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Purpose — The principal hypothesis of this program of research is that people's choices of which resources to own are a function of expected travel needs.

Methodology/approach — This chapter reports recent research using a stated-choice survey design that is innovative in two respects. First, respondents are asked to consider two types of choice having different time horizons but which are thought to be linked in a strategic-tactical structure. The two types of choices are (a) purchasing ‘mobility resources’, which include commitments such as car ownership and subscription to carsharing services and (b) choosing a mode of transport for a particular instance of travel. The second methodological innovation is that respondents indicate their choices in the context of giving advice to a demographically similar ‘avatar’.

The development of a technique for ‘empirically constrained’ efficient design is discussed, as is its application to this survey. This objective is to provide survey designs with a high degree of statistical efficiency whilst maintaining plausibility in the combination of attribute levels. Field data from an empirical application (n = 72) was collected and analysed.

Findings — The proposed method for efficient design proved successful. The main substantive findings from the empirical application are presented, along with detailed results relating to how different demographic classes of respondents engaged with the instrument. For instance, living with one's partner and living with no children at home were associated with high scores on a scale of similarity between the experimental choice context and one's real-world mobility choices.

Research limitations/implications — The proposed techniques appear promising, though the empirical results must be viewed as indicative only due to the size and coverage of the field data sample.

The extensive increase in power demand has challenged the ability of power systems to deal with small-signal oscillations such as inter-area oscillations, which occur under unseen operating conditions. A wide-area measurement system with a phasor measurement unit (PMU) in the power network enhances the observability of the power grid under a wide range of operating conditions. This paper aims to propose a wide-area power system stabilizer (WAPSS) based on Gaussian quantum particle swarm optimization (GQPSO) using the wide-area signals from a PMU to handle the inter-area oscillations in the system with a higher degree of controllability.

In the design of the wide-area stabilizer, a dead band is introduced to mitigate the influence of ambient signal frequency fluctuations. The location and the input signal of the wide-area stabilizer are selected using the participation factor and controllability index calculations. An improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique, namely, GQPSO, is used to optimize the variables of the WAPSS to move the unstable inter-area modes to a stable region in the s-plane, thereby improving the overall system stability.

The proposed GQPSO-based WAPSS is compared with the PSO-based WAPSS, genetic algorithm-based WAPSS and power system stabilizer. Eigenvalue analysis, time-domain simulation responses and performance index analysis are used to assess performance. The various evaluation techniques show that GQPSO WAPSS has a consistently good performance, with a higher damping ratio, faster convergence with fewer oscillations and a minimum error in the performance index analysis, indicating a more stable system with effective oscillation damping.

This paper proposes an optimally tuned design for the WAPSS with a wide-area input along with a dead-band structure for damping the inter-area oscillations. Tie line power is used as the input to the WAPSS and optimal tuning of the WAPSS is performed using an improved PSO algorithm, known as Gaussian quantum PSO.

In assessing the contribution made by telecommunications in India by the state and civil society to public service, this article aims to identify the state's initial reluctance to recognise telecommunications provision as a basic need as against the robust tradition of public service aligned to the postal services and finds hope in the renewal of public service telecommunications via the Right to Information movement.

This article follows a history of telecommunications approach that is conversant with the political economy tradition. It uses archival sources, personal correspondence, and published information as its primary material.

The findings suggest that public service telecommunication is a relatively “new” concept in the annals of Indian telecommunications and that a de‐regulated environment along with the Right to Information movement holds significant hope for making public service telecommunications a real alternative.

This article provides a reflexive, critical account of public service telecommunications in India and suggests that it can be strengthened by learnings gained from the continual renewal of public service ideals and action by the postal services and a people‐based demand model linked to the Right to Information Movement.

This study aims to understand the influence of R&D intensity and ownership concentration on performance of Indian technology SMEs, at the intersection of “value creation” perspective of corporate governance and country cultural context in innovation.

Cross-sectional data of 264 Indian technology SMEs have been employed to probe the impact of ownership and R&D intensity on market performance of the technology SMEs.

This study does not find support of individual influence of R&D intensity on SME performance. The authors find support for the “value creation” hypothesis of corporate governance in Indian technology SME context. This study finds that interaction of promoter's ownership concentration and R&D intensity has a positive influence on the performance of Indian technology SMEs.

This study has deployed cross-sectional data. Future studies can examine the “value creation” hypothesis based on panel data for a long-run understanding. Ownership can be further segregated into different categories of ownership in future studies.

This study underscores on distinct necessity in the concentrated ownership in the context of Indian technology SMEs. The findings of the study may encourage policymakers to focus on the “value creation” of the technology SMEs than “value protection.”

This study aims to understand the market value of R&D practice of SMEs. The findings of this study establish that R&D intensity individually may not have any significant influence on SME performance. R&D intensity coupled with concentrated ownership can significantly increase SME performance. Thus, this study identifies factors that can help in SME innovation and growth options. Additionally, this study advocates for the fact concentrated ownership in technology SMEs of India by establishing the link with SME performance.