Extraction procedures for some common drugs in clinical and forensic toxicology.

The results of four extraction systems for 86 drugs are reported. These systems were investigated with the view to obtaining a rapid, reliable, and efficient extraction technique in clinical and forensic toxicology.     

Does the Charter Form Improve the Fiscal Health of Counties?

The public administration literature has paid attention to the relationship between the structure of a government and its ability to provide public services, reflected by its fiscal health. Although this literature has provided a useful understanding of government structures, it has largely ignored the charter form of government. As a formal written document that grants counties the power of self‐governance, a charter frees the county from state control. Included in this freedom is the ability to establish its own tax policies and services. In this article, the effects of charter adoption on fiscal health are tested using Florida county data from 1980 to 2012. The results show that the presence of a charter can improve the fiscal health of a county, which, in turn, can affect overall service provision.     

Embodiment and meaning: moving beyond linguistic imperialism in social semiotics

Social semiotic approaches to multimodality have tended to take language as the model for other modalities even when their professed aim is to move away from it. This kind of “linguistic imperialism” causes problems for theorising the relationship between the two basic semiotic planes of expression and interpretation in different modalities, and how the affordances of the expression plane relate to the meanings of the interpretation plane in each case, as well as in understanding the particular role of language in multimodal texts. The current paper brings together insights from semiotics, sociology of music and philosophy of language, as well as critiques of social semiotic approaches, in order to argue that the missing element in accounts of semiotic systems like language and music is the fundamental role played by embodiment in both these systems.     

The broadcast media: A persuasive institution

At present, the broadcast media (radio and television) because of their pervasive presence in society are a “taken‐for‐granted” part of the social environment, as natural as the air one breathes. The persuasive power of the media is not so readily ascertained by all who watch and listen. Looking at the growth and spread of the media in three highly industrialized countries, namely Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each with its own particular broadcast system, one can see the variety of emphasis on commercial and public broadcasting. Since the media have more in common with interpersonal communication than they have differences, the public is constantly open to media messages, continuously processing as well as responding to information received via media sources. The persuasive effect of these broadcast media in terms of the latent function of commercial messages needs deep and careful analysis.     

Assessing the Needs of Women Recently Released From Prison

The growing number of females incarcerated in the United States suggests that greater importance needs to be placed on preparing practitioners and communities for their eventual release from prison. Female offenders present a unique set of needs, including greater mental health, substance abuse, and medical health problems than their male counterparts. Furthermore, women may possess unique needs at various points of their involvement with the criminal justice system (i.e., before, during, and following a period of incarceration). The current study examines the needs of female offenders while they are reentering the community from the perspective of community service providers who work directly with recently incarcerated women. Survey results reveal that community service providers identify needs in 7 domains. Prevalence and urgency measures provide unique profiles of the needs of female offenders, and respondent reports of the effectiveness of the existing community-based service sector lead to numerous implications and suggestions for future research.