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Swiss companies have been more financially resilient through the past years of crisis than their neighbors in Germany and Austria. A high equity ratio, an advanced degree of digitalization and uncomplicated support measures from the state have ensured that Swiss companies are highly resilient to crises.

Following the success of the Bern solar wind sail on the Apollo Moon missions of the U.S. space agency NASA in the 1960s, the Physics Institute at the University of Bern is to return to the Moon as early as 2027 with the LIMS mass spectrometer as part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payoad A highly sensitive instrument for measurements on the lunar surface LIMS is a powerful instrument for the examination of a wide variety of samples which meets scientific lunar objectives.

Sparkling water on the go at the touch of a button and entirely plastic-free. The new water bottle by ETH spin-off bottleplus makes this possible. by Nicole Davidson and Karin Kelly Like many other people, former ETH students Christian Käser and Linus Lingg love to drink sparkling water. There are dozens of convenient and well-designed reusable bottles for transporting tap water.

Through an innovative project in Sri Lanka, an EPFL researcher and a Sri Lankan researcher have demonstrated that construction practices in transition economies can operate more efficiently, sustainably and responsibly.

With the start of the Women's World Cup on July 20, the quality of women's football is once again in the spotlight. In this discourse, a new study provides interesting insights: According to the study, men's soccer is only rated significantly better when the gender of the players is clearly identifiable.

People who meditate every day are less likely to avoid negative information. This is a finding in a new study by a research team including researchers from ETH Zurich. Smart decision makers gather all the pertinent information, and weigh the pros and cons dispassionately. This also includes gathering information that could prove unsettling or unpleasant.

After a decline in 2021, the Swiss FinTech sector grew again in 2022. Insights into the dynamic financial technology market are provided by the results of this year's FinTech study by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. After a decline of around five percent in 2021, the development of the Swiss FinTech sector returned to its usual direction.

One in ten people in Switzerland already uses a smartphone bank. Although such neo-banks have so far only been used as secondary and third-party banks, they could also challenge the established banks' status as principal bankers in the future. This is the result of a study by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts on the Swiss retail banking market.

Threat or salvation? The way in which people judge globalization depends on whether it benefits them or not. Our own experiences are crucial here, and carry more weight than forecasts of potential gains. This has been shown in an experiment by researchers at the University of Basel. November 2022 For decades, global political and economic relations have been seen as the secret to greater prosperity, and have therefore been consistently nurtured and intensified.

Returns are an integral part of online retailing. Up to 60 percent of the goods ordered are returned in individual online stores. This causes high costs, as the online retailer survey by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts reveals. An HSLU research team asked online stores how returns can be avoided.

The composite containers developed by AELER, an EPFL startup, deliver better performance across the board: they're stronger, have a bigger payload, are better insulated, allow for enhanced tracking and can help cut carbon emissions.

We aren't very good at predicting what will make us happy. That is one finding from a study by Basel economists.

Simultaneous extreme heat and drought events have consequences in a variety of areas - for example the economy, health and food production. In addition, due to complex socio-economic connections, such extreme events can cause knock-on effects, researchers at the University of Zurich have shown. More systematic risk assessments are needed to make affected regions more resilient.

A team of cryptographers at ETH Zurich conducted extensive testing on the New Zealand-based cloud platform Mega. In doing so, they discovered security holes that would allow the provider to decrypt and manipulate customer data. -Mega - The most trusted, best-protected cloud storage this is how New Zealand-based cloud provider Mega advertises its services.

The Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks of the University of Bern shows that far greater floods are possible in Switzerland than previously assumed. These extreme events underscore the importance of supra-regional emergency planning. A new modeling tool is designed to help manage large floods. Even experts could not have imagined the extent of these floods: Nobody had expected the devastating storms of summer 2021 in Germany.

Researchers at and the Frankfurt School have developed an artificial neural network that can solve challenging control problems. The self-learning system can be used for the optimization of supply chains and production processes as well as for smart grids or traffic control systems. Power cuts, financial network failures and supply chain disruptions are just some of the many of problems typically encountered in complex systems that are very difficult or even impossible to control using existing methods.

When investors shop for mutual funds, they typically focus on performance, which is generally measured by the level of returns (compared to a given benchmark). However, far less is known about value creation, i.e. whether funds, or rather the fund managers, are capable of extracting genuine value from capital markets through their investment decisions.

Questions about finances, savings accounts, or retirement planning: More and more interactions with the bank are taking place via low-threshold, digital communication channels. Almost half of customers can imagine communicating with their bank via chat or chatbot. This is shown by the Conversational Banking study conducted by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

Autonomy is something people cherish. Those who long for independence in their daily working lives may decide to become self-employed. This step toward greater freedom should after all contribute to greater life satisfaction. But does self-employment actually live up to these high expectations? Researchers at the University of Basel have investigated the topic.

Fraudulent practices in food production, especially false claims of geographical origin, cause billions of dollars in economic damage every year. Botanists at the University of Basel have now developed a model that can be used to determine the origin of food in an efficient and low-cost manner. Strawberries from Switzerland or olive oil from Italy can be sold at much higher prices than the same products from other countries.