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Existing treatments for alcohol and substance dependence are of limited efficacy and acceptability to users. Since such dependence is associated with high co‐morbidity and mortality rates, alternative treatments should be urgently evaluated. Ibogaine, a hallucinogenic alkaloid, derived from Tabernanthe Iboga, a plant unique to the rainforests of West Africa, is already associated with a large underground treatment scene. This paper aims to explore this issue.

The paper draws on the comparative ethnography of magicoreligious Iboga use in West Africa alongside contemporary accounts of ibogaine addiction treatment, and contextualizes these within the neurobiology and anthropology of addiction and treatment provision.

While the exotic otherness of ibogaine no doubt contributes to interest and hope, the impact of the medicine, not just on craving and withdrawal, but on the perceived acquisition of psycho‐spiritual insight, may validate such anticipation. Both West African and Western Ibogaine use are explored in the context of oppression, resistance and a re‐asserted morality. Successful ibogaine treatments appear to respect but transform existing subcultural meanings and identities, while promoting realism and psychosocial integration.

Existing treatment programmes might learn from the inherent critique of conventional treatment enacted in ibogaine treatment scenes.

Lack of mainstream investment may partly reflect the cultural positioning of drug‐users (and of this drug‐class) yet the scale of underground ibogaine use demands urgent funding for research to optimise safety and further understanding/development.

An understanding of how addicts seeking ibogaine are culturally positioned, and position themselves, illuminates the specific attraction of ibogaine treatment for this group, and has important implications for practice, drug policy and treatment development.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) based prediction model via integration with data envelopment analysis (DEA) to provide the means of predicting incremental performance goals. The findings confirm the usefulness of the herein developed prediction approach, based on the results of analyses of time series data from the smartphone industry.

A two-stage hybrid model was developed, incorporating sequential measurement and prediction capability. In the first stage, a Chames, Cooper, and Rhodes DEA model is the preprocessor, generating efficiency scores (ES) of decision-making units (DMUs). In the second or follow-on stage, the ANN prediction module utilizes knowledge variables and ES to predict the change in performance needed for a desired level of improvement.

This combined approach effectively captured the information contained in the industry’s turbulent characteristics, and subsequently demonstrated an adaptive prediction capability. The back propagating neural network successfully predicted the incremental performance targets of DMUs, which translated the desired improvement levels into actionable performance goals, e.g., revenue and operating income.

This paper presents an incremental prediction approach that supports better practice benchmarking. This study differentiates itself from previous research by introducing an adaptive prediction method which generates relevant quantity outputs based upon desired improvement levels. The proposed modeling approach integrates performance measurement with a prediction framework and advances benchmarking practices to enable better performance prediction.

The facilitation of digital spaces, in lieu of urban material spaces, for social interaction through computer gaming and other play activities has become particularly important to children in the wake of the 2020–2021 Coronavirus pandemic, to combat the negative effects of physical lockdown restrictions. Pre-pandemic, autistic children living in urban areas may already experience exclusion from physical society and may consequently already be isolated from current imposed normative societal groupings due to their neuro-difference, sensory sensitivities to the surrounding environment, communication comprehension, and social understanding. However, an exploration into personally and independently chosen play activities by autistic youth has identified how such isolation can be overcome and positive social experiences created. A particular play practice, cosplay, and related companionable fandom activities are providing and creating digital spaces for autistic youth to be social. Character play is also enabling the use of limited physical spaces within urban contexts and as such combatting anxiety from sensory overstimulation. Thematic analysis of online content together with semi-structured interviews with autistic young people have indicated a positive connection between cosplay practice, increased social activity, and reduced levels of sensory overload, anxiety, and depression, with early findings suggesting transferrable elements that could inform more effective support for others with social, environmental, and communication challenges or restrictions.

The New Zealand Digital Library project aims to develop the underlying technology for digital libraries and make it available for others to use to create their own collections. We have built a large number of demonstration collections. Because our policy is to avoid manual processing of material, full‐text indexing and — to a lesser degree — automatically created browsing structures provide the primary point of access to the material. As well as conventional textual collections, we are experimenting with collections of musical and audio material. This article describes the library structure and present and planned collections, and summarises our experiences in the project.

The purpose of this viewpoint is to provide a perspective on political and military leadership in a current geo‐political situation, with some reflections on how this relates to other public services.

This paper makes use of historical and political sources in order to reflect on current aspects of leadership in public services.

Throughout history, Afghanistan has often played a pivotal role between the superpowers of any particular era. In the ancient world, the Greeks of Alexander the Great's Macedonian hegemony: Persians; Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successors; and a host of other groups have vied for control, often leaving ethnic traces within a complex tribal and ethnic makeup in modern Afghanistan. In the nineteenth century it was part of the “Great Game” between Great Britain and Russia; in the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries, there have been both Soviet and NATO incursions; and now, Afghanistan retains a pivotal role between India and Pakistan, China, Iran and former Soviet Republics. NATO is engaged in a task of “declared nation building”, and also to ostensibly make the streets of Western cities safe. But is this not just a “great game” but a “grand illusion”? Afghanistan has often been internally divided, but has never welcomed foreign domination, an experience which tends to bring Afghans together against the invader. Foreign troops, however well intentioned, propping up an unpopular central government, usually leads to resentment and the opposite of what was intended.

This paper links a number of perspectives to assist in the understanding of how and when strategies follow the wrong path.

‘WORK STUDY specialists of Europe—from both the Six and the Seven— are getting together in London this year regardless of what happens to other meetings,’ said Mr. R. M. Currie, C.B.E., President of the European Work Study Federation, in a statement on the forthcoming Congress of the Federation which is to take place at Church House, Westminster, from May 20 to 23.

Although the telephone constitutes an important aspect of reference service in many libraries, it is frequently taken for granted or overlooked by both patrons and professional staff alike. Often, it is seen by librarians as merely an adjunct service, or even something of a nuisance. In this view, telephone reference is considered secondary and subordinate to serving on‐site patrons.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.