S Prakash

Leishmaniasis is a syndrome caused by the protozoan parasites which is transmitted by the bite of the female sand fly. The disease has three major forms: Cutaneous, Mucocutaneous and most fatal Visceral Leishmaniasis in affected individuals. Additionally, some of the VL patients develop stigmatizing post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis characterized by skin lesions in which parasites can be identified, who is otherwise fully recovered from VL. On the Indian Sub-continent, a joint VL elimination initiative has been launched in 2005 by the Governments of India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The main strategy to achieve this is entrusted to the public sector primary health care services that should ensure early diagnosis and treatment of the disease. However, the current therapeutic options for treatment remains limited and treatment of patients are complicated due to the paucity of effective drugs or due to the toxicity caused by the available anti-leishmanial drugs used. Other limitations are the duration of treatment and expenditure on hospitalisation. Besides this, drug resistance in clinical settings has further aggravated the problem to the next level. Therefore, there is a need for cost-effective therapeutic alternatives for an excellent leishmanicidal potential that can be conferred to the target cells with no side effects/toxicity to normal cells, higher efficacy and minimal cost. Nanoparticles, due to their outstanding physical and chemical properties, have shown effective environmental, biological and biomedical applications and could be helpful in the detection and elimination of vector-based infectious diseases. In this chapter, we have summarized the current challenges in diagnosis and treatment of leishmaniasis and discussed the wide range of nanomaterials showing promising applications in leishmaniasis.

Porter and Kramer (Harv Bus Rev 84(12):78–92, 2006; Harv Bus Rev 89(1/2), 62–77, 2011) introduced ‘shared value’ as a ‘new conception of capitalism,’ claiming it is a powerful driver of economic growth and reconciliation between business and society. The idea has generated strong interest in business and academia; however, its theoretical precepts have not been rigorously assessed. In this paper, we provide a systematic and thorough analysis of shared value, focusing on its ontological and epistemological properties. Our review highlights that ‘shared value’ has spread into the language of multiple disciplines, but that its current conceptualization is vague, and it presents important discrepancies in the way it is defined and operationalized, such that it is more of a buzzword than a substantive concept. It also overlaps with many other (related) concepts and lacks empirical grounding. We offer recommendations for defining and measuring the concept, take a step toward disentangling it from related concepts, and identify relevant theories and research methods that would facilitate extending the knowledge frontier on shared value.

Game trees (or extensive-form games) were first defined by von Neumann and Morgenstern in 1944. In this paper we examine the use of game trees for representing Bayesian decision problems. We propose a method for solving game trees using local computation. This method is a special case of a method due to Wilson for computing equilibria in 2-person games. Game trees differ from decision trees in the representations of information constraints and uncertainty. We compare the game tree representation and solution technique with other techniques for decision analysis such as decision trees, influence diagrams, and valuation networks.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021) philosophizes on how in the current technologically saturated culture, the gradual evolution of the empathetic humanoids has, on one hand, problematized our normative notions of cognitive and affective categories, and on the other, has triggered an order of emotional uncanniness due to our reliance on hyperreal real objects for receiving solace and companionship. The novel may be conceived to be a commentary on the emerging discourse in the domain of cognitive and emotional computing that aspires to transform the inner life and social relationships of the human community. The novelty of the paper lies in its ability to showcase how Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) creates a rupture in the existing research and literary narrative by critiquing the theoretical underpinnings of emotional computing that optimistically foresees a future where simulated empathetic minds will be able to decode the complexities of the human emotions. It discusses how literature turns into an apt tool to reflect on the limitations of the programmed machines to decode the elusiveness of the human mind that defies the one-to-one correlation between words, multiple connotations, and their underlying emotions. Through the lenses of the fictional narrative, the paper foregrounds how the concept of the social robot designed to offer empathy, care, and companionship turns into a failed project. The paper draws on critical perspectives from disposability theory, posthuman affect, and immaterial bodies to foreground the noncodified feature of affective experientialities that emerge as a result of the interface between humans and nonanimate beings.