Experience of Patients With Heroin Addiction Receiving Methadone Maintenance Treatment in Community Settings in Taiwan.

Background: The World Health Organization has identified methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) as the most effective treatment for reducing patient dependence on heroin. In Taiwan, MMT has been used as a heroin harm reduction strategy since 2006. Although the effectiveness of MMT in reducing heroin addiction has been examined quantitatively in prison samples, little attention has been paid to the experiences and perspectives of patients with heroin addiction receiving MMT.

Spectroscopic study on the zinc-contaminated soils for the determination of zinc speciation.

The purpose of this paper reported the zinc species in the highly contaminated soils from metallurgical area around Erh-Jen River in the southern of Taiwan. FTIR and XPS were used to investigate the zinc species in the contaminated soils. Through a FTIR analysis, appreciable of zinc bound by organic matter was found and their bonding structure consisted of antisymmetric and symmetric stretchings, Zn-HSsym and Zn-HSasym.