20 Years Life Technologies at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland Valais: FH – HES

The Faculty and Institute of Life Technologies of the HES-SO Valais offer attractive educational and R&D programmes in three areas: analytical chemistry, biotechnology and food technology. The Faculty offers a three-year Bachelor degree programme with three specializations as well as follow-on Masters programmes. The strategic research priorities of the Institute are quite diverse: the search for analytical solutions for chemical, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food applications; isolation and characterisation of active substances extracted from aromatic and medicinal plants; development and optimisation of biotechnological processes for the production of therapeutic biomolecules; development and production of novel foodstuffs; food quality and food safety. The Faculty and the Institute employ a highly qualified staff of over 50 people to carry out these tasks. A large range of facilities is available to cover the needs of education, research and other activities

Fünf Jahre Bachelor FH in der Schweiz

Copyright ©Swiss Chemical Society: CHIMIA, 64(7/8), 617-620, 2010, https://doi.org/10.2533/chimia.2010.617Berufsbefähigung und Praxisorientierung, das sind die Merkmale der Chemiker und Chemikerinnen, die an den vier Fachhochschulen in der Schweiz zu Bachelors of Science ausgebildet werden. Die Ausbildung zum Chemiker ist an den Hochschulen unterschiedlich ausgeprägt und eingebettet. Gemeinsam ist den Programmen die Vermittlung einer soliden theoretischen und praktischen Ausbildung, die auf eine gute Arbeitsmarktfähigkeit der Studierenden abzielt. Die Leichtigkeit, mit der die Absolvierenden Stellen finden, weist darauf hin, dass die erworbenen Kompetenzen von der Industrie nachgefragt werden

Ligand Effects on the Rate and Mechanism of Solvent Exchange at Rhodium(III) and Iridium(III)

The rate constants and activation parameters for solvent exchange for a series of RhIII and IrIII complexes of the form [M(H2O)6]3+ (M = Rh or Ir) and [Cp*M(S)3]2+ (M = Rh or Ir, and S = H2O, MeCN, or Me2SO) have been determined by NMR spectroscopy as a function of free-solvent concentration, temperature, and pressure, and the mechanisms for the respective exchange processes have been inferred

Materials science at Swiss universities of applied sciences

Copyright ©Swiss Chemical Society: CHIMIA, Volume 73, Numbers 7-8, August 2019, pp. 645-655(11)In the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences, several research institutes are involved in Materials Science, with different approaches and applications fields. A few examples of recent projects from different groups of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) are given

Fünf Jahre Bachelor FH in der Schweiz

Berufsbefähigung und Praxisorientierung, das sind die Merkmale der Chemiker und Chemikerinnen, die an den vier Fachhochschulen in der Schweiz zu Bachelors of Science ausgebildet werden. Die Ausbildung zum Chemiker ist an den Hochschulen unterschiedlich ausgeprägt und eingebettet. Gemeinsam ist den Programmen die Vermittlung einer soliden theoretischen und praktischen Ausbildung, die auf eine gute Arbeitsmarktfähigkeit der Studierenden abzielt. Die Leichtigkeit, mit der die Absolvierenden Stellen finden, weist darauf hin, dass die erworbenen Kompetenzen von der Industrie nachgefragt werden.Offrir les qualifications professionnelles requises et garantir un enseignement axé sur la pratique sont les principales caractéristiques de la formation de Bachelor of Science proposée dans les quatre hautes écoles spécialisées de Suisse. La formation de chimiste présente des orientations qui varient d’une haute école à l’autre et est intégrée différemment dans l’offre de cours. La transmission de connaissances théoriques et pratiques solides garantissant aux étudiants les qualifications professionnelles nécessaires sur le marché du travail constitue le point commun des quatre filières. La facilité avec laquelle ceux-ci trouvent un emploi prouve que les compétences acquises dans les hautes écoles spécialisées sont utiles à l’industrie

Asset management as a digital platform industry: a global financial network perspective

While contemporary technological disruption is increasingly conceptualized in terms of the logic and paradoxes of the digital platform economy, discussions of “FinTech” have only engaged to a limited extent with these debates—particularly from an economic geographic standpoint. Here we fill this gap by proposing an adapted Global Financial Network (GFN) framework for conceptualizing the organizational and geographic logic of the digital platform economy in finance, and applying it to examine the impact of the digital platform model on asset management. As we will show, asset management is being profoundly disrupted by what we dub digital asset management platforms—or DAMPs—which encompass services including index fund and ETF provision, robo-advising, and analytics and trading support. Like other digital platforms, DAMPs do not so much leverage technology to enhance their competitiveness within markets, as to radically restructure the market itself. Also, like other platforms, their rise has produced a winner-take-all paradox of centralization through democratization that defies predictions of technology-enabled industry decentralization. However, the logic and implications of the rise of DAMPs diverges, in other respects, from non-financial digital platforms, as finance has long possessed an informational intensity and regulatory and organizational fluidity characteristic of the digital platform economy. Consequently, the digital platform model has mostly developed endogenously in asset management through incremental innovation by major financial firms—in a process that has reinforced the position of leading incumbent asset management centers, and above all New York—rather than being introduced from the outside by upstart technology firms and clusters

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Dihydrotestosterone Ameliorates Degeneration in Muscle, Axons and Motoneurons and Improves Motor Function in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Model Mice

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a lethal disease characterized by a progressive loss of motoneurons. The clinical symptoms include skeletal muscle weakness and atrophy, which impairs motor performance and eventually leads to respiratory failure. We tested whether dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which has both anabolic effects on muscle and neuroprotective effects on axons and motoneurons, can ameliorate clinical symptoms in ALS. A silastic tube containing DHT crystals was implanted subcutaneously in SOD1-G93A mice at early symptomatic age when decreases in body weight and grip-strength were observed as compared to wild-type mice. DHT-treated SOD1-G93A mice demonstrated ameliorated muscle atrophy and increased body weight, which was associated with stronger grip-strength. DHT treatment increased the expression of insulin-like growth factor-1 in muscle, which can exert myotrophic as well as neurotrophic effects through retrograde transport. DHT treatment attenuated neuromuscular junction denervation, and axonal and motoneuron loss. DHT-treated SOD1-G93A mice demonstrated improvement in motor behavior as assessed by rota-rod and gait analyses, and an increased lifespan. Application of DHT is a relatively simple and non-invasive procedure, which may be translated into therapy to improve the quality of life for ALS patients

Structure evolution and dielectric behavior of polystyrene-capped barium titanate nanoparticles

Polystyrene-capped barium titanate (BaTiO3) nanoparticles with sizes of 11 nm and 27 nm were prepared using amphiphilic star-like diblock copolymer templates. The crystal structure evolution of these nanoparticles over a wide temperature range (10-428 K) was investigated by powder X-ray diffraction. The Rietveld refinement indicates that the abrupt structural transitions observed in micron-sized powders become broad as particle size is reduced to a few tens of nanometers. The orthorhombic phase (Amm2) is observed in the range of 10-388 K, coexisting with the rhombohedral phase (R3c) at lower temperatures and with the tetragonal phase (P4mm) at higher temperatures. At room temperature (300 K), polystyrene-capped BaTiO3 nanoparticles, both 11 and 27 nm sizes, primarily adopt the tetragonal phase, transforming to the cubic phase ( Pm3m) at 398 K during heating. The phase evolution of the nanoparticles correlates well with their dielectric behavior. With the Landauer-Bruggeman effective approximation, the dielectric properties at room temperature for the BaTiO3 core were calculated and the results are in agreement with the size effect of BaTiO3 nanocrystals