Lake Geneva Region Research Articles

Time-first approach for land cover mapping using big Earth observation data time-series in a data cube – a case study from the Lake Geneva region (Switzerland)

ABSTRACT Accurate, consistent, and high-resolution Land Use & Cover (LUC) information is fundamental for effectively monitoring landscape dynamics and better apprehending drivers, pressures, state, and impacts on land systems. Nevertheless, the availability of such national products with high thematic accuracy is still limited and consequently researchers and policymakers are constrained to work with data that do not necessarily reflect on-the-ground realities impending to correctly capture details of landscape features as well as limiting the identification and quantification of drivers and rate of change. Hereafter, we took advantage of the Switzerland’s official LUC statistical sampling survey and dense time-series of Sentinel-2 data, combining them with Machine and Deep Learning methods to produce an accurate and high spatial resolution land cover map over the Lake Geneva region. Findings suggest that time-first approach is a valuable alternative to space-first approaches, accounting for the intra-annual variability of classes, hence improving classification performances. Results demonstrate that Deep Learning methods outperform more traditional Machine Learning ones such as Random Forest, providing more accurate predictions with lower uncertainty. The produced land cover map has a high accuracy, an improved spatial resolution, while at the same time preserving the statistical significance (i.e. class proportion) of the official national dataset. This work paves the way towards the objective to produce a yearly high resolution land cover map of Switzerland and potentially implement a continuous land change monitoring capability. However further work is required to properly address challenges such as the need for increased temporal resolution for LUC information or the quality of training samples.

A tale of clubs, pitches and men. How association football took root in the Lake Geneva region (1860s–1910s)

ABSTRACT ‘Tomorrow, Thursday, at 3pm, a football match will take place on the Plaine de Plainpalais, between 11 English from Lausanne and Geneva’. This brief notice, published in January 1869 in Le Journal de Genève, may be one of the earliest mentions in the area’s press of a new ball game – football. Although the chronology of association football’s ‘cultural transfer’ to Switzerland and the conditions that facilitated the game’s introduction to the country are well-documented, the game’s adoption by the local population remains under-researched. Based on extensive empirical research combining original archive materials and articles from contemporary generalist and sports newspapers, the present study explored the factors that led young men in Geneva and Lausanne to embrace a foreign game. It also examined two less-well studied aspects of the game’s early history in Europe: the difficulty of finding places to play football in urban areas and the profiles of football’s first leaders. The results extend previous research on the creation of the first football clubs (association or rugby) outside Great Britain and on the history of associations in Switzerland.

Grasping and understanding the actors of a regional tourism system: the inputs of the Biolemano biographical database (Lake Geneva region, 1852-1914)

ABSTRACT This article highlights the contributions of a biographical database called ‘Biolemano’, which contains information on 1761 tourism players in the Franco-Swiss region of Lake Geneva between 1852 and 1914. The result of more than ten years of research conducted at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), this digital tool offers innovative research perspectives in the history of tourism by making it possible to grasp the complexity of a regional tourism system in its entirety. The analysis focuses on the collective and individual actors of the three main components of the tourism offer, namely accommodation, transport and entertainment. It reveals the importance of protagonists who have remained in the shadows until now, such as bankers, traders, lawyers and engineers. Another objective is to initiate a more global reflection on the functioning of a regional tourism system by questioning the endogenous or exogenous dominance of the development model. In the end, the study allows us to understand some reasons for the success of regional tourism, which flourished in an impressive way during the Belle Epoque.

Labour market integration of disability insurance benefit applicants in Switzerland

The increased labour market participation of individuals with disabilities remains a key policy priority for European governments. This study therefore aimed to examine factors promoting the labour market integration of disability insurance benefit (DB) applicants and those entitled to integration and occupational measures in Switzerland. A novel dataset was created via linking the 2018 Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS) to administrative register data (2000-2017). Multiple logistic regression was used to analyse the associations between demographic, socioeconomic, health, and regional characteristics and economic activity in working-age DB applicants (N=9,309) and those entitled to integration and occupational measures (N=5,753). Being male, living with an employed partner, having upper secondary or tertiary education, and being able to participate in the SLFS in the language of the language region of residence were associated with higher odds of economic activity. Higher odds of economic activity were also found for those not reporting long-term health-related activity limitations or chronic morbidity and for younger age groups. Individuals residing in the Lake Geneva Region and Ticino were less likely to be economically active relative to their counterparts living in Espace Mittelland. Most importantly, the results imply that education beyond the lower secondary level as well as language proficiency are essential for the economic activity of DB applicants and those entitled to integration and occupational measures.

On-Farm Relationships Between Agricultural Practices and Annual Changes in Organic Carbon Content at a Regional Scale

Both soil quality degradation and climate change mitigation issues emphasize the need to increase, or at least stabilize, the topsoil organic carbon content (wt%) in arable land. This on-farm study aimed at measuring the impact of agricultural practices on changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) content over 10 years. A total of 120 fields belonging to 120 farms representative of the cropping systems and soil properties in Western Switzerland (Lake Geneva region) was randomly selected. The field 0–20 cm topsoil was sampled at a 10-years interval, and the corresponding cropping practices were gathered using farmer’s interviews and the mandatory records of yearly practices at field level in Swiss-farms. Only 1) organic matter inputs and 2) cover-crop intensity were significantly correlated to SOC increase while 3) the soil tillage intensity and 4) the soil saturation in carbon expressed as a SOC to clay content ratio were correlated to SOC decrease. Among others, temporary meadows were not correlated to changes in SOC content mainly due to increased tillage and decreased cover-crops between meadows. Organic farming did not correlate either with SOC changes due to the large tillage intensity applied for weed control. The observed SOC content changes ranged from −56‰ to +74‰ and were well explained by a linear regression model with additive effect of the four identified SOC change factors. The additivity of these factors means that farmers can emphasize the methods of their choice when regenerating their soils. This study advocates that strict no-till is not required at low carbon saturation level (small SOC:Clay ratio). However, as carbon saturation increases, conservation tillage and then no-till practices become necessary to further increase SOC contents. These findings are in accordance with previous studies showing that since 2015 SOC is increasing at more than +4‰ on average in the region and provide practical insights to further manage the transition of farming systems towards soil regeneration.

Coupling crowd-sourced imagery and visibility modelling to identify landscape preferences at the panorama level

Geotagged photos posted on photo-sharing platforms have recently become a new source of information for analysing landscape preferences and investigating the aesthetic dimension of cultural ecosystem services. Most studies seek to explain photo density by landscape or spatial characteristics that might account for individual preferences and aesthetic criteria favoured by photographers. We focus instead on a “panorama level” of analysis, based on the assumption that photos represent preferential directions within a given panorama. The analysis consists in comparing the content of the photographed views with the content of the antipodal views (i.e. the view at 180°). We apply this method to a set of Flickr photos taken in the Lake Geneva region (Switzerland and France) characterised by landscape descriptors based on a visibility modelling approach. The results of discrete choice modelling at the global level are consistent with several key concepts of landscape preferences (e.g., openness, naturalness). The local analyses conducted at eight photo hotspots confirm the influence of open landscapes while revealing variations for certain other landscape characters depending on the geographical setting. We conclude that the panorama level approach combining geotagged photos and visibility modelling is suitable for identifying the landscape signature of the most appealing views. This signature could be used in further studies to detect the potential of visual amenities.

Impact of the warm summer 2015 on emergency hospital admissions in Switzerland

BackgroundOnly a few studies have examined the impact of a particular heat event on morbidity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the warm summer 2015 on emergency hospital admissions (EHA) in Switzerland. The summer 2015 ranks as the second hottest after 2003 in the history of temperature observation in Switzerland.MethodsDaily counts of EHA for various disease categories during summer 2015 were analyzed in relation to previous summers in Switzerland. Excess EHA for non-external causes during summer 2015 (June–August) were estimated by age group, gender, geographic region and disease category by comparing observed and expected cases. The latter were predicted from strata-specific quasi-Poisson regression models fitted to the daily counts of EHA for years 2012–2014.ResultsOver the three summer months in 2015, an estimated 2.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.6–3.2%) increase in EHA (non-external causes) occurred corresponding to 2,768 excess cases. Highest excess EHA estimates were found in the warmest regions (Ticino [8.4%, 95% CI 5.1–11.7%] and the Lake Geneva region [4.8%, 95% CI 3.0–6.7%]) and among the elderly population aged ≥75 years (5.1%, 95% CI 3.7–6.5%). Increased EHA during days with most extreme temperatures were observed for influenza and pneumonia, certain infectious diseases and diseases of the genitourinary system.ConclusionsSummer 2015 had a considerable impact on EHA in Switzerland. The daily number of EHA mainly increased due to diseases not commonly linked to heat-related mortality. No excess morbidity was found for cardiovascular and most respiratory diseases. This suggests that current public health interventions should be reevaluated to prevent both heat-related illness and deaths.

CASPIAN BASIN URBANIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: REGIONAL TERRITORIAL PEER NETWORK FOR GREATER RESILIENCE BUILDING

The current trend of rapid population growth and urban development are being localized across the world with distinctive patterns. There is a general understanding that this latest process of urbanization without a global coherence or unity in form and boundaries as well as limited consideration for the natural environment is part of a new urban trend and sometimes event equated to a new phase of metropolization. These processes of urbanization bypass existing geographic and administrative scales as well as national boundaries, as in the case of some European trans-national metropolitan areas such as the Lake Geneva region, where urbanization takes place across national borders between Switzerland and France. Accordingly, many neologisms describe the phenomenon and its multiple ramifications as well as the consequences, but with little focus on the multiple yet similar impacts on the livelihood, well-being and security of millions of urban dwellers across bioregions. As in previous stages of metropolization, this new phase is not only an evolutionary phenomenon of large cities, it is also a process that connects a daily operating area up to a larger bioregion and territorial setting where the new dynamics of change impact the built and natural environments in different ways. As a result, the boundaries within urban areas on one side and between urban and rural areas on the other are increasingly becoming blurred and not representative of the multiple impacts of local and Global Change and adapted response mechanisms. More than in the past, regional territorial planning and urban planning are expected to integrate dynamics of change and related natural hazards at a scale more relevant to the ecosystems supporting the urban areas. This article aims to provoke a discussion on the regional patterns of urbanization in the Caspian Sea basin for integration of local adaptation strategies in the overall integrated approach of natural and built environments at the regional scale. In the case of the Caspian Sea- the regional and trans-national approach to urbanization aims to identify within a naturally defined space, the Caspian Sea basin, regional proximities and distinctions between urbanized areas on one side and the urbanized areas and their natural basin on the other, suggesting regionally informed strategies of territorialization and urban development. This is only possible if policy is informed by practice and if all development strategies, best and worst at the regional scale are brought to the attention of policy formulators and planners through a Peer Network of Cities and Urbanized Areas. Such platform can provide a potent tool and support for local urban policies and design in coherence with distinct yet connected other regional territorial policies and strategies.

Pushbroom Hyperspectral Data Orientation by Combining Feature-Based and Area-Based Co-Registration Techniques

Direct georeferencing of airborne pushbroom scanner data usually suffers from the limited precision of navigation sensors onboard of the aircraft. The bundle adjustment of images and orientation parameters, used to perform geocorrection of frame images during the post-processing phase, cannot be used for pushbroom cameras without difficulties—it relies on matching corresponding points between scan lines, which is not feasible in the absence of sufficient overlap and texture information. We address this georeferencing problem by equipping our aircraft with both a frame camera and a pushbroom scanner: the frame images and the navigation parameters measured by a couple GPS/Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) are input to a bundle adjustment algorithm; the output orientation parameters are used to project the scan lines on a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and on an orthophoto generated during the bundle adjustment step; using the image feature matching algorithm Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF), corresponding points between the image formed by the projected scan lines and the orthophoto are matched, and through a least-squares method, the boresight between the two cameras is estimated and included in the calculation of the projection. Finally, using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) on the gradient image, the projection is deformed into a final image that fits the geometry of the orthophoto. We apply this algorithm to five test acquisitions over Lake Geneva region (Switzerland) and Lake Baikal region (Russia). The results are quantified in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between matching points of the RGB orthophoto and the pushbroom projection. From a first projection where the Interior Orientation Parameters (IOP) are known with limited precision and the RMSE goes up to 41 pixels, our geocorrection estimates IOP, boresight and Exterior Orientation Parameters (EOP) and produces a new projection with an RMSE, with the reference orthophoto, around two pixels.

How to Deal with Regional Tourism? Historical (and Interdisciplinary) Reflections

AbstractThe paper advocates a regional perspective for a better understanding of tourism history and discusses historiographical concepts and tools of relevance for this understanding. It links the development of the tourism sector in history with regional transformation processes. The different ways in which tourism evolves in certain regional contexts can help to identify patterns and explain decisive phenomena like the sector’s vulnerability. The investigation proceeds in three steps: The first explores the links between tourism, regional change and historiography on a more general level, the second discusses conceptual approaches to tourism and regional transformation based in economics and economic history, hereby dealing with cluster theories and path dependency in particular. The final chapter guides a methodological discussion taking stock of the experience provided by a research project on the Lake Geneva region.

Reconstructing 4000 years of mass movement and tsunami history in a deep peri‐Alpine lake (Lake Geneva, France‐Switzerland)

AbstractThe study of mass movements in lake sediments provides insights into past natural hazards at historic and prehistoric timescales. Sediments from the deep basin of Lake Geneva reveal a succession of six large‐scale (volumes of 22 × 106 to 250 × 106 m3) mass‐transport deposits, associated with five mass‐movement events within 2600 years (4000 cal bp to 563 ad). The mass‐transport deposits result from: (i) lateral slope failures (mass‐transport deposit B at 3895 ± 225 cal bp and mass‐transport deposits A and C at 3683 ± 128 cal bp); and (ii) Rhône delta collapses (mass‐transport deposits D to G dated at 2650 ± 150 cal bp, 2185 ± 85 cal bp, 1920 ± 120 cal bp and 563 ad, respectively). Mass‐transport deposits A and C were most probably triggered by an earthquake, whereas the Rhône delta collapses were likely to be due to sediment overload with a rockfall as the external trigger (mass‐transport deposit G, the Tauredunum event in 563 ad known from historical records), an earthquake (mass‐transport deposit E) or unknown external triggers (mass‐transport deposits D and F). Independent of their origin and trigger mechanisms, numerical simulations show that all of these recorded mass‐transport deposits are large enough to have generated at least metre‐scale tsunamis during mass movement initiation. Since the Tauredunum event in 563 ad, two small‐scale (volumes of 1 to 2 × 106 m3) mass‐transport deposits (H and I) are present in the seismic record, both of which are associated with small lateral slope failures. Mass‐transport deposits H and I might be related to earthquakes in Lausanne/Geneva (possibly) 1322 ad and Aigle 1584 ad, respectively. The sedimentary record of the deep basin of Lake Geneva, in combination with the historical record, show that during the past 3695 years, at least six tsunamis were generated by mass movements, indicating that the tsunami hazard in the Lake Geneva region should not be neglected, although such events are not frequent with a recurrence time of 0·0016 yr−1.

Redécouverte de la diphyllobothriose dans la region des lacs sub-alpins français

La diphyllobothriose à Diphyllobothrium latum est réapparue dans la région des lacs sub-alpins et, en particulier, du lac Léman, il y a une quinzaine d’année, probablement en raison d’une popularité croissante des préparations à base de poisson cru. Sa résurgence a été l’occasion de mettre au point des techniques d’identification moléculaire du parasite, utilisables à la fois pour les oeufs, les anneaux et les larves. Les poissons des lacs d’Annecy et du Bourget sont indemnes. La prévalence de la parasitose chez les poissons du lac Léman et l’incidence de la maladie humaine dans la région apparaissent en diminution par rapport à d’autres enquêtes effectuées il y a quelques années. Le parasite est néanmoins toujours présent dans la région du lac Léman. Des enquêtes régulières auprès des laboratoires d’analyses médicales de la région et des examens réguliers des filets de perche et de quelques brochets seraient des données simples à recueillir et, à même, de permettre une surveillance épidémiologique de la parasitose.

The Health Valley: Global Entrepreneurial Dynamics.

In the space of a decade, the Lake Geneva region has become the Health Valley, a world-class laboratory for discovering and developing healthcare of the future. Through visionary individuals and thanks to exceptional infrastructure this region has become one of the most dynamic in the field of innovation, including leading scientific research and exceptional actors for the commercialization of academic innovation to industrial applications that will improve the lives of patients and their families. Here follows the chronicle of a spectacular expansion into the Health Valley.

Contemporary ecotypic divergence during a recent range expansion was facilitated by adaptive introgression.

Although rapid phenotypic evolution during range expansion associated with colonization of contrasting habitats has been documented in several taxa, the evolutionary mechanisms that underlie such phenotypic divergence have less often been investigated. A strong candidate for rapid ecotype formation within an invaded range is the three-spine stickleback in the Lake Geneva region of central Europe. Since its introduction only about 140years ago, it has undergone a significant expansion of its range and its niche, now forming phenotypically differentiated parapatric ecotypes that occupy either the pelagic zone of the large lake or small inlet streams, respectively. By comparing museum collections from different times with contemporary population samples, we here reconstruct the evolution of parapatric phenotypic divergence through time. Using genetic data from modern samples, we infer the underlying invasion history. We find that parapatric habitat-dependent phenotypic divergence between the lake and stream was already present in the first half of the twentieth century, but the magnitude of differentiation increased through time, particularly in antipredator defence traits. This suggests that divergent selection between the habitats occurred and was stable through much of the time since colonization. Recently, increased phenotypic differentiation in antipredator defence traits likely results from habitat-dependent selection on alleles that arrived through introgression from a distantly related lineage from outside the Lake Geneva region. This illustrates how hybridization can quickly promote phenotypic divergence in a system where adaptation from standing genetic variation was constrained.

Analysis of the 18 July 2005 Tornadic Supercell over the Lake Geneva Region

Abstract On the afternoon of 18 July 2005, a particularly intense supercell thunderstorm struck the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland. The storm initiated just southwest of Lyon, France, and tracked over 300 km toward the northeast before losing its supercell characteristics in the Swiss Alpine foothills around the town of Interlaken. During its 3-h lifespan, the storm’s forward translation averaged 60–80 km h−1. At the height of its severity, this supercell was responsible for hail the size of golf balls, a microburst with measured wind gusts of up to 160 km h−1, and two confirmed tornadoes. Miraculously, nobody was killed nor seriously injured. However, the material losses were considerable, including ravaged vineyards, damage to buildings and vehicles, and sections of forests that were completely destroyed. A postevent analysis was undertaken utilizing radar imagery/algorithms, satellite images, lightning and surface data, eyewitness reports, and a damage survey. This case provides a unique look at a supercell evolving within an Alpine environment and helps confirm prior research concerning certain storm features and signatures that have been observed in North American Great Plains supercells and elsewhere. Concerning tornadogenesis, this paper helps confirm via observations and simulations hypotheses proposed in several previous papers that low-level wind flow modified through channeling by mountains can periodically provide a locally favorable wind shear environment for tornadogenesis. For this particular case, inflow winds that channeled around mountain features appear to have been instrumental in the formation of the second tornado, since important topographical obstacles prevented any significant low-level gradient wind shear from operating on the eastern end of Lake Geneva, where this tornado occurred.

Usage of complementary medicine across Switzerland

This study investigated the use among the Swiss adult population and regional dissemination of various methods of complementary medicine (CM) provided by physicians or therapists in Switzerland. Data of the Swiss Health Survey 2007 were used, which comprised a telephone interview followed by a written questionnaire (18,760 and 14,432 respondents, respectively) and included questions about people's state of health, health insurance and usage of health services. Users and non-users of CM were compared using logistic regression models. The most popular CM methods were homeopathy, osteopathy, acupuncture and shiatsu/foot reflexology. 30.5% of women and 15.2% of men used at least one CM method in the 12 months preceding the survey. Lake Geneva region and central Switzerland had more CM users than the other regions. Women, people between 25 and 64 years of age and people with higher levels of education were more likely to use CM. 53.5% of the adult population had a supplemental health insurance for CM treatments. 32.9% of people with such an insurance used CM during the 12 months preceding the survey, and so did 12.0% of people without additional insurance. Almost one fourth of the Swiss adult population had used CM within the past 12 months. User profiles were comparable to those in other countries. Despite a generally lower self-perceived health status, elderly people were less likely to use CM.

Antibiotic use in adult outpatients in Switzerland in relation to regions, seasonality and point of care tests

The use of antibiotics is highest in primary care and directly associated with antibiotic resistance in the community. We assessed regional variations in antibiotic use in primary care in Switzerland and explored prescription patterns in relation to the use of point of care tests. Defined daily doses of antibiotics per 1000 inhabitants (DDD1000pd) were calculated for the year 2007 from reimbursement data of the largest Swiss health insurer, based on the anatomic therapeutic chemical classification and the DDD methodology recommended by WHO. We present ecological associations by use of descriptive and regression analysis. We analysed data from 1 067 934 adults, representing 17.1% of the Swiss population. The rate of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in the entire population was 8.5 DDD1000pd, and varied between 7.28 and 11.33 DDD1000pd for northwest Switzerland and the Lake Geneva region. DDD1000pd for the three most prescribed antibiotics were 2.90 for amoxicillin and amoxicillin-clavulanate, 1.77 for fluoroquinolones, and 1.34 for macrolides. Regions with higher DDD1000pd showed higher seasonal variability in antibiotic use and lower use of all point of care tests. In regression analysis for each class of antibiotics, the use of any point of care test was consistently associated with fewer antibiotic prescriptions. Prescription rates of primary care physicians showed variations between Swiss regions and were lower in northwest Switzerland and in physicians using point of care tests. Ecological studies are prone to bias and whether point of care tests reduce antibiotic use has to be investigated in pragmatic primary care trials.

The Similar Faces of Swiss Working Poor

Are the determinants of working poverty the same across Swiss regions? Does the phenomenon primarily affect similar social groups from Zurich to Ticino and from the Lake Geneva Region to Eastern Switzerland? Or are there significant regional peculiarities in terms of risk factors and/or groups, calling for regional policies? The present paper – an empirical investigation into working poverty across the seven statistical regions in Switzerland – aims at providing answers to these questions by analysing the determinants of working poverty and by detecting the key characteristics of the population groups at major risk. Considering that at the bottom of the emergence of this social problem many see the rise of labour flexibility in the context of globalization and of the principle changes affecting labour markets, comparative empirical evidence is certainly a crucial element for policy design, especially in a federal system like Switzerland. Acknowledging that in order to assist policymakers in understanding and eventually defining suitable intervention measures it is of primary concern to be able to convey empirical evidence in a way which is both satisfying and easily understandable, two different multivariate statistical methods – logistic regression and classification trees – are applied in the analysis of the data. Due to their complementary characters, the combined use of these methods will prove very efficient in bringing research evidence closer to policy needs. The phenomenon of the working poor has come to attention in Switzerland since the economic slowdown of the 90s. The national report on poverty by LEU, BURRI and PRIESTER (1997) is considered, except for some initial contributions (most of them at cantonal level), the first milestonefor research on the topic. This report was followed by a series of studies which specifically tackle the issue of the working poor (e.g. DEUTSCH, FLUCKIGER and SILBER, 1999; STREULI and BAUER, 2002). The present paper contributes, through its comparative and methodological approach, to this stream of research. The paper is organised into different sections. Following this introduction, section two tackles the question of defining working poverty, highlighting the complexity of this task and the resulting wide variety of definitions across countries and across different studies. It also describes the operational definition adopted by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), which is the one usedin the empirical analysis. Section three presents the data, the models and the methodological approach. Section 4 is devoted to the results of the empirical applications. As a conclusion, the paper assesses the results in the light of implications for policy-making.

Occurrence and fate of micropollutants in the Vidy Bay of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Part II: Micropollutant removal between wastewater and raw drinking water

The occurrence and removal of 58 pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, corrosion inhibitors, biocides, and pesticides, were assessed in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of the city of Lausanne, Switzerland, as well as in the effluent-receiving water body, the Vidy Bay of Lake Geneva. An analytical screening method to simultaneously measure all of the 58 micropollutants was developed based on ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled to a tandem mass spectrometer (UPLC-MS/MS). The selection of pharmaceuticals was primarily based on a prioritization study, which designated them as environmentally relevant for the Lake Geneva region. Except for the endocrine disruptor 17alpha-ethinylestradiol, all substances were detected in 24-h composite samples of wastewater entering the WWTP or in the treated effluent. Of these compounds, 40% were also detected in raw drinking water, pumped from the lake 3 km downstream of the WWTP. The contributions of dilution and degradation to micropollutant elimination between the WWTP outlet and the raw drinking water intake were established in different model scenarios using hypothetical residence times of the wastewater in Vidy Bay of 1, 4, or 90 d. Concentration decrease due to processes other than dilution was observed for diclofenac, beta-blockers, several antibiotics, corrosion inhibitors, and pesticides. Measured environmental concentrations (MECs) of pharmaceuticals were compared to the predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) determined in the prioritization study and agreed within one order of magnitude, but MECs were typically greater than the corresponding PECs. Predicted no-effect concentrations of the analgesic paracetamol, and the two antibiotics ciprofloxacin and sulfamethoxazole, were exceeded in raw drinking water samples and therefore present a potential risk to the ecosystem.

The 'Becoming' of Dynamic Capabilities: An Empirical Study of Entrepreneurs

For most entrepreneurs the key question is not whether they have certain resources to accomplish their goals, but whether they can create, extend or modify necessary resources for competitive advantage. The latter is now referred to as dynamic capabilities (Helfat et al., 2007). Even though many researchers (e.g. Helfat et al., 2007: 5) are contributing to the dynamic capabilities approach (Easterby et al., 2009; McKelvie & Davidsson, 2009; Helfat & Peteraf, 2009), still there is a rather limited empirical understanding of the how these dynamic capabilities develop and how these link to a firm’s performance.This paper describes a research program on the actual coming into being of a firm’s resources - creation, extension, and modification - within their context through time thus highlighting the becoming of dynamic capabilities. Using a process model of 'social becoming' the resources and dynamic capabilities of 10 biotech start-ups in the greater Lake Geneva region (Switzerland) will be analyzed using an experimental natural language understanding system to analyze the data making researcher independent data-analysis for the first time a possibility.