Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the behavioral intention to adopt payments banks services by Indian underbanked and unbanked population. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model has assimilated factors from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) along with perceived credibility. The factors of UTAUT include performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitation of conditions and social influence. Apart from testing the direct relationships of the model constructs with the behavioral intention to adopt payments banks services, the study has also explored mediating and moderating effects of certain constructs. The research model has been empirically tested using 660 responses from a field survey conducted in New Delhi – the capital city of India – by using the structured equation modeling (SEM) technique. The target respondents of the study are small businessmen and migrant laborers who are either underbanked or unbanked. Findings The findings of the study reveal that the model is able to explain 67.5 per cent of the variance in behavioral intention. The results indicate that all the factors are direct determinants of behavioral intention. Perceived credibility is found to be the strongest influencer of behavioral intention. The findings also indicate that perceived credibility partially mediates the relationships between “social influence and behavioral intention” and “performance expectancy and behavioral intention.” The relationship between performance expectancy and behavioral intention is also found to be moderated by facilitating conditions and effort expectancy. Research limitations/implications As this study is based on a convenience sample of respondents of only one city of India, this could negatively reflect on the generalizability of results across other cities. Moreover, the study has only focused on the perceptions of small businessmen and migrant laborers. This raises concerns regarding the applicability of the results for other segments of the current population that have different demographic characteristics (e.g. occupation, income, education level and technology experience). Modifying the conceptual model presented in this research to include “experience” and “age” as moderators can also be worth considering in future. Although this study has extended the UTAUT to include perceived credibility, the results of the explanatory power of the model indicate that there is still room for improvement. Therefore, including other constructs, e.g. hedonic motivation, perceived risks and trialability, could be a fruitful path forward. Future studies may also examine the factors influencing the actual use behavior of payments banks, rather than just behavioral intention. Practical implications The study looks forward to providing the payments banks service providers in India with suitable guidelines for effectively implementing and designing payments banks services. Specifically, the results of this study have provided clues for Indian payments banks service providers about the crucial role of perceived credibility in influencing the behavioral intention to adopt payments banks. Therefore, service providers have to initially be sure that payments banks are able to conduct financial transactions efficiently, securely and within less time, along with the availability of information required by customers to successfully use the services. Service providers should enhance customer confidence and trust by providing secure and reliable services. They should also emphasize on the positive safety measures of the payments banks during any marketing campaign rather than just creating brand awareness. Originality/value The study represents a substantial contribution to the existing knowledge regarding mobile payment channels in particular and technology acceptance area in general. In fact, this study presents a worthwhile direction by examining payments banks services, which, so far, have not been well evaluated in the Indian context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is an early attempt toward a holistic and integrative approach to explain adoption of payments banks in India. Although prior studies have addressed mobile banking and mobile payment adoption, the strength of this research lies in combining the UTAUT constructs with perceived credibility. This is evidenced by the high explanatory power (67.5 per cent) of the research model adopted in this study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked unprecedented public health and social measures (PHSM) by national and local governments, including border restrictions, school closures, mandatory facemask use and stay at home orders. Quantifying the effectiveness of these interventions in reducing disease transmission is key to rational policy making in response to the current and future pandemics. In order to estimate the effectiveness of these interventions, detailed descriptions of their timelines, scale and scope are needed. The Health Intervention Tracking for COVID-19 (HIT-COVID) is a curated and standardized global database that catalogues the implementation and relaxation of COVID-19 related PHSM. With a team of over 200 volunteer contributors, we assembled policy timelines for a range of key PHSM aimed at reducing COVID-19 risk for the national and first administrative levels (e.g. provinces and states) globally, including details such as the degree of implementation and targeted populations. We continue to maintain and adapt this database to the changing COVID-19 landscape so it can serve as a resource for researchers and policymakers alike.

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Operating liquidity and financial leverage are two significant aspects of overall firm management. This paper analyses the impact of financial leverage on various measures of operating liquidity. Further, we examine the effect of both operating liquidity and financial leverage on the firm's performance. We employ a sample of 151 Indian machinery firms and 10 years annual financial standalone data from 2004-05 to 2012-13 was collected using CMIE Prowess database. Ratio analysis and Panel data regression model have been applied to study the relationship. It was found that financial leverage has significant impact on different measures of operating liquidity. Further operating liquidity and financial leverage have considerable impact on performance of the Indian machinery firms. This study provides insights on interrelation between operation management and financial management and their impact on firm's performance.

Abstract-Mobile (cellular) networks enable innovation, but can also stifle it and lead to user frustration when network performance falls below expectations. As mobile networks become the predominant method of Internet access, developer, research, network operator, and regulatory communities have taken an increased interest in measuring end-to-end mobile network performance to, among other goals, minimize negative impact on application responsiveness. In this survey we examine current approaches to end-to-end mobile network performance measurement, diagnosis, and application prototyping. We compare available tools and their shortcomings with respect to the needs of researchers, developers, regulators, and the public. We intend for this survey to provide a comprehensive view of currently active efforts and some auspicious directions for future work in mobile network measurement and mobile application performance evaluation.

Background Because of the rarity of desmoplastic small round cell tumors (DSRCT), there is a lack of data describing patterns of care and survival for these patients. Using a national tumor registry, the current study sought to describe patterns of care and clinical outcomes for patients with DSCRT. Methods Data from the National Cancer Database were used to identify 491 patients aged 18 years or older diagnosed with DSRCT between 2004 and 2014. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with overall survival (OS). Results Among all patients, 41.2% (n = 200), underwent surgical resection of their primary tumor, chemotherapy was administered to 86.5% (n = 415) of patients, while radiation therapy was administered to 13.0% (n = 63) of patients. Over the study, 69.7% of patients died with a median OS of 25.9 months (interquartile range [IQR]: 22.7‐27.5); 1‐, 3‐, and 5‐year OS were 78.6%, 32.3%, and 18.4%, respectively. On multivariable analysis, stage IV disease (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 2.12, 95% CI: 1.41‐3.18), receipt of surgery (HR = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.50‐0.91), chemotherapy (HR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.35‐0.78), or radiation therapy (HR = 0.55, 95% CI: 0.33‐0.92) were independently associated with OS. Conclusions Although receipt of multimodality treatment may lead to improved survival, further research and clinical trials are required to establish best practices for the care of DSRCT.

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