that are not as popular yet, it can also be said that the carrying capacity has not been reached yet. The current situation is not the same as in other known destinations in the region. Therefore, the results of the chapter can be used to design and create preventive tourism laws and rules that should be developed before it is too late, and the city would have to deal with a number of problems. Otherwise, there are also further recommendations on research that could potentially be carried out to connect tourism in the area.

Since the 1980s agricultural biotech investments by the public sector have increased substantially in both China and India. In the last two decades there has also been a dramatic increase in private section investment in agricultural biotechnology particularly in India. The promise of major benefits of Bt cotton identified in early socioeconomic studies of Bt cotton has proven to be true. Bt cotton has spread to at least 66% and 85% of total cotton areas of China and India, respectively – wherever bollworm is a major problem. Bt cotton continues to control bollworm in both countries, and farmers continue as major beneficiaries rather than biotech or seed companies. The major impacts have been yield increases in India and reduced pesticides consumption in China. In China, evidence also suggests that Bt cotton has suppressed the bollworm population so that non-Bt cotton growers and producers of other crops that are susceptible to bollworm are also benefitting.

The chapter also provides evidence that in the near future Bt rice and Bt eggplant could have major positive impacts by reducing pesticide use and farmers’ exposure to chemical pesticides and increasing yields. Both crops were approved for commercial production by government biosafety regulators, but are not yet available for commercial cultivation.