Coping with different system logics of standardization in regulatory regimes. Norwegian offshore experience

This paper addresses the role of standardization in risk governance and explores challenges when unifying different system logics and standardizations in the regulator-regulated relationships in different industrial, political, and cultural contexts. High-risk regulatory regimes have been at the forefront in developing regulations management, founded on function-, purpose- and goal-based regulations. A key perspective in our analysis is to examine the importance of “standardization” as an institutional approach and regulatory mechanism. The new era of free trade and globalization causes constant reorganization in industries that are trying to seize opportunities and increase competitiveness. The high-risk industries today, therefore, are undergoing major changes, due to downsizing and mergers, which inevitably affect and challenge their safety levels. The paper bases its discussion on several empirical studies of industrial dynamics and innovation in petroleum, mainly from the empirical context of the North Sea petroleum region.publishedVersio

SKIM, a candidate satellite mission exploring global ocean currents and waves

The Sea surface KInematics Multiscale monitoring (SKIM) satellite mission is designed to explore ocean surface current and waves. This includes tropical currents, notably the poorly known patterns of divergence and their impact on the ocean heat budget, and monitoring of the emerging Arctic up to 82.5°N. SKIM will also make unprecedented direct measurements of strong currents, from boundary currents to the Antarctic circumpolar current, and their interaction with ocean waves with expected impacts on air-sea fluxes and extreme waves. For the first time, SKIM will directly measure the ocean surface current vector from space. The main instrument on SKIM is a Ka-band conically scanning, multi-beam Doppler radar altimeter/wave scatterometer that includes a state-of-the-art nadir beam comparable to the Poseidon-4 instrument on Sentinel 6. The well proven Doppler pulse-pair technique will give a surface drift velocity representative of the top meter of the ocean, after subtracting a large wave-induced contribution. Horizontal velocity components will be obtained with an accuracy better than 7 cm/s for horizontal wavelengths larger than 80 km and time resolutions larger than 15 days, with a mean revisit time of 4 days for of 99% of the global oceans. This will provide unique and innovative measurements that will further our understanding of the transports in the upper ocean layer, permanently distributing heat, carbon, plankton, and plastics. SKIM will also benefit from co-located measurements of water vapor, rain rate, sea ice concentration, and wind vectors provided by the European operational satellite MetOp-SG(B), allowing many joint analyses. SKIM is one of the two candidate satellite missions under development for ESA Earth Explorer 9. The other candidate is the Far infrared Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM). The final selection will be announced by September 2019, for a launch in the coming decade

BIB-it: en verktøykasse for BIBTEX

Høgskolen i Gjøvik har mange brukere av LaTeX og BibTeX blant både ansatte og studenter. LaTeX er et verktøy som brukes mye for å skrive spesielt tekniske dokumenter med mye formler, figurer og kryssreferanser. Til LaTeX finnes også hjelpeprogrammet BibTeX som holder orden på bibliografisk innhold, som referanser og sitering av disse. Brukeren skriver informasjon om referansene han eller hun vil sitere (forfatter, tittel, årstall, utgiver osv.) i en tekstfil (vanligvis kalt en bib-database). Denne bib-databasen vokser etter hvert til å bli stor og uoversiktelig og vanskelig å vedlikeholde for hånd. Vi har i dette hovedprosjektet utviklet Bib-it – en GUI-applikasjon som forenkler vedlikehold av bib-databaser. Bib-it inneholder også mer avansert funksjonalitet som hjelper brukeren med å holde bib-databasen konsistent (duplikatsøk), samt en stilgenerator som lar brukeren definere og vedlikeholde sine egne bibtexstiler. Bib-it er plattformuavhengig og applikasjonen er utviklet i Java. Vi har brukt en inkrementell utviklingsmodell. Dette gjorde det mulig å gi ut flere betaversjoner av Bib-it i løpet av prosjektperioden. Disse betaversjonene ble testet av oppdragsgiver og andre interesserte, og slik fikk vi nyttige tilbakemeldinger som har vært med på forme det endelige resultatet

Comparing SAR based short time-lag cross-correlation and Doppler derived sea ice drift velocities

This paper shows initial results from estimating Doppler radial surface velocities (RVLs) over Arctic sea ice using the Sentinel-1A (S1A) satellite. Our study presents the first quantitative comparison between ice drift derived from the Doppler shifts and drift derived using time-series methods over comparable time scales. We compare the Doppler-derived ice velocities with global positioning system tracks from a drifting ice station as well as vector fields derived using traditional cross correlation between a pair of S1A and Radarsat-2 images with a time lag of only 25 min. A strategy is provided for precise calibration of the Doppler values in the context of the S1A level-2 ocean RVL product. When comparing the two methods, root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs) of 7 cm/s were found for the extra wide (EW4) and EW5 swaths, while the highest RMSE of 32 cm/s was obtained for the EW1 swath. Though the agreement is not perfect, our experiment demonstrates that the Doppler technique is capable of measuring a signal from the ice if the ice is fast moving. However, for typical ice speeds, the uncertainties quickly grow beyond the speeds we are trying to measure. Finally, we show how the application of an antenna pattern correction reduces a bias in the estimated Doppler offsets

An Ocean Wind Doppler Model Based on the Generalized Curvature Ocean Surface Scattering Model

A Doppler centroid D-C model based on the generalized curvature ocean surface scattering model (generalized curvature model or GCM) is presented. Two key features are included in this model: a skewness-related phase coefficient based on empirical skewness coefficients of sea-surface-slope probability density function (pdf) for wind speed less than 10 m/s and effects from wave breaking for wind speed greater than 10 m/s. Simulated D-c values are exclusively compared with the empirical geophysical Doppler model function named CDOP, for hh and vv polarizations, various wind conditions, and incidence angles. Good agreement is found overall between CDOP and simulated D-C values. The overall bias for simulated Dc-vv with and without skewness are 2.63 versus -0.51 Hz (14.6 versus -2.8 cm/s), respectively; overall standard deviations are 2.76 versus 3.53 Hz (15.3 versus 19.6 cm/s). For simulated DC-hh, overall bias values with and without skewness are -0.16 versus -2.52 Hz (-0.9 versus -14 cm/s); standard deviations are 3.56 versus 4.32 Hz (19.7 versus 24 cm/s). The overall bias for simulated Dc-vv with and without the wave breaking component are -0.08 versus 0.12 Hz (-0.4 versus 0.7 cm/s), respectively; corresponding standard deviations are 3.32 versus 4.75 Hz (18.4 versus 26.3 cm/s). Bias values for simulated Dc-vv with and without the wave breaking component are -1.83 versus -2.02 Hz (-10.2 versus -11.2 cm/s), with corresponding overall standard deviations of 3.43 versus 4.87 Hz (19 versus 27 cm/s). The largest deviation from CDOP, of about 18 Hz (0.99 m/s), is found in the upwind direction for a 26 incidence angle, 10-m/s wind speed, and hh polarization