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Die Philanthropie ist in der Schweiz traditionell tief verankert und wird durch die stabile politische und wirtschaftliche Lage begunstigt. Pro Jahr erhalten Hilfswerke rund 1,7 Milliarden Spendengelder, wovon schatzungsweise 45 % an Hilfswerke gehen, die hauptsachlich im Ausland tatig sind. Die ausgepragte Stiftungslandschaft mit geschatzten jahrlichen Investitionen von 1,5 bis 2 Milliarden Franken wird weiteren Anliegen der Schweizer Zivilgesellschaft gerecht. Das Spendensammeln wird durch Selbstkontrollen und ethische Kodizes durch Verbande sowie von der Schweizerischen Zertifizierungsstelle fur gemeinnutzige Spenden (Zewo) begleitet. Weiter wird das Spendenwesen von foderalistischen Bestimmungen umrahmt und Gemeinnutzigkeit staatlich gefordert.

As per 2011 census, nearly 44% of rural households do not have access to electricity in India and those who have access suffer from unreliable electricity supply affecting education, income generation and access to information. For lighting, one-third households rely on kerosene, which provides poor quality light and is damaging to health. Lack of access and reliable supply undermines the ability of the households and micro/small enterprises to move out of the vicious cycle of energy poverty. In rural India, several of these enterprises are owned and managed by women entrepreneurs and self-help groups, which were established for income-generating activities and empowerment of women. In 2005, Government of India initiated a large, national rural electrification programme to provide electricity to all villages and households. It has been recognized that grid supply may not be feasible or cost-effective for every village, and hence, due attention is being given to renewable-based decentralized distributed generation systems, such as biomass gasifiers. This paper provides insights regarding experience of developing two-stage biomass gasifier for Indian conditions through an innovative technology transfer and intellectual property rights sharing agreement and its field implementation through partnerships with the state government and community-based organizations in the state of Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. This technology will provide reliable electricity to women groups owned livelihood activities, increasing the income generated by them, and electrify rural households.

Wirtschaftsbetriebe sind ohne finanzielle Sicherheitsreserven kaum denkbar. Kapitalgesellschaften mussen ein Mindestkapital nachweisen konnen, um geschaftsfahig zu sein, und auch Personengesellschaften haben ohne finanzielle Rucklagen nur beschrankte Entwicklungsmoglichkeiten. Fur Nonprofit-Organisationen in der Rechtsform des Vereins, der Genossenschaft oder der Stiftung sind solche Sicherheiten nicht gesetzlich geregelt.

Hot subdwarf stars (sdO/Bs) are evolved core helium-burning stars with very thin hydrogen envelopes, which can be formed by common envelope ejection. Close sdB binaries with massive white dwarf (WD) companions are potential progenitors of thermonuclear supernovae type Ia (SN Ia). We discovered such a progenitor candidate as well as a candidate for a surviving companion star, which escapes from the Galaxy. More candidates for both types of objects have been found by cross-matching known sdB stars with proper motion and light curve catalogues. We found 72 sdO/B candidates with high Galactic restframe velocities, 12 of them might be unbound to our Galaxy. Furthermore, we discovered the second-most compact sdB+WD binary known. However, due to the low mass of the WD companion, it is unlikely to be a SN Ia progenitor.

Eclipsing post-common-envelope binaries are highly important for resolving the poorly understood, very short-lived common-envelope phase of stellar evolution. Most hot subdwarfs (sdO/Bs) are the bare helium-burning cores of red giants that have lost almost all of their hydrogen envelope. This mass loss is often triggered by common-envelope interactions with close stellar or even substellar companions. Cool companions to hot subdwarf stars such as late-type stars and brown dwarfs are detectable from characteristic light-curve variations – reflection effects and often eclipses. In the recently published catalog of eclipsing binaries in the Galactic Bulge and in the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey, we discovered 125 new eclipsing systems showing a reflection effect seen by visual inspection of the light curves and using a machine-learning algorithm, in addition to the 36 systems previously discovered by the Optical Gravitational Lesing Experiment (OGLE) team. The Eclipsing Reflection Effect Binaries from Optical Surveys (EREBOS) project aims at analyzing all newly discovered eclipsing binaries of the HW Vir type (hot subdwarf + close, cool companion) based on a spectroscopic and photometric follow up to derive the mass distribution of the companions, constrain the fraction of substellar companions, and determine the minimum mass needed to strip off the red-giant envelope. To constrain the nature of the primary we derived the absolute magnitude and the reduced proper motion of all our targets with the help of the parallaxes and proper motions measured by the Gaia mission and compared those to the Gaia white-dwarf candidate catalog. It was possible to derive the nature of a subset of our targets, for which observed spectra are available, by measuring the atmospheric parameter of the primary, confirming that less than 10% of our systems are not sdO/Bs with cool companions but are white dwarfs or central stars of planetary nebula. This large sample of eclipsing hot subdwarfs with cool companions allowed us to derive a significant period distribution for hot subdwarfs with cool companions for the first time showing that the period distribution is much broader than previously thought and is ideally suited to finding the lowest-mass companions to hot subdwarf stars. The comparison with related binary populations shows that the period distribution of HW Vir systems is very similar to WD+dM systems and central stars of planetary nebula with cool companions. In the future, several new photometric surveys will be carried out, which will further increase the sample of this project, providing the potential to test many aspects of common-envelope theory and binary evolution.

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims at finding hot subdwarf stars with massive compact companions (white dwarfs with masses $M>1.0 {\rm M_{\odot}}$, neutron stars or black holes). The existence of such systems is predicted by binary evolution calculations and some candidate systems have been found. We identified $\simeq1100$ hot subdwarf stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Stars with high velocities have been reobserved and individual SDSS spectra have been analysed. About 70 radial velocity variable subdwarfs have been selected as good candidates for follow-up time resolved spectroscopy to derive orbital parameters and photometric follow-up to search for features like eclipses in the light curves. Up to now we found nine close binary sdBs with short orbital periods ranging from $\simeq0.07 {\rm d}$ to $1.5 {\rm d}$. Two of them are eclipsing binaries with companions that are most likely of substellar nature.

Hot subdwarfs (sdO/Bs) are the helium-burning cores of red giants, which lost almost all of their hydrogen envelopes. This mass loss is often triggered by common envelope interactions with close stellar or even substellar companions. Cool companions like late-type stars or brown dwarfs are detectable via characteristic light curve variations like reflection effects and often also eclipses. To search for such objects we obtained multi-band light curves of 26 close sdO/B binary candidates from the MUCHFUSS project with the BUSCA instrument. We discovered a new eclipsing reflection effect system ($P=0.168938$~d) with a low-mass M dwarf companion ($0.116 M_{\rm \odot}$). Three more reflection effect binaries found in the course of the campaign were already published, two of them are eclipsing systems, in one system only showing the reflection effect but no eclipses the sdB primary is found to be pulsating. Amongst the targets without reflection effect a new long-period sdB pulsator was discovered and irregular light variations were found in two sdO stars. The found light variations allowed us to constrain the fraction of reflection effect binaries and the substellar companion fraction around sdB stars. The minimum fraction of reflection effect systems amongst the close sdB binaries might be greater than 15\% and the fraction of close substellar companions in sdB binaries might be as high as $8.0\%$. This would result in a close substellar companion fraction to sdB stars of about 3\%. This fraction is much higher than the fraction of brown dwarfs around possible progenitor systems, which are solar-type stars with substellar companions around 1 AU, as well as close binary white dwarfs with brown dwarf companions. This might be a hint that common envelope interactions with substellar objects are preferentially followed by a hot subdwarf phase., accepted for A&A

Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) travel with velocities so high that they exceed the escape velocity of the Galaxy. Several acceleration mechanisms have been discussed. Only one HVS (US 708, HVS 2) is a compact helium star. Here we present a spectroscopic and kinematic analysis of US 708. Traveling with a velocity of ~1200 kilometers per second, it is the fastest unbound star in our Galaxy. In reconstructing its trajectory, the Galactic center becomes very unlikely as an origin, which is hardly consistent with the most favored ejection mechanism for the other HVSs. Furthermore, we detected that US 708 is a fast rotator. According to our binary evolution model, it was spun-up by tidal interaction in a close binary and is likely to be the ejected donor remnant of a thermonuclear supernova.

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims to find sdBs with compact companions like massive white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Here we provide classifications, atmospheric parameters and a complete radial velocity (RV) catalogue containing 1914 single measurements for an sample of 177 hot subluminous stars discovered based on SDSS DR7. 110 stars show significant RV variability, while 67 qualify as candidates. We constrain the fraction of close massive compact companions {of hydrogen-rich hot subdwarfs} in our sample to be smaller than $\sim1.3\%$, which is already close to the theoretical predictions. However, the sample might still contain such binaries with longer periods exceeding $\sim8\,{\rm d}$. We detect a mismatch between the $\Delta RV_{\rm max}$-distribution of the sdB and the more evolved sdOB and sdO stars, which challenges our understanding of their evolutionary connection. Furthermore, irregular RV variations of unknown origin with amplitudes of up to $\sim180\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}}$ on timescales of years, days and even hours have been detected in some He-sdO stars. They might be connected to irregular photometric variations in some cases., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, A&A accepted

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) form the backbone of the Indian economy. However, MSMEs are going through a turbulent phase due to overall sluggishness in the economy and rising input energy costs. In the current energy-supply scenario, energy pricing and enforcement of pollution norms for MSMEs have created a favorable environment for rapid acceptance of biomass energy-based clean energy technologies as a potential option for replacing fossil fuels in MSMEs. This paper presents insight and analysis of the experience of promoting diffusion of biomass thermal gasifiers in MSMEs across India as a clean energy technology solution and way forward for scaling-up, based on a partnership initiated in 1994 by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). It is recommended that there is a need for a framework for a holistic energy policy for the MSME sector to strengthen and mobilize stakeholders, such as industry associations and industries’ district centers, and a model for dissemination that takes a cluster service approach.

The intermediate Helium subdwarf B star LS IV$-$14$^\circ$116 is a unique object showing extremely peculiar atmospheric abundances as well as long-period pulsations that cannot be explained in terms of the usual opacity mechanism. One hypothesis invoked was that a strong magnetic field may be responsible. We discredit this possibility on the basis of FORS2 spectro-polarimetry, which allows us to rule out a mean longitudinal magnetic field down to 300 G. Using the same data, we derive the atmospheric parameters for LS IV$-$14$^\circ$116 to be $T_{\rm eff}$ = 35,150$\pm$111 K, $\log{g}$ = 5.88$\pm$0.02 and $\log{N(\rm He)/N(\rm H)}$ = $-$0.62$\pm$0.01. The high surface gravity in particular is at odds with the theory that LS IV$-$14$^\circ$116 has not yet settled onto the Helium Main Sequence, and that the pulsations are excited by an $\epsilon$ mechanism acting on the Helium-burning shells present after the main Helium flash. Archival UVES spectroscopy reveals LS IV$-$14$^\circ$116 to have a radial velocity of 149.1$\pm$2.1 km/s. Running a full kinematic analysis, we find that it is on a retrograde orbit around the Galactic centre, with a Galactic radial velocity component $U$=13.23$\pm$8.28 km/s and a Galactic rotational velocity component $V$=$-$55.56$\pm$22.13 km/s. This implies that LS IV$-$14$^\circ$116 belongs to the halo population, an intriguing discovery., Comment: accepted for publication in A&A

Contains fulltext : 143841.pdf (Author’s version preprint ) (Open Access)

Hot subdwarf B stars (sdBs) are core helium-burning stars located on the extreme horizontal branch. About half of the known sdB stars are found in close binaries. Their short orbital periods of 1.2 h to a few days suggest that they are post common-envelope systems. Eclipsing hot subdwarf binaries are rare, but important to determine the fundamental stellar parameters. Low-mass companions are identified by the reflection effect. In most cases the companion is a main sequence star near the stellar mass limit. Here we report the discovery of an eclipsing hot subdwarf binary SDSS J162256.66+473051.1 (J1622) of very short orbital period (0.0697 d), found in the course of the MUCHFUSS project. The lightcurve shows grazing eclipses and a prominent reflection effect. An analysis of the light- and radial velocity (RV) curves indicated a mass ratio of $q=$ 0.1325, an RV semiamplitude $K=47.2\rm\,km\,s^{-1}$, and an inclination of $i=72.33^\circ$. We show that a companion mass of 0.064 $M_{\rm \odot}$, well below the hydrogen-burning limit, is the most plausible solution, which implies a mass close to the canonical mass (0.47 $M_{\rm \odot}$) of the sdB star. Therefore, the companion is a brown dwarf, which not only survived the engulfment by the red-giant envelope, but also triggered its ejection, and enabled the sdB star to form. The rotation of J1622 is expected to be tidally locked to the orbit. However, J1622 rotates too slowly ($v_{\rm rot}=74.5\pm 7\rm\,km\,s^{-1}$) to be synchronized, challenging tidal interaction models.

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Contains fulltext : 117396.pdf (Author’s version preprint ) (Open Access)

Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are the most important standard candles for measuring the expansion history of the universe. The thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf can explain their observed properties, but neither the progenitor systems nor any stellar remnants have been conclusively identified. Underluminous SN Ia have been proposed to originate from a so-called double-detonation of a white dwarf. After a critical amount of helium is deposited on the surface through accretion from a close companion, the helium is ignited causing a detonation wave that triggers the explosion of the white dwarf itself. We have discovered both shallow transits and eclipses in the tight binary system CD-30 11223 composed of a carbon/oxygen white dwarf and a hot helium star, allowing us to determine its component masses and fundamental parameters. In the future the system will transfer mass from the helium star to the white dwarf. Modelling this process we find that the detonation in the accreted helium layer is sufficiently strong to trigger the explosion of the core. The helium star will then be ejected at so large a velocity that it will escape the Galaxy. The predicted properties of this remnant are an excellent match to the so-called hypervelocity star US 708, a hot, helium-rich star moving at more than 750 km/s, sufficient to leave the Galaxy. The identification of both progenitor and remnant provides a consistent picture of the formation and evolution of underluminous type Ia supernovae., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, A&A accepted

The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims at finding hot subdwarf stars with massive compact companions (white dwarfs with masses $M>1.0 {\rm M_{\odot}}$, neutron stars or black holes). The existence of such systems is predicted by binary evolution calculations and some candidate systems have been found. We identified $\simeq1100$ hot subdwarf stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Stars with high velocities have been reobserved and individual SDSS spectra have been analysed. About 70 radial velocity variable subdwarfs have been selected as good candidates for follow-up time resolved spectroscopy to derive orbital parameters and photometric follow-up to search for features like eclipses in the light curves. Up to now we found nine close binary sdBs with short orbital periods ranging from $\simeq0.07 {\rm d}$ to $1.5 {\rm d}$. Two of them are eclipsing binaries with companions that are most likely of substellar nature., 6 pages, 4 figures, AN, in press

We report the discovery of an extremely close, eclipsing binary system. A white dwarf is orbited by a core He-burning compact hot subdwarf star with a period as short as $\simeq0.04987 {\rm d}$ making this system the most compact hot subdwarf binary discovered so far. The subdwarf will start to transfer helium-rich material on short timescales of less than $50 {\rm Myr}$. The ignition of He-burning at the surface may trigger carbon-burning in the core although the WD is less massive than the Chandrasekhar limit ($>0.74\,M_{\rm \odot}$) making this binary a possible progenitor candidate for a supernova type Ia event., 6 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the proceedings of 18th European White Dwarf Workshop, Krakow, Poland, ASP Conf. Ser

Bei dem Datensatz handelt es sich um eine Zufallsstichprobe aus den Integrierten Erwerbsbiografien (IEB) des IAB, der für die Fachöffentlichkeit zugänglich ist. Er enthält Angaben zu folgenden Merkmalsgruppen: soziodemografische Merkmale, Beschäftigung, Leistungsbezug, Maßnahmen der aktiven Arbeitsmarktförderung und Arbeitssuche. Die Ziehung der Stichprobe erfolgt über die zufällige Auswahl von acht Geburtstagen, wobei alle Personen mit diesen Geburtstagen gezogen werden, was etwa 2,2 Prozent der Personen der IEB entspricht. Die Variablenbeschreibung des Datensatzes gliedert sich in einen allgemeinen Teil mit einer Merkmalsübersicht und einer Beschreibung der Typisierung der in den Daten vorkommenden fehlenden Werte. Es folgen Beschreibungen der einzelnen Merkmale der Variablen Identifikationsnummer, Spellanfang und -ende, generierte technisch Merkmale, Personenstatus vor, während und nach dem aktuellen Spell, persönliche Merkmale, Angaben zu Beschäftigungsverhältnis und Arbeitssuche sowie Ortsangaben. Die vier Datenquellen der IEB werden vorgestellt, die über die Sozialversicherungsnummern und BA-Kundennummern verknüpft werden: 1. die Beschäftigten-Historik des IAB; 2. die Leistungsempfänger-Historik des IAB; 3. die Maßnahme-Teilnehmer-Gesamtdatenbank und 4. den Arbeitsuchendenstatus aus dem Bewerberangebot. Zudem wird auf Datenqualität, Episodensplitting, Anyoymisierung und Datenauswertung eingegangen. (IAB)