Prospective pilot study on the incidence of infections caused by peripheral venous catheters at a general surgical ward.

Device-associated infections comprise a significant proportion of all nosocomial infections. In this prospective, observational pilot study the incidence of infections in 89 peripheral venous catheters (PVCs) was documented on a general surgical ward employing an infection data sheet developed by the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald in adherence to CDC standards for infections. 16 of 20 infections were documented during a four-week time period when medical students in the first four months of their practical year performed their compulsory rotation on the general surgical ward.

Rapid prediction of multi-dimensional NMR data sets.

We present a computational environment for Fast Analysis of multidimensional NMR DAta Sets (FANDAS) that allows assembling multidimensional data sets from a variety of input parameters and facilitates comparing and modifying such "in silico" data sets during the various stages of the NMR data analysis. The input parameters can vary from (partial) NMR assignments directly obtained from experiments to values retrieved from in silico prediction programs. The resulting predicted data sets enable a rapid evaluation of sample labeling in light of spectral resolution and structural content, using standard NMR software such as Sparky.