https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mic_K3LCz9g

"Looking ahead is difficult, also because the overall economic development is uncertain. Nevertheless, we are confident of achieving the goals we have set."

At the 116th Annual General Meeting held at the company's headquarters in Brügg/Biel, Dr. Erica Dubach Spiegler, who has extensive experience in the field of digitization, was newly elected to the Board of Directors. For reasons of age, Stephan Neher, a member of the Board of Directors since 1988, did not stand for re-election. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Rolf U. Sutter, and all other current members of the Board of Directors were re-elected for a term of office of one year until the next Annual General Meeting, in accordance with the Articles of Association.

First quarter on target

Biella Group's sales development in the first quarter of 2016 was in line with expectations, according to the company. Lower sales in Switzerland were offset by better than planned business development abroad, it adds. In particular, expectations were exceeded in Germany, by far the Group's largest sales market. In addition to implementing further efficiency improvements, the Group is working intensively on marketing new, innovative service offerings.

Biella SimplyFind launched

Biella SimplyFind was launched in the first quarter of 2016. Under the motto "Finding with a system," easy-to-use and secure solutions - bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds - are being developed here. The first offerings, Biella SimplyFind Archive and Scan, have met with a good response on the market and will be supplemented by further digital modules in the course of the year. In addition, Biella will soon be launching its own webshop for individualized products using the new Web2Print technology.

Target 2016: further increase in EBIT margin

In view of the difficult industry environment and not least because of the pioneering nature of the new digital offerings, a precise forecast for the full year 2016 would be very challenging. However, Biella is pursuing the goal of further improving the EBIT margin in 2016.

More information: www.biellagroup.com  

Three new members have been elected to the National Examination Commission for Higher Vocational Education and Training in Computer Science and Mediamatics. The board of ICT-Berufsbildung Schweiz elected Stefan Bryner, Head of Human Resources OIZ of the city of Zurich, Sibylle Hug, HR Business Partner at IT SBB, Daniel Jäggli, CEO Leuchter IT Solutions AG and Lukas Ruggli, Head of Human Resources at IT Post, to the commission, which is responsible for the federal vocational and higher professional examinations.

The examination board is responsible for the content, quality and level of requirements of the federal certificate examinations in application development, systems and network technology, business informatics and mediamatics, as well as the federal diploma examination for computer scientists (ICT Manager with federal diploma). The federal diploma examination "ICT Security Expert" is expected to be added to the range of courses from 2018.

The following individuals were re-elected or newly elected to the Audit Commission as of March 2016:

New: Stefan Bryner; Head of Human Resources OIZ, City of Zurich

New: Sibylle Hug; HR Business Partner IT, SBB

New: Daniel Jäggli; CEO, Leuchter IT Solutions AG

New: Lukas Ruggli; Head of Human Resources IT, Swiss Post

Previously: Jörg Aebischer; Managing Director ICT-Berufsbildung Schweiz

Previously: Philipp Engel; BEELEGAL, Attorney at Law

Previously: Gabriela Keller; designated CEO, Ergon Informatik AG

Previously: Matteo Marini; Head of Run IT, B-Source SA

Previous: Jean-Philippe Trabichet; Professeure, Haute École Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale

ICT-Berufsbildung Schweiz is the national organization of the working world for the rapidly growing professional field of information and communication technology (ICT). The association is responsible for all federal professional qualifications in information technology and mediamatics and is the examining body for federal certificates and diplomas in application development, systems engineering, business informatics and mediamatics, as well as the federal diploma for ICT managers and the planned diploma ICT Security Expert.

http://www.ict-berufsbildung.ch

Nanomaterials keep our mattresses clean, putty cracks in our teeth, keep the egg in the pan from burning, and make our food more durable. A few billionths of a meter in size, the particles are incorporated into a wide range of consumer products. To date, however, it is largely unknown how these materials affect the environment and in what quantities and forms they are present. "While there are numerous laboratory studies that have examined the effect of nanomaterials on human and animal cells. So far, however, it has not been possible to detect the very small quantities in environmental samples," says Dr. Yvonne Kohl of the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT in Sulzbach, Saarland.

1 millionth milligram per liter

This is exactly the goal of the project NanoEnvironment. As a first major milestone, the interdisciplinary team of eco- and human toxicologists, physicists, chemists and biologists has succeeded in developing a method that detects nanomaterials in different environmental samples, such as river water, animal tissue or human urine and blood, in a concentration range of nanograms per liter (ppb - parts per billion). This corresponds to half a sugar cube in the water volume of 1,000 sports swimming pools.

With the new method, it is possible to detect not only many nanomaterials in clear liquids, as was previously the case, but also very few particles in complex mixtures of substances, such as human blood or soil samples. The approach is based on field-flow fractionation (FFF), which makes it possible to separate complex, heterogeneous mixtures of liquids and particles into their individual components, sorting the solid components according to their size. This is achieved by the interaction of a controlled liquid flow and a physical separation field acting perpendicularly on the flowing suspension.

For detection to succeed, the environmental samples must be prepared accordingly. The IBMT team from the Bioprocesses & Bioanalytics department made river water, human urine and fish tissue fit for the FFF instrument. "We prepare the samples with special enzymes. During this process, however, the nanomaterials must not be destroyed or altered. Only then can we detect the real quantities and forms of nanomaterials in the environment," Kohl explains.

The scientists are experts in particular when it comes to holding, processing and storing human tissue samples. Since January 2012, the IBMT has been operating the "Federal Environmental Specimen Bank (UPB) - Human Specimens" on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). Every year, the research institute collects blood and urine samples from 120 volunteers at four locations in Germany. The individual samples are a valuable tool for tracking temporal trends in human exposure to pollutants. "For the NanoUmwelt project, additional blood and urine were donated, cold-stored at the IBMT and used to develop the new detection method," says Dr. Dominik Lermen, head of the Biomonitoring & Cryobanks working group at the IBMT. After approval by the UBA, some of the human samples from the UPB archive could also be examined using the new method.

New cell culture models developed

Nanomaterials can enter the environment through a variety of pathways, including wastewater, and are thought to be taken up by humans and animals through biological barriers, such as the lungs or intestines. The project team is recreating these processes in the Petri dish to understand how nanomaterials are transported across these barriers. "This is a very complex process involving a wide variety of cells and tissue layers," Kohl explains.

The researchers recreate the processes as realistically as possible. To do this, for example, they measure the electrical fluxes within the barriers to determine their functionality or use artificial clouds of mist to simulate the interaction of the lungs with the air. In the first phase of the NanoEnvironment project, the IBMT team was able to develop various cell culture models for the transport of nanoparticles across biological barriers. In the process, the IBMT collaborated with the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME, which developed a model from pluripotent stem cells to study cardiotoxicity. The Swiss project partner Empa realized a placental barrier model to study nanomaterial transport between mother and child.

In the next step, the cooperation partners want to use the method to measure concentrations of nanoparticles in various environmental samples and analyze the values determined in order to better assess the behavior of nanomaterials in the environment and their potential danger to humans, animals and the environment. "Our next goal is to detect even smaller amounts of particles," Kohl says. The scientists plan to use special filters to remove interfering elements from the environmental samples and to develop new processing techniques.

(Fraunhofer IBMT)

One third of the world's population obtains water for daily needs and agriculture from groundwater supplies. In developing countries in particular, groundwater is often less contaminated than water from lakes and rivers, or even the only source available. However, about 10 percent of wells and boreholes are contaminated with arsenic or fluoride. These trace substances are mostly of natural origin and are washed out of rocks and sediments by the water.

Taken in high doses or over a long period of time, arsenic and fluoride have fatal effects on health. Too much fluoride causes tooth damage, growth disorders and bone deformities. Chronic exposure to arsenic discolors the skin and causes it to become very calloused. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are also among the possible consequences

A new method to locate the danger

In 2008, a research group at Eawag presented a newly developed method for producing hazard maps for geogenic contaminants in groundwater without the need to review all wells and groundwater supplies in a region (Amini et al, 2008a, 2008 b). Such maps were a first in the field of groundwater research.

The researchers were able to demonstrate in various countries that their model calculations are accurate. These include Bangladesh, Vietnam and Sumatra (Winkel, Nature Geosci. 1, 2008), but especially China, where Eawag, in collaboration with the China Medical University Shenyang, was able to show that some 20 million people live in areas at risk. In addition, several new risk areas were discovered as part of this research (Rodriguez-Lado, Science 23, 2013).

Michael Berg, Head of the Water Resources & Drinking Water department at Eawag, explains the principle of the method: "We have developed a statistical model based on data from geology, topography and soil properties. These are supplemented by other data sets - for example, climate or satellite data - and combined and calibrated with the available arsenic and fluoride measurements of an area."

Facilitate local research

The compilation of arsenic and fluoride hazard maps is complex and often almost impossible for the responsible authorities in developing countries, where technical and financial resources are scarce. With the financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Eawag team, in collaboration with Ernst Basler + Partner and Hydrosolutions, has now developed an online solution that is available free of charge to all interested parties: The Groundwater Assessment Platform GAP (www.gapmaps.org). "This gives experts from all over the world the opportunity to visualize their own data with relatively little effort and to create their own risk maps," explains Michael Berg. "This makes it easier to determine which wells should be investigated as a priority. This means that the available funds and forces can be used in a more targeted way."

Rick Johnston, a staff member at the World Health Organization (WHO), also sees a significant role for the new platform: "For countries with an arsenic or fluoride problem, GAP can become an important monitoring tool in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development." GAP is also an exciting tool for the WHO and Unicef, the UN Children's Fund, because both organizations are very intensively involved in the fight against arsenic and fluoride in drinking water.

Knowledge exchange for the elimination of toxic substances

GAP is more than a web-based risk mapping database. "The new platform enables faster and simplified location of geogenic contaminants. This is a milestone in protecting the public," says Michael Berg. "However, just as important as early detection is the development of practical methods to remove toxins from the water."

Some such procedures are listed in the "Geogenic Contamination Handbook", which was also prepared by Eawag and is available at www.gapmaps.org (as a PDF and as a wiki that can be expanded by all users). Water researcher Michael Berg comments: "Despite numerous advances, there is still a great need for research. Especially in the development of purification technologies that are easy and safe to use." For this reason, he says, the GAP platform was also designed from the outset as a forum for knowledge exchange. "The faster and the better the existing knowledge is disseminated, the better," says Berg. The new Internet portal now enables networking on a global scale.

(eawag)

The 4th industrial revolution, digital transformation, disruptive economy and the positive and negative effects on the economy, jobs and society were the focus of the two-day meeting with influential international thought leaders as well as entrepreneurs, start-ups, CEOs, researchers and consultants from the digital and analog world. For futurist Gerd Leonhard, we are in an exponential technological change, data is the new oil and science fiction is becoming science fact. In five years, a computer will have the capacity of the human brain, predicted Leonhard. And the world will change more in the next 20 years than in the last 300.

Today, everything is evaluated automatically, ratings are now everywhere, and "privacy is dead," explained the successful American author Erik Qualman at the Media Roundtable. This automatically gives companies and individuals a digital footprint or a digital stamp. All data is collected and assessed, from economic and personal behavior to health status and economic performance. Qualman considers the combination of offline and online to be eminent, and it is of great importance to actively influence the digital stamp oneself and not to let it be determined from the outside. In doing so, one must concentrate on what is important and simple. Break / Through CEO Reto Schnyder also made it clear that the indirect effects of digitalization are greater than the direct ones, e.g. in the case of autonomous mobility on the real estate and labor market. For the German crime writer Veit Etzold, in the digital world with ever more information and ever shorter attention spans, those who come up with a good story will still be heard, understood and bought.

Big Data and Consumer 2.0

Communications specialist Julius Van de Laar explained his strategy for US President Barack Obama's successful 2012 election campaign, which was based on Big Data and tools for integrated campaign management. "No matter what you do, you absolutely have to stay authentic, even on social media," Van de Laar concluded his presentation.

Science fiction is reality today, also declared digital disruption and transformation consultant Kamales Lardi. She presented the "disruptive consumer 2.0″ and essential technological trends. The consumer has changed significantly with technological innovations, she said. The question now is, to what extent have producers, companies also transformed? Industries are being drawn into a digital storm, and companies and startups that weather this storm are acting in a consumer-oriented manner and have a major impact on future economic development. Brain researcher Pascal Kaufmann did not believe that independent artificial intelligence could be realized in the near future. However, he propagated so-called corporate cyborgs (blending of man and machine) that could be developed in Switzerland through research on artificial intelligence. The engine of the digital revolution is the human brain, Kaufmann explained.

Mastering the digital future

Andreas Krebs, Chairman MERZ Pharmaceuticals, pointed out that at the moment no CEO of the big pharmaceutical companies could convincingly say that his company had a digital strategy. He considered it of great importance that pharmaceutical companies guide patients through the digital world and bring them to the doctor via this path. In two times three business tracks, various companies demonstrated their successful approaches to mastering the digital future, and in the plenary Ali Mahlodji managed a convincing presentation of his motivation to turn a childhood idea into a success story with the storytelling platform whatchado.com. Behavioral economist Andreas Staub confronted the participants with non-rational decisions. He found that social preferences remain pronounced, and digital anonymity is not relevant. People therefore remain people online as well.

DEF kicked off on Tuesday with a highly forthcoming Carsten Maschmeyer. In an entertaining overview of fintech and the state of the banking world, the German investor anticipated a breathtaking technological development with young bold and innovative entrepreneurs. For traditional banks, Maschmeyer sees the danger of being passed to the bottom in the face of innovative developments outside of licensed financial services. As an investor, he focuses on creative product makers, who are more important to him than the product and their solutions for successful sales and marketing, said the dazzling entrepreneur.

www.digitaleconomicforum.ch

From Tuesday, lettuces from hydroponics will be available at Migros for the first time. These grow in greenhouses - but in water instead of soil.

This cultivation method has ecological advantages: For one thing, it requires eight times less land, 70% less water and 60% less fertilizer than conventional lettuce cultivation to produce the same amount of lettuce. In addition, the lettuce can be grown all year round, which means that less lettuce has to be imported during the cold season. This saves gray energy.

Although the greenhouse must be heated, it is operated in a CO2-neutral manner: The heating energy is waste heat from the neighboring waste incineration plant.

Study confirms eco-balance

A comparative life cycle assessment study was commissioned from the Swiss climate protection foundation "myclimate" for the plant. The study gave the hydro production plant excellent marks. "This plant is an excellent example of sustainable production. On a relatively small area, production is very resource-efficient and thus has a much lower impact on the environment and climate," says Kai Landwehr, media spokesman for "myclimate", summarizing the results of the study*.

Answers are provided by a study conducted by the management consulting firm Detecon in cooperation with the digital association Bitkom. For this purpose, more than 200 leading IT and business decision-makers from large and medium-sized companies in German-speaking countries were surveyed. The empirical study determines how IT in these countries is likely to develop over the next ten years. On this basis, it provides a precise organizational target picture for a digital and agile company and makes concrete recommendations for action for operational implementation.

Digitization is a matter for the boss

More than 50 percent of the companies surveyed are already taking the topics of digitization and the Internet of Things (IoT) into account in the development and implementation of their business strategy, while only around 20 percent are not planning anything in this regard. The resulting relevance is also reflected in the responsibility: The vast majority continue to see overall responsibility for planning and implementing IoT projects with their CEO, and only partial responsibility with the CIO. The study thus contradicts the often postulated trend toward a company's own CDO (Chief Digital Officer).

More agile structures needed in the company

The study also shows that while over 80 percent of respondents consider agile structures to be important or very important for the digitization of a company, at the same time less than 25 percent of their own company is already working in agile structures. For the future, only a share of between 25 and 50 percent is expected here. "This is all the more surprising as a stronger change in the direction of agile principles would have been expected, as companies will have to operate in two "modes of operation" in the future: They must continue to provide reliable performance in their core business, but also to develop customer-centric

Innovative strength and speed as we know them from start-ups. And that is possible only with agile structures," says Carsten Glohr, Managing Partner at Detecon and expert for digitization strategies, evaluating the results of the study. Companies should therefore establish agility not only in the processes but also consistently in the organizational structure by forming networked and cross-departmental digital teams, advises Detecon.

Higher demand for qualified employees

According to the study participants, the IoT is not destroying jobs; on the contrary. The study shows: On the contrary, automation and digitization are generating considerable growth in the company's workforce. This is forecast at up to ten percent annually. In particular, there is an urgent need for "digital competence," i.e., personnel who specialize in digitization. "Entirely new job descriptions have emerged, such as 'big data analyst' or 'social media manager,'" explains Carsten Glohr. "The fact that almost 88 percent of companies want to meet the challenge of digitization primarily by building up skills in-house, i.e., by hiring permanent staff, supports this thesis."

Change in all business areas

Unsurprisingly, companies expect the strongest impact of digitization to come from their IT departments. Business units such as service, logistics and production, supported by cloud models and software as a service, are increasingly claiming sovereignty over IT for strategic reasons. According to the study, this development can currently be observed in the marketing environment with regard to product IT, for example. Nevertheless, the respondents are consistently in favor of a separate IT unit within the company. "IT will move closer to all other business units, but will not merge with them," summarizes Glohr. "That's why it's necessary for IT departments to develop a similarly deep understanding of the company's business and process requirements as already exists in the business departments."

Source: www.detecon.com/IoT

Here's how to get the most out of your next pay negotiation:

1. classify your salary expectations

Salary is often still a taboo subject. Many professionals do not know how much their colleagues in similar positions earn or have only a rough idea. However, knowing the usual salaries in your field and industry is essential for salary negotiations. In Switzerland, most industry associations or the regularly published Lohnbuch (Salary Book), published by the Department of Economic Affairs of the Canton of Zurich, provide information with average salaries broken down by professional experience, industry, occupational group, region, company size and qualifications.

2. choose the right contact person

As a rule, your direct supervisor is the appropriate contact person when it comes to salary negotiations. He or she is in the best position to assess your performance. The HR department usually only acts in the background here, for example by giving your supervisor a budget within which the increase may take place.

3. determine a suitable time

One in three professionals who actively ask for a raise does so once a year, and just under one in five does so every two years. Choosing the right time can determine the outcome of your negotiation attempt. Phases in which your company or industry is in a poor economic position are unfavorable. Company parties are an absolute no-no. Also unprofessional: engaging the boss in a salary discussion in the elevator or in the office corridor.

4. prepare the appointment specifically

Good performance is the best argument for a salary increase. Therefore, prepare the salary interview in a targeted manner. Before the actual salary negotiation, ask your boss for a feedback meeting in which you talk about your contribution to the company's success.

5. pay attention to formulations

In the next step, you arrange the date for the actual salary negotiation with a little distance. Here it is more clever not to call a spade a spade at first. Ask for a discussion about a specific project or a conversation about the strategic orientation of your position. The lead-in to the negotiation is provided by the results of the feedback conversation, e.g.: "In our last conversation, you emphasized that you were very satisfied with my performance on project XY. That's why I would like to talk to you today about my further development. This certainly includes my salary."

Source: StepStone, - red - 

With the following five tips, companies can effectively protect themselves against data loss by internal perpetrators:

1. introduce differentiated access rights

In order to protect sensitive data, it is necessary to provide employees from different departments with the appropriate access rights. This fulfills the security objective of the need-to-know principle: If documents and data records are not immediately needed for a task, the respective employee is not granted access. Various levels of access can be used to create "Chinese walls" within the company that prevent the exchange of information between different departments. In this way, the extent of data loss can be limited.

2. use high-security two-factor authentication

To keep the risk as low as possible, a two-step authentication is recommended as a further step. To access the system, for example, the user not only has to enter his password, but also receives an SMS TAN - a transaction number that is only valid for one session. In this way, inside perpetrators cannot gain access to sensitive information and data despite a stolen password.

3. shield information

Additional protection is provided by shielding data: Providers, for example, should not have access to files and documents under any circumstances. The rights of administrators can also be restricted to information that is relevant to their activities.

4. implement information rights management

Information rights management technologies can be used to control sensitive documents and protect them from unauthorized downloading. This effectively maintains control over documents even when users are authorized to access the information. Dynamically embedded watermarks also prevent users from photographing the screen. Thus, the data remains in its protected environment and does not fall into the hands of third parties or bystanders.

5. record history in an audit-proof manner

To prevent data theft by an insider or to uncover it after the fact, it makes sense to record all processes in an audit-proof history. This enables a consistently transparent and traceable flow of information.

Gabriel Gabriel, Managing Director of Brainloop Switzerland, on the growing threat from inside perpetrators: "In recent years, we have observed that data breaches are increasingly attributable to insiders. Companies often make it very easy for their own employees to obtain and disseminate sensitive data due to a lack of security standards and precautions. In the event of a data loss, however, it is not only the company's image that suffers. Rather, the financial and legal consequences can also threaten the economic existence. Brainloop therefore advocates compliance with the above security standards to mitigate the risk for companies."

Source: Brainloop 

Caroline Magerl-Studer, Bianca Braun, Carl Elsener, Plenum (Pictures: Fabrice Müller)

How can customers help a company to succeed? In his presentation, Steffen Müller, head of the "Customer Relationship" course at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), showed the mechanisms, stumbling blocks and opportunities of customer feedback systems. These basically serve to record and understand the needs of customers. Instead of surveying customers once a year, Steffen Müller recommended collecting customer opinions promptly after the purchase of a product or service. Ideally, the surveys should be conducted by neutral persons in order to obtain opinions that are as objective as possible. "Only a small proportion of customers complain if they are not satisfied. 20 to 60 percent remain inactive. It is important to pick up this group of customers and turn them into fans of the company," said Steffen Müller. The collected values form the basis for internal training and improvement measures. But that's not all: "Companies do well to let their customers know what improvement measures have been taken," emphasized the ZHAW lecturer. Customer feedback is also a matter for the boss, which is why Steffen Müller recommended that managing directors also conduct regular complaint discussions with customers. "This has a strong impact on customers and employees."

Never leave the planet without ...

Time and again, the company Victorinox, based in Ibach SZ, receives letters from customers who report on their experiences with the famous Swiss Army Knives. This includes, for example, the episode of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who described in his book how he had to use a "Swiss Army Knife" to open the door to the Russian Mir space station and then wrote: "Never leave the planet without a Swiss Army Knife." According to CEO Carl Elsener, the knife is the linchpin for all Victorinox innovations.

Success goes to the corporate foundation

The developments of the company from a small family business to a globally active company with 2,000 employees and a turnover of 500 million Swiss francs in 2015 are impressive. 60,000 pocket knives leave the factory in Ibach every day, and 13 million pieces are produced annually. 90 percent of these are exported all over the world. The central pillars of the company are employees, customers, production and brand, as Carl Elsener informed. At the same time, the company lives values such as credibility, openness, trust, respect, gratitude, modesty, courage and responsibility. The patron described the establishment of the company foundation in 2000 as an important milestone for the company. Business success is invested in the foundation for the benefit of sustainable and independent company development. 90 percent of Victorinox's share capital belongs to the corporate foundation.

Plea for family businesses

Are family businesses less successful than listed public companies? No, thinks Bianca Braun, member of the board of maxon motor ag in Sachseln OW, a leading global supplier of high-precision drives and systems. Her book "Erfolgreich jeitseits der Börse - Was führende Familienunternehmen auszeichnen" (Successful beyond the stock market - what distinguishes leading family companies) deals with the family business and its success factors. According to two recent studies, the performance of family businesses is better than that of publicly traded companies, Bianca Braun said in her presentation. "Customer value" instead of "shareholder value" is the motto. Financial independence, but also the strong identification of management and employees with the company are important factors that speak for family businesses. maxon motor sells four million motors and drives in 15,000 different variants per year. 2,200 employees work for the company, around 1,000 of them in the canton of Obwalden. An important milestone was maxon motor's participation in the first Mars mission in 1997. maxon motor has been involved in all Mars missions since then with its drives. According to Bianca Braun, the latest innovation is the "smallest, lightest and most powerful e-bike motor." "We develop new products from our gut feeling and fight for their success."

Tradition and high-tech

High-tech and top products are also the focus of M. Opitz & Co. AG in St. Gallen also relies on high-tech and top products. The company, which is present in 40 countries and on five continents, employs 60 people and manufactures high-quality cosmetic and pharmaceutical products. Despite all the modernity, the values of the company's founder Emilia Altherr, such as gratitude, honesty or politeness, are still upheld, as her present granddaughter and company owner Caroline Magerl-Studer reported. The success story of this SME business began in 1938 with a hormone hand cream that was sold door to door. Today, the Mila d'Opiz brand is number 1 in Iran, for example, and many global brands are developed and produced in St. Gallen. Ten percent of sales is invested in the company's own research department. Mila d'Opiz's latest products include "Skin Whisperer" - a cream with five stem cells and what Caroline Magerl-Studer calls a "revolutionary" raw material, for which the company won the award for best innovative cosmetic product in 2015. "We believe in our employees and innovations. And we live our values," the speaker emphasized.

www.kmuswiss.ch

Text and images: Fabrice Müller, journalistenbuero.ch

Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard signed the Paris Agreement on climate protection on behalf of Switzerland at an official ceremony at UN headquarters in New York on April 22. The DETEC leader praised it as a "solid foundation for innovation and new technologies toward a low-emission economy." Now, she said, the agreement must be implemented swiftly.

Never before has the world been so united on climate protection, emphasized Federal Councillor Leuthard. The Paris Agreement obliges all countries to take measures to limit global warming, she said. "With more renewable energy, more CO2-neutral transport and with more energy efficiency, we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," the DETEC leader said.

Create jobs

In addition, investments in low-carbon sectors are effective contributions to job creation in a sustainably growing economy, Leuthard said. The Paris Agreement must now be implemented quickly by each country. There is no need to wait for the agreement to come into force in order to take concrete measures.

Switzerland is pursuing the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. To this end, the Federal Council wants to revise the CO2 Act and strengthen proven instruments such as the CO2 tax on fuels. Ratification of the Paris Agreement requires the approval of parliament.

174 countries and the European Union have now signed the agreement; 15 countries have also already proposed ratification elements. UN Secretary-General Ba Ki Moon called the ceremony a historic moment: "Never before has such a large number of countries signed an international agreement in a single day," he said.

Batteries that never need to be replaced, researchers at the University of California, Irvine designed. Specifically, it involves a lithium-ion battery with nanowires that currently undergoes around 200,000 charging cycles without losing efficiency thanks to a special coating.

Plexiglass type gel

Nanowires are extremely conductive and offer a good way to transfer and store electrons. But at the same time, they are also particularly delicate and do not withstand the process of constant charging and discharging very well. In previous experiments, the nanowires stretched and became brittle after some time. At UCI, the nanowires made of gold were previously coated with manganese dioxide and then embedded in a Plexiglas-like gel - with great success.

"The coated electrode keeps its shape much better, which makes it a more reliable solution," enthuses PhD student Mya Le Thai. "This research shows that a nanowire-based battery electrode can be durable and we can make such batteries a reality."

No loss of power

"Mya was playing around and she coated this whole thing with a very thin layer of gel and started charging and discharging the battery," co-author Reginald Penner says. "In the process, she found that she could do hundreds of thousands of charge cycles with no loss of power, just by using this gel."

The last batteries with nanowires inside broke after only 5,000 to 7,000 charging cycles. The researchers think that the gel makes the metal oxide in the battery soft and pliable, ensuring flexibility that prevents it from becoming brittle.

(press release)