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Adoption of digital technology at different levels of economic activity is an important indicator of development. Countries are adopting digital technology at business and government levels to increase efficiency and accountability of service delivery to appropriate user groups. Many countries are using digital technology in banking, education, and many other sectors and recasting the relationship among customers, workers, and employers. The digital transformation progressively changes productivity across all sectors and industries. The empirical investigation shows that mainly the role of per capita income (state of living) and supply-side factors explain cross-country variations in Digital Adoption Index (DAI) in business using a static panel data model with fixed effect (FE) approach for 169 countries over the period 2014–2016. In this context, this study makes an attempt to understand the state of digital adoption in business across 169 countries in 2016 using World Bank data. The empirical results state that only major variable like labour force are positively and statistically significant with DAI across the countries. Although there are caveats that the International Monetary Fund has made about the digital economy, they state that we should think carefully about how to devise policies that will allow us to fully exploit the digital revolution’s benefits while minimizing job dislocation.

Purpose – Freeway networks are designed to higher standards and are safer infrastructures as compared to other road types, if properly designed. On the other hand, these facilities are driven at very high speeds and therefore speed and design consistency are essential for achieving safe infrastructure designs. This chapter describes the criteria for speed and design consistency and looks at new tools and criteria for improving freeway safety in new and in existing infrastructures.

Methodology – This chapter describes the criteria to evaluate if there are speed, design and human factors inconsistencies, as well as potential solutions for tackling local deficiencies and speeding issues. As one of the critical issues in freeway safety is represented by run-off-road crashes, a specific section in the chapter is devoted to newly developed design and assessment tools for improving roadside safety. The potential implications of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) technologies on freeways design and management are also presented.

Findings and Social Implications – The important crash reduction trends observed in the decade 2001–2010 are now slowing down and new actions are required to be coupled with more traditional design checks. The full implementation of cooperative ITS systems is expected to have a very important impact on road safety, but in the short term several safety improvements can be realised: section speed enforcement techniques and high-friction wearing courses have been proven to be extremely effective, as have perceptual measures accounting for human factors principles.

As the size of the population is growing and the capacity of the planet Earth is limited, human beings are searching for sustainable and technology-enabled solutions to support society, ecology and economy. One of the solutions has been developing smart sustainable cities. Smart sustainable cities are cities as systems, where their infrastructure, different subsystems and different functional domains are virtually connected to the information and communication technologies (ICT) and internet via sensors and devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), to collect and process real-time Big Data and make efficient, effective and sustainable solutions for a democratic and liveable city for its various stakeholders. This chapter explores the concepts and practices of sustainable smart cities across the globe and explores the use of technologies such as IoT, Blockchain technology and Cloud computing, etc. their challenges and then presents a view on business models for sustainable smart cities.

Purpose – The policy approach of multifunctionality – that agriculture has benefits beyond the production of food and fiber – has been debated within global trade negotiations. Little is known about the perceptions of agriculture's multifunctional nature at the local level. These perceptions may be particularly pertinent in rural locations undergoing rapid transformations of the agricultural system, economic base, and related land uses. This chapter describes research conducted to examine the perceptions of agriculture's impact on local communities and the policy choices needed to support agriculture's multifunctionality.

Methodology – Six focus groups were conducted in Pennsylvania, USA. Counties were selected to represent three differentiated rural spaces (contested, clientelist, preserved), in which production and consumption interests claims vie for control of rural land. Participants represented both production and consumption interests, and described their perceptions of local agriculture and policy preferences.

Findings – Production and consumption interests across the study sites expressed views consonant with global discussions, in that agriculture provides significant positive impacts and few negative. However, locally specific issues related to taxes, land use planning, and farmland preservation dominated discussion. Participants supported a mix of policy tools (voluntary, regulatory, educational), but gave little credence to federal programs.

Research limitations/implications – Policy initiatives to support agricultural multifunctionality need to be sensitive to local conditions and create an enabling environment to allow multiple stakeholders opportunities to identify issues and preferred policy mechanisms.

Originality – Previous research has identified multifunctionality concepts at the global level; this chapter localizes multifunctionality, and examines potential hurdles to implementation.

We analyze the impact of monetary policy instruments on interbank lending rates and retail bank lending in China using an extended version of the model developed by Porter and Xu (2009). Unlike the central banks of advanced economies, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) uses changes in the required reserve ratios and open market operations to influence liquidity in money markets and adjusts the regulated deposit and lending rates and loan targets to intervene in the retail deposit and lending market. These interventions prevent the interbank lending rate from signaling monetary policy stance and transmitting the effect of policy to the growth of bank loans. Since the global financial crisis, the PBoC’s monetary policy has gone through a full cycle. The combining effects of using different policy instruments simultaneously within a short period of time were quite effective in bringing the credit and money growth in line with its desired level. Most recently steps have been taken to speed up the interest rate liberalization. Effective July 2013, the PBoC removed the floors of the benchmark lending rates.

Since Bram Stoker’s tale of Count Dracula struck a chord with a sensation-hungry public, vampires have remained a popular part of horror in cinema. Since the turn of the millennium, vampires have now become a mainstay of horror TV. Programmes like True Blood (2008–2014) and The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017) have propelled the vampire into the home.

This chapter will investigate the problematic, but often sympathetic relationship between vampires and humans in The Vampire Diaries.

Over one million individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will be entering adulthood and attempting to cultivate fulfilling, meaningful life experiences. These young adults with ASD represent Generation A. The workplace will be a major element in cultivating fulfilling lives for Generation A. Social interaction is an integral component for functioning within most postsecondary and occupational settings. It is necessary to understand the interaction between autistic adults and organizations to understand potential social and behavioral deficits. The workplace is inherently a social place. Understanding both formal and informal social information in the workplace may be critical to successful job performance. Fit, particularly person–organization fit, is used to address this social nature of the workplace. Understanding this interaction helps provide a means for crafting both individual and organizational interventions which support autistic adults in the workplace. This chapter provides an analysis of interventions that support those with ASD in the workplace. It is proposed that these interventions will help create a more supportive work environment for those with ASD. As important, it is proposed that the accommodations for those with ASD are reasonable for any organization seeking to improve both satisfaction and performance for all its employees. By addressing these issues, organizations have the potential to create a more satisfying workplace for all workers, not just those in Generation A.