This book focuses on the advancement of digital technologies and epidemiological issues. Modern digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), 5G-based Internet of Things (IoT), and others, are crucial for achieving positive health, social, and economic outcomes when battling the coronavirus pandemic. This book covers these modern digital technologies and their effectiveness in healthcare and socio-economic environments. In addition, with its potential effects in many industries, the use of 5G technology is growing, offering more realtime services than anticipated. This book also intends to showcase 5G-based solutions that can address COVID-19 difficulties in various contexts by concentrating on 5G technology and existing healthcare issues. In order to address current epidemic concerns, this book focuses on the expanding roles of 5G-powered technologies, including artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, big data analytics, cloud computing, and other digital platforms. The context of this book examines numerous technological and healthcare difficulties as well as opportunities for creating AI and 5G-powered healthcare solutions. In addition, it provides a thorough evaluation of 5G-powered emerging applications to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Key Features • Emphasizes the fundamental concepts of Industry 4.0 technologies and their applications in different sectors. • Covers the pandemic and post-pandemic issues, and presents the deadliest pandemics in human history and a chronological history of the COVID-19 pandemic. • Incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies, and presents AI approaches in different facets of healthcare during the pandemic. • Provides insights into several aspects of 5G technology and 5G-powered solutions in handling the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown situations. • Includes the concepts of digital divide and global status of using emerging technologies and the Internet, and their impacts on society. • Highlights the challenges and opportunities of deploying AI and 5G-powered technologies, further research directions, and policy recommendations to the states for the future pandemics.

This edited volume discusses digital transformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread lockdown policies that followed, digital technologies were touted as an effective means towards ensuring continuity and minimal interruption of day-to-day operations for businesses and other institutions. Digital transformation, however, is an inherently complex process and the pressure of short adoption times may further increase complexities for organizations looking to foster digital technologies. This volume comprises original research contributions on theoretical foundations and empirical studies of digital transformations in the pandemic era. Written by academics and practitioners from diverse disciplines and industries, the chapters cover topics such as psychological and technical implications of pandemic situations, the economic, organizational, social, and legal implications of digital adoption, and case studies for digital transformation in different industries. This book will be useful for academics, technology professionals, business policy makers, NGO managers, and governments looking to optimize their digital transformation processes to better prepare their organizations in the presence of pandemic situations.

Governments, businesses, and individuals around the world are thinking about what happens after the COVID-19 pandemic. Can we hope to not only ward off another COVID-like disaster but also eliminate all respiratory diseases, including the flu? Bill Gates, one of our greatest and most effective thinkers and activists, believes the answer is yes. The author of the #1 New York Times best seller How to Avoid a Climate Disaster lays out clearly and convincingly what the world should have learned from COVID-19 and what all of us can do to ward off another catastrophe like it. Relying on the shared knowledge of the world’s foremost experts and on his own experience of combating fatal diseases through the Gates Foundation, Gates first helps us understand the science of infectious diseases. Then he shows us how the nations of the world, working in conjunction with one another and with the private sector, how we can prevent a new pandemic from killing millions of people and devastating the global economy. Here is a clarion call—strong, comprehensive, and of the gravest importance.

At the root of inequality, unemployment, and populism are radical changes in the world economy. Digital technology is allowing talented foreigners to telecommute into our workplaces and compete for service and professional jobs. Instant machine translation is melting language barriers, so the ranks of these "tele-migrants" will soon include almost every educated person in the world. Computing power is dissolving humans' monopoly on thinking, enabling AI-trained computers to compete for many of the same white-collar jobs. The combination of globalization and robotics is creating the globotics upheaval, and it threatens the very foundations of the liberal welfare-state. Richard Baldwin, one of the world's leading globalization experts, argues that the inhuman speed of this transformation threatens to overwhelm our capacity to adapt. From computers in the office to automatic ordering systems in restaurants, we are familiar with the how digital technologies offer convenience while also eliminating jobs. Globotics will disrupt the lives of millions of white-collar workers much faster than automation, industrialization, and globalization disrupted the lives of factory workers in previous centuries. The result will be a backlash. Professional, white-collar, and service workers will agitate for a slowing of the unprecedented pace of disruption, as factory workers have done in years past. Baldwin argues that the globotics upheaval will be countered in the short run by "shelter-ism" - government policies that shelter some service jobs from tele-migrants and thinking computers. In the long run, people will work in more human jobs-activities that require real people to use the uniquely human ability of independent thought-and this will strengthen bonds in local communities. Offering effective strategies such as focusing on the social value of work, The Globotics Upheaval will help people prepare for the oncoming wave of an advanced robotic workforce.

As a movement, transhumanism aims to upgrade the human body through science, constantly pushing back the limits of a person by using cutting-edge technologies to fix the human body and upgrade it beyond its natural abilities. Transhumanism can not only change human habits, but it can also change learning practices. By improving human learning, it improves the human organism beyond natural and biological limits. The Handbook of Research on Learning in the Age of Transhumanism is an essential research publication that discusses global values, norms, and ethics that relate to the diverse needs of learners in the digital world and addresses future priorities and needs for transhumanism. The book will identify and scrutinize the needs of learners in the age of transhumanism and examine best practices for transhumanist leaders in learning. Featuring topics such as cybernetics, pedagogy, and sociology, this book is ideal for educators, trainers, instructional designers, curriculum developers, professionals, researchers, academicians, policymakers, and librarians.

Since the spread of COVID-19, conferences have been canceled, schools have closed, and libraries around the world are facing difficult decisions on which services to offer and how, ranging from minimal restrictions to full closures. Depending on the country, state, or city, a government may have a different approach, sometimes ordering the closure of all institutions, others indicating that it’s business as usual, and others simply leaving decisions up to library directors. All libraries worldwide have been affected, from university libraries to public library systems and national libraries. Throughout these closures, libraries continue to provide services to their communities, which has led to an emerging area of research on library services, new emerging technologies, and the advancements made to libraries during this global health crisis. The Handbook of Research on Library Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic consists of chapters that contain essential library services and emerging research and technology that evolved and/or has continued during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenges and opportunities that have been undertaken as a result. The chapters provide in-depth research, surveys, and information on areas such as remote working, machine learning, data management, and the role of information during COVID-19. This book is a valuable reference tool for practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in the current state of libraries during a pandemic and the future outlook.

ENABLING HEALTHCARE 4.0 for PANDEMICS The book explores the role and scope of AI, machine learning and other current technologies to handle pandemics. In this timely book, the editors explore the current state of practice in Healthcare 4.0 and provide a roadmap for harnessing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Internet of Things, as well as other modern cognitive technologies, to aid in dealing with the various aspects of an emergency pandemic outbreak. There is a need to improvise healthcare systems with the intervention of modern computing and data management platforms to increase the reliability of human processes and life expectancy. There is an urgent need to come up with smart IoT-based systems which can aid in the detection, prevention and cure of these pandemics with more precision. There are a lot of challenges to overcome but this book proposes a new approach to organize the technological warfare for tackling future pandemics. In this book, the reader will find: State-of-the-art technological advancements in pandemic management; AI and ML-based identification and forecasting of pandemic spread; Smart IoT-based ecosystem for pandemic scenario. Audience The book will be used by researchers and practitioners in computer science, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, data scientists, biomedical statisticians, as well as industry professionals in disaster and pandemic management.