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The process of liberalization and globalization of Indian economy has brought new opportunities and challenges in all areas of human endeavor including education. Educational institutions have to adopt new strategies to make best use of the opportunities and counter the challenges. One of these challenges is how to assess the performance of academic programs based on multiple criteria. Keeping this in view, this paper attempts to evaluate the performance efficiencies of 19 academic departments of IIT Roorkee (India) through data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique. The technique has been used to assess the performance of academic institutions in a number of countries like USA, UK, Australia, etc. But we are using it first time in Indian context to the best of our knowledge. Applying DEA models, we calculate technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies and identify the reference sets for inefficient departments. Input and output projections are also suggested for inefficient departments to reach the frontier. Overall performance, research performance and teaching performance are assessed separately using sensitivity analysis. (Contains 8 tables.)

Background & objectives: Pipistrellus ceylonicus bat species is widely distributed in South Asia, with additional populations recorded in China and Southeast Asia. Bats are the natural reservoir hosts for a number of emerging zoonotic diseases. Attempts to isolate bat-borne viruses in various terrestrial mammalian cell lines have sometimes been unsuccessful. The bat cell lines are useful in isolation and propagation of many of the viruses harboured by bats. New stable bat cell lines are needed to help such investigations and to assist in the study of bat immunology and virus-host interactions. In this study we made an attempt to develop a cell line from P ceylonicus bats. Methods: An effort was made to establish cell line from embryo of P ceylonicus species of bat after seeding to Dulbecco's modified eagle medium (DNLEM) supplemented with 10 per cent foetal bovine serum; a primary cell line was established and designated as NIV-BtEPC. Mitochondrial DNA profile analysis was done using cyt-b and ND-i gene sequences from the cell line. Phylogenetic tree was constructed using neighbour-joining algorithm for cyt-b.and ND-i genes with 1000-bootstrap replicates. Results: NIV-BtEPC cell line was susceptible to Chandipura (CHPV) and novel adenovirus (BtAdv- RLM) isolated from Rousettus leschenaulti from India but did not support multiplication of a number of Bunyaviruses, Alphaviruses and Flavivirus. This might be useful for isolation of a range of viruses and investigation of unknown aetiological agents. Interpretation & conclusions: In this study, a new bat cell line was developed from P ceylonicus. This cell line was successfully tested for the susceptibility to Chandipura and BtAdv-RLM virus isolated from bats. The approach developed and optimised in this study maybe applicable to the other species of bats and this established cell line can be used to facilitate virus isolation and basic research into virus-host interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]