Large-scale data loss and data privacy compliance breaches continue to make headline news, highlighting the need for stringent data protection policies, especially when personal or commercially sensitive information is at stake. While regulations and legislation exist to address these issues, how organisations can best tailor their compliance approaches to their own operational circumstances has remained an open question. The focus of this book is on operationalising a truly risk-based approach to data protection and compliance, beyond just emphasis on regulatory frameworks and legalistic compliance.

Managers and executives know the importance of integrating business strategy and IT strategy for competitive advantage. Via numerous real-world examples and anecdotes, this book investigates myriad issues regarding the application of business strategy and IT strategy. Specifically, it focuses on how business/IT alignment is assessed, the factors that aid or hinder its integration, a maturity assessment and way in which managers can implement strategic information systems within their firms using various constructs and models. Strategic Information Technology: Opportunities for Competitive Advantage provides managers with an understanding and appreciation for the development of business and information technologies strategies to yield competitive advantage.

Formed of papers originating from the 9th International Conference on Safety and Security Engineering, this book highlights research and industrial developments in the theoretical and practical aspects of safety and security engineering. Safety and Security Engineering, due to its special nature, is an interdisciplinary area of research and application that brings together, in a systematic way, many disciplines of engineering from the traditional to the most technologically advanced. This volume covers topics such as crisis management, security engineering, natural disasters and emergencies, terrorism, IT security, man-made hazards, risk management, control, protection and mitigation issues. The meeting aims to attract papers in all related fields, in addition to those listed under the Conference Topics, as well as case studies describing practical experiences. Due to the multitude and variety of topics included, the list is only indicative of the themes of the expected papers. Authors are encouraged to submit abstracts in all areas of Safety and Security, with particular attention to integrated and interdisciplinary aspects. Specific themes include: Critical infrastructure; Cyber security/E security; Disaster and emergency management; Earthquakes and natural hazards; Human factors and risk perception; Modelling and experiments; Risk analysis and assessment; Safety engineering; Risk reduction in transport system in emergency conditions.

This book presents contextualised and detailed research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Global South. It examines the key challenges of these emerging and least industrialised countries while proffering holistic and comprehensive solutions. The book then explains how AI, as part of these broad interventions, can drive Global South economies to achieve inclusive development and shared prosperity. The book outlines how countries can swiftly prepare to adopt and develop AI across all sectors. It presents novel national, regional, and continental AI adoption, development, and implementation frameworks.

Features:

• Broad non-AI interventions and prescriptions to address Global South challenges
• A comprehensive but accessible introduction to AI concepts, technology, infrastructure, systems, and innovations such as AlphaFold, ChatGPT-4, and DeepSeek-R1
• An overview of AI-related technologies such as quantum computing, battery energy storage systems, 3D printing, nanotechnology, IoT, and blockchain
• How to prepare emerging economies to unlock the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks
• Discussion of specific AI applications in 11 critical Global South sectors
• Details of 11 sector case studies of AI adoption in the Global South and Global North
• Ten country case studies: Sharing emergent AI experiences in the Global South
• AI adoption framework: vision, strategy, policy, governance, legislation/regulation, and implementation matrix
• A framework for democratising and decolonising AI
• The value proposition for AI research, development, and ownership in the Global South
• A case for the participation of the Global South in the AI semiconductor industry

Virtual Collaborative Writing in the Workplace: Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies and Processes investigates the use of computer-mediated communication technologies, including everything from instant messaging and e-mail to interaction on Web pages, Webcasts, and graphical user interfaces, to facilitate effective interdependent collaboration in writing projects. This book focuses on the type of writing that typically occurs in virtual workplace settings, such as academic institutions, private and for-profit industry, and the government, in which the purpose of the writing is to convey information or argue a position rather than to socialise or entertain. What makes this book stand out from others like it is the fact that it was written collaboratively through the use of Wikis and Google Docs and that it provides a meta-analysis of the development process of the book from conception to completion.

The Avatar Faculty creatively examines the parallels between spiritual and digital activities to explore the roles that symbolic second selves—avatars—can play in our lives. The use of avatars can allow for what anthropologists call ecstasy, from the Greek ekstasis, meaning "standing outside oneself." The archaic techniques of promoting spiritual ecstasy, which remain central to religious healing traditions around the world, now also have contemporary analogues in virtual worlds found on the internet. In this innovative book, Jeffrey G. Snodgrass argues that avatars allow for the ecstatic projection of consciousness into alternate realities, potentially providing both the spiritually possessed and gamers access to superior secondary identities with elevated social standing. Even if only temporary, self-transformations of these kinds can help reduce psychosocial stress and positively improve health and well-being.