User:Kt75 mirror

_kt75

Formation	2012 (est. as SWM THiNKTANK in 2010)
Type	Non-profit Organization
Location	Olten, Switzerland
Key people	Wolfram Scharnhorst
Website	kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch, kt75-elements.blogspot.ch, kt75-shivers.blogspot.ch

The _kt75 | suite - is a follow-up project (not for profit) of the SWM THiNKTANK (2010-2012). It comprises three sub-projects, _kt75 | mirror, _kt75 | elements and kt75-shivers.blogspot.ch. In the combination of the three the latter two are intended to serve as public 'idea' or 'impression container' for the topics that are addressed in the mirror project. The entire project aims to elaborate on and facilitate the progressive re-thinking of genuine and comprehensive sustainable development based on the truly independent, uninfluenced, critical and progressive reflection of the past and present technical, environmental, economic and geo-political conditions. One key topic the _kt75 | suite focuses on is the sustainable management of water.

From a technical point of view the implementation of the _kt75 | suite set highest requirements with regard to programming as well as design and compilation skills. The entire suite (incl. the sub projects) bases exclusively on html, javascript and css. As publication format the free-of-charge blogger service is used. And the hosting of any external sources (codes, publications, etc.) is performed using the dropbox service. The financial situation is basically the key limit but also the key benefit of the _kt75 | suite (the limitations are the basis for lean and efficient innovation).

History

The very first ideas to start a sustainability platform date back to as early as 2006. Finally, in 2010 the SWM THiNKTANK was started as social media platform and a simple blog page was operated. After closure of SWM THiNKTANK in 2012 the _kt75 | suite project was launched. Under the umbrella of this suite three sub projects were initiated and implemented:

• _kt75 | mirror http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch
• _kt75 | elements http://kt75-elements.blogspot.ch
• _kt75 | shivers http://kt75-shivers.blogspot.ch

The three sub projects comprise a number of actions and services, including: web-sites, social media channels, an online journal and an online inventory software. Below exclusively the services provided by _kt75 | mirror (which constitutes the main project) are documented.

Services

The services _kt75 | mirror provides comprise:

• _kt75 | mirror (incl. _kt75 | news box) - http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/
• Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management_{by _kt75} - http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/p/kt75-mirror-downloads.html
• _kt75 | reflections - http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/p/blog-page.html
• _sustinvent⁺ - http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/p/kt75-interactive.html

Whereas the _kt75 | mirror provides a selection of in-depth but compact articles, the _kt75 | news box represents a compilation of news streams addressing a number of key interesting areas. For readers interested in more detailed and comprehensive background information the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management as well as the _kt75 | reflections might be of use. The former provides insights into ongoing developments in particular in the water sector and on a quarterly basis, whereas the latter provides in-depth reflections and background information on sustainable development in general. Finally, _sustinvent⁺ is a unique inventory visualizing all hydro power/water dam facilities world wide along detailed background information in the form of text, images and video.

_kt75 | news box

Screen shot of the _kt75 news box (2014-01-24).

The _kt75 | news box is the most recent information service started by _kt75 | mirror. It provides a continuously updated headline with information from various news agencies (among others: Reuters, Xinhua, AP, etc.). For detailed information various news sectors are added:

• World... Most recent news from policy, society and business are compiled. This sector comprises information feeds from about 20 news sources. As an additional service, readers my directly subscribe to this sector via the rss feed.

• _kt75... The most recent publications of _kt75 | mirror are compiled here as a short-list. It is intended to provide a quick and comprehensive overview and help browsing the publications released by _kt75 | mirror. Also here exists the option to subscriber to the rss feed hosted by _kt75 | mirror.

• Energy... Analogously to the above sectors the Energy sector compiles most recent news and information provided by more than 20 news sources. Another six dedicated background information sources round up this news service. This news sector concentrates in detail on energy supply, alternative energy sources, climate change issues, but addresses also developments in the conventional energy supply sectors such as coal and nuclear power.

• Tech... Complementing the Energy news sector above, the Tech sector concentrates on most recent developments in energy and environmental research. In total about 12 news streams are unified to provide a quick and comprehensive overview.

• Stocks... This sector finally, provides ad-hoc quantitative information about the monetary development in numerous regions and markets. It may in particular provide quick and compact financial information about the current and most recent situations on the markets. It is however not intended to provide a basis for just in time actions of market players.

• Jobs... Sustainable development is also a question of employment. Accordingly, it was decided to provide a quick and comprehensive overview of the job market. The Jobs sector provides just in time information about most recent job opportunities in the field of research and engineering (focus: energy, climate, etc.). It provides news streams from 8 platforms and a number of industrial and governmental stakeholders.

Additionally, the _kt75 | news box provides quick access to _sustinvent⁺. Each of the news sectors provides up to 500 most recent publications ranging from quick notes up to detailed reports and documentations.

Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management_{by _kt75}

The very first issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management was released in early 2010 by the then SWM-Group. The key intention of the Notes was and is to provide cutting edge information and news about recent developments in water management with a particular focus on sustainability issues. However, in order to assist for a comprehensive sustainable development not only water related issues but also adjacent topics like hydro power (i.e. alternative energy generation), agriculture, food production and others are addressed. Accordingly, the Notes are structured and address the following areas: News, Technology, Research, Politics&Society. Each of the articles (essentially that are reprints of previously elsewhere released articles) as a length between 200 and 400 words, is written in English and is published along with the complete references in order to facilitate accessing the complete publication. The next issue of the Notes is scheduled to be published 1st April 2014 and abstracts/submissions can be sent to: Submission for the next issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management.

The Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management are published on a quarterly basis (always at the end of the respective quarter), they are free of charge, published in .pdf-format and available via internet only. Interested readers have also the opportunity to subscribe directly to the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management via: Subscription to Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management.

_kt75 | reflections

In contrast to the _kt75 | notes the _kt75 | reflections are published on an irregular basis focusing on up-to-the-minute topics. Key intention of the reflections is the instantaneous and progressive consideration of critical issues (with a primary focus on sustainable development) to raise the awareness of the broad public. Relations shall be highlighted, biases be mitigated and reasonable interpretation of received information shall be promoted. Accordingly, a recent _kt75 | reflections series (01/2013) comprises four key topics:

• unemployment (published: 01.1/2013)
• alternative (published: 01.2/2013 )
• turn-over/sales figures (published: 01.3/2013 )
• life cycle assessment (under preparation)

Similar to the _kt75 | notes they are released as well via the internet and in .pdf-format, the publication is as well free of charge.

_sustinvent⁺

_sustinvent

The following text is adopted from the most recent white paper on _sustinvent⁺ which can be download as .pdf from here:

Summary Sustainable water management represents one of the key challenges towards future-proof development. Comprehensive, neutral and transparent information supply represents a key instrument to facilitate sustainable development. Technical, economic, environmental but also social maldevelopments can be identified rapidly and measures for improvement can be applied. With regard to water management, in particular with regard to hydro power it has to be noted that today the data situation is rather dissatisfying. Many information sources are around, often providing contradictory and sometimes simply wrong and incomplete data. To overcome this problem _sustinvent+ has been developed since 2012. By 20th December 2013 version 0.605 RC1 will be released providing access to more than 5’500 hydro power data sets of Africa, Middle-East and China. All of the data sets were subject to a thorough and critical evaluation. Basis of all information was the FAO-data base of hydro power facilities, information obtained directly from facility operators, and other third party information as literature. To improve the functionality and add more information content, the inventories of larger dam facilities are as of this version equipped with multi-media meta-data sets, i.e. images and video-clips. The following special reflection provides a quick overview about the newest release of _sustinvent+ v0.605 RC1 (single window version). More information are available via: http://kt75-mirror.blogspot.ch/p/kt75-interactive.html

Keywords _sustinvent, _sustindex, Africa, Middle-East, China, water dams, hydro power.

Introduction As of 20th December 2013 the newest release of _sustinvent+ (v0.605 RC1) will be available. This intermediate release comprises a number of functional as well as content related modifications since the release of v0.51 (30th June 2013). On the one hand it comprises a number of improvements of the software design as of the data base. On the other hand, with the completion of the inventory of the major water dam facilities (volumes: larger than 1’000’000 m3) located in Africa, the Middle-East and China (in total more than 5’500 data sets) a first pivotal data package for future comprehensive sustainability analyses is available. The below paper describes briefly the newest release of _sustinvent+, informs quickly about the functionality and provides a brief outlook concerning the planned next steps.

_sustinvent⁺ v0.605 RC1 (single window) Resources in general and energy in particular represent rare, thus precious ingredients for a prospering social, economic and environmental development. Especially water has been subject to a growing awareness. However, repeatedly a lack of know-how concerning e.g. the local water availability conditions, be it for industrial, domestic or agricultural use, be it for irrigation or for hydro power generation has been recognised. In order to fill this gap and representing one part of the larger _sustindex project the development of _sustinvent+ was initiated at the end of 2012 {Scharnhorst 2013 #1}. Since then a number of development steps have been completed resulting in the recent release of version 0.51. The following constitute the technical requirements to run _sustinvent+:

• Web browser Mozilla Firefox, Pale Moon, Google Chrome or Opera are supported; Safari and Internet Explorer are not supported
• Java needs to be enabled in the browser
• Flash Adobe Flash Player is required
• Pop-up Windows need to be enabled

Once started the GUI awaits your input either via the menu bar on top or via the checkbox section below (Figure 1). _sustinvent+ v0.605 comes as plain and simple single window version (RC1), i.e. no additional windows will open, neither in the background nor anywhere else. The menu ‘_sustinvent+’ allows you to start (restart) the program, it provides you access to the help-function or links you to the _sustinvent user group. You may also quit the tool via the exit-option. The menu ‘maps’ lets you reset the display settings (for example: you have explored the situation in a certain country or region and you want to quickly get back to the start, then you just to need click on the global reset-option). The ‘maps’-menu finally lets you print the map that is displayed or you can export it to another image processing software. The ‘configuration’-menu lets you adjust your personal display settings to a number of predefined resolutions. Alternatively, you may enter your preferred resolution. To reset to the default settings just click on the reset-option. The full screen-function allows you to view _sustinvent+ without any disturbing frames and bars etc. The menu options ‘_sustindex’ and ‘_sustreport’ will directly link the _sustinvent+ tool with these two corresponding analysis tools .

In addition to the menu bar you may navigate with the scale bar on the left hand side, with the smaller navigation map located in the right bottom corner or you may use your mouse to drag and drop the map. In order to access a certain country you just need to click on the country of interest. To access a particular region (continent) you may either use the menu (‘maps’) or specify the region of interest via the checkbox section below the map (Figure 2). In version 0.605 of _sustinvent+ the checkbox section also requires the specification of a certain energy source (the present release allows the selection of hydro power). Once selected you need to submit the selection via the ‘Submit Display Data’ button at the bottom (centre) of the tool (there you also have the opportunity to reset everything via the button ‘Clear Display Data/Reset’). Having this overview of a certain region you may want to explore the details of a certain country. To access the country of interest, click on the country. You have now the possibility to explore the details of the individual facilities. The compact documentation window provides you also links to a number of relevant documents located online (Figure 3). To return to the region of interest just click again on the button ‘Submit Display Data’ (the specifications of the checkbox remain unchanged by the program) or reset to the start screen by clicking ‘Clear Display Data/Reset’. As new functionaliy multi-media meta-data have been added to selected inventory items. For example, larger water dam facilities are now equipped with image and video data. By clicking on the corresponding text you a new window will be opened allowing access to those data. To return to _sustinvent+ just close the window (Figure 4).

Outlook The development of _sustinvent+ will be seamlessly continued and the next version (0.61) will then provide access to major water dams in Asia. In parallel to this the methdological development of _sustindex will be intensified.