JOURNAL:  Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
AUTHORS:   Alasdair M. Barr, William J. Panenka, G. William MacEwan, Allen E. Thornton, Donna J. Lang, William G. Honer and Tania Lecomte


SUMMARY:  The psychostimulant methamphetamine (MA) is a highly addictive drug that has surged in popularity over the last decade in North America. A burgeoning number of clandestine drug laboratories has led to dramatic increases in MA production, which have resulted in significant public health, legal and environmental problems. In the present review, we provide a comprehensive description of the factors relating to MA use and the major health-related consequences, with an emphasis on MA-induced psychosis. It is hoped that increased knowledge of MA abuse will provide the basis for future treatment strategies.

CULTURAL REFERENCE: Need for Speed is a series of racing video games published by Electronic Arts. The series released its first title, The Need for Speed in 1994. It is a film released in 2014 based on the series of video games. The film stars Aaron Paul as street racer.

JOURNAL:  Advances in Complex Systems
AUTHORS: Andrzej Nowak, Wieslaw Bartkowski, Katarzyna Samson, Agnieszka Rychwalska, Marta Kacprzyk, Magda Roszczynska-Kurasinska and Magdalena Jagielska

SUMMARY:  The speed of social and technological changes is constantly increasing. Change is a pre-requisite for economic development but this increasing speed carries additional costs that may largely affect the ability of the social systems to adopt them. While the financial costs constitute a limit to adoption, the psychological and social costs may also profoundly change the adoption potential. In an agent-based model of a heterogeneous population of adopters we explore the consequences of increasing the speed of novelty introduction on their satisfaction and the degree to which new trends may permeate the system.

CULTURAL REFERENCE: Need for Speed is a series of racing video games published by Electronic Arts. The series released its first title, The Need for Speed in 1994. It is a film released in 2014 based on the series of video games. The film stars Aaron Paul as street racer.