This book presents the 2020 Digital Platform Economy Index (DPE Index). The DPE Index integrates two separate but related literatures on ecosystems, namely, the digital ecosystem and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This new framework situates digital entrepreneurship within the broader context of users, platforms, and institutions, such that two biotic entities (users and agents) actuate individual agency, and two abiotic components (digital infrastructure and digital platforms) form the external environment. The DPE Index framework includes 12 pillars that integrate the digital and the entrepreneurship ecosystems. Here, the authors report on the DPE Index, the four sub-indices, and the 12 pillar values for 116 countries as well as provide a cluster analysis based on the 12 pillars.

Self-Trapped Excitons discusses the structure and evolution of the self-trapped exciton (STE) in a wide range of materials. It includes a comprehensive review of experiments and extensive tables of data. Emphasis is given throughout to the unity of the basic physics underlying various manifestations of self-trapping, with the theory being developed from a localized, atomistic perspective. The topics treated in detail in relation to STE relaxation include spontaneous symmetry breaking, lattice defect formation, radiation damage, and electronic sputtering.

Economic development in Africa in the age of globalization is written for use at the university level in economic development, political economy, agricultural economics, poverty and health economics. The text provides basis for poverty in Africa then defines poverty and provides the determinants of poverty. The first part describes how agricultural development is crucial to alleviation of poverty. The text provides relevant economic theories that claim to define economic development and critically examines their applicability on alleviation of poverty in Africa. The text then provides two mathematical models that illustrate the determinants of poverty based on prices of commodities and an alternative model that is used to represent the maximization of rural household income which results in minimization of poverty. In the conclusion, the text emphasizes how HIV/AIDS has evolved from an health issue to a developmental crises resulting in perpetuated poverty in Africa.