A sufficient chemical water purification treatment system should consist of ion exchange and reverse osmosis. Attention has to be paid to the suitability of materials in contact with the water and of the chemicals used, for example regenerants or corrosion inhibitors. From the microbiological point of view, a safety UV disinfection step in the water-treatment system is favourable. To avoid bacterial recontamination periodic cleaning and disinfecting of the water-treatment and distribution systems, as well as the dialysis machine are essential. There is the need for complete guidelines regarding dialysis water that include all relevant chemical and microbiological parameters. Based on this standard, periodic examination of the water after each treatment step has to be performed.

No abstract

This study determined a profile of current Internet users in parasitology, their use patterns on the Internet for parasitologic purposes, and the Web sites they would recommend. In a European survey, 689 parasitologically engaged scientists were asked to fill out a questionnaire about Internet access, current problems, current and future use, and which Web sites they would recommend as well as about the use of e-mail. In all, 153 (22.2%) of the interviewees returned the questionnaire. Only one participant had no access to the Internet. Time expenditure was considered the main problem involved in use of the Internet. The Internet was mainly used for e-mail (96.1%); for literature research (93.5%); for reading of electronic journals (51.6%); and for gathering of information, e.g., about institutes and colleagues (58.2%) and about congresses (49.7%). In the future, 71.9% of the respondents would like to read electronic journals more often and 49.7% would like to use the web more intensively for acquisition of information about congresses, universities, and institutions. Requests for the future included an easier application of the browser software (33%) and a shorter response time (47.7%). The survey demonstrates that the Internet has assumed a definite place in the lives of researchers in the field of parasitology. Survey responses indicate a need for electronic journals. In our opinion, universities and parasitology societies should be urged to publish journals electronically on the Web. To diminish current problems involved in the finding of relevant information on the Internet, we strongly recommend careful reading of the instructions regarding the search engines used. Web pages with clear structures, small file sizes, precise HTML (hypertext markup language) key-word editing, and page titles would facilitate more accurate discovery of specific sites. In addition, there seems to be a need for regular publication of reviewed parasitology-link collections.