Robotic Drilling Systems (Norway)

Rice is a global staple food that plays a key role in terms of fostering global trade, economic developments and food. China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are some of the Asian countries that have been engaged in the production of various varieties of rice including short and long grains. These varieties are even further categorized into basmati, jasmine, kainat saila, ipsala, arborio, and so on, which suits all the different culinary styles as well as cultural backgrounds. In case of local and international trade, there is need to check and maintain the quality of rice grains to satisfy the customers and to maintain the reputation of a country. Quality check and classification using the manual are very tedious and time consuming. It is also very susceptible to errors. In this research paper, the automatic framework is a convolutional neural network (CNN) framework to classify rice varieties, i.e. basmati, jasmine, ipsala, arborio, and karacadag. The CNN model was trained and validated, with an impressive accuracy rate and an ideal area under each class Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. The confusion matrix analysis indicated that the model was effective in differentiating the various rice varieties with few misclassifications. Also, the use of explainability methods including LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations) and SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) helped to understand the decision-making process of a model and provided some new insights about how particular features of rice grains impacted the results of classification. The interpretability fosters trust in the model predictions and increases its applicability in the real-world context. The results demonstrate the enormous potential of deep learning methods in agriculture, which opens the path to the development of automated classification systems.

Background and objectivesPersistent headache has emerged as a symptom following acute COVID-19 and, to a lesser extent, after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. However, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study aimed to evaluate plasma levels of amyloid-related biomarkers in patients experiencing persistent headaches after COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.MethodsIn this prospective observational cohort, patients presenting with severe headache as the dominating symptom after COVID-19 (n=29) or SARS-CoV-2 vaccination (n=31) had neurological assessments with reassessments after 6 months. Plasma levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP), pregnancy zone protein (PZP), cathepsin L1 (CTSL) and serum Amyloid A (SAA1) were measured using ELISA and compared with levels in healthy controls (n=16).ResultsWe found a strong and persistent upregulation of APP in patients with headache after COVID-19 as compared with the two other groups. Notably, APP levels remained elevated at both inclusion and after 6 months in individuals with accompanying cognitive symptoms. In contrast, PZP levels were increased in patients with headache after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination at both time points relative to healthy controls. CTSL was only elevated in the post-COVID-19 at baseline, whereas SAA1 showed levels comparable across all groups.ConclusionAltered plasma levels of soluble markers, potentially reflecting changes in amyloid processing, were found in patients with persistent headache following SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, particularly in those with persistent headache after COVID-19. In the latter group, we also found some association with cognitive symptoms.Trial registration numbersNCT04576351 and NCT05235776.

Many animals perform long‐distance migrations in order to maximize lifetime reproductive success. The European eel migrates several thousand kilometers between their feeding habitats in continental waters (fresh‐, brackish, and sea water) and their spawning area in the Sargasso Sea. Eels residing in freshwaters usually initiate their spawning migration as silver eels during autumn, triggered by diverse environmental cues. We analyzed the time series of silver eel downstream migration in Burrishoole, Ireland (1971–2015), and Imsa, Norway (1975–2015), to examine factors regulating the silver eel migration from freshwater to the sea. The migration season (90% of the run) generally lasted from 1 August to 30 November. Environmental factors acting in the months before migration impacted timing and duration of migration, likely through influencing the internal processes preparing the fish for migration. Once the migration had started, environmental factors impacted the day‐to‐day variation in number of migrants, apparently stimulating migration among those eels ready for migration. Both the day‐to‐day variation in the number of migrants and the onset of migration were described by nearly identical models in the two rivers. Variables explaining day‐to‐day variation were all associated with conditions that may minimize predation risk; number of migrants was reduced under a strong moon and short nights and increased during high and increasing water levels. Presence of other migrants stimulated migration, which further indicates that silver eel migration has evolved to minimize predation risk. The onset of migration was explained mainly by water levels in August. The models for duration of the migration season were less similar between the sites. Thus, the overall migration season seems governed by the need to reach the spawning areas in a synchronized manner, while during the actual seaward migration, antipredator behavior seems of overriding importance.

Scopelophila ligulata (Spruce) Spruce is reported for the first time from Europe north of the Alps. The moss was discovered in crevices in south facing cliff walls of felsic volcanic rock on the island Varaldsoy in Hordaland County, southwest Norway, in September 2015.

The present study is devoted to discrepancies between experimental and theoretical runup heights on an inclined plane, which have occasionally been reported in the literature. In a new study on solitary wave-runup on moderately steep slopes, in a wave tank with 20 cm water depth, detailed observations are made for the shoreline motion and velocity profiles during runup. The waves are not breaking during runup, but they do break during the subsequent draw-down. Both capillary effects and viscous boundary layers are detected. In the investigated cases the onshore flow is close to the transitional regime between laminar and turbulent boundary layers. The flow behaviour depends on the amplitude of the incident wave and the location on the beach. Stable laminar flow, fluctuations (Tollmien-Schlichting waves), and formation of vortices are all observed. Comparison with numerical simulations showed that the experimental runup heights were markedly smaller than predictions from inviscid theory. The observed and computed runup heights are discussed in the context of preexisting theory and experiments. Similar deviations are apparent there, but have often been overlooked or given improper physical explanations. Guided by the absence of turbulence and irregular flow features in parts of the experiments we apply laminar boundary layer theory to the inundation flow. Outer flows from potential flow models are inserted in a nonlinear, numerical boundary layer model. Even though the boundary layer model is invalid near the moving the shoreline, the computed velocity profiles are found to compare well with experiments elsewhere, until instabilities are observed in the measurements. Analytical, linear boundary layer solutions are also derived both for an idealized swash zone motion and a polynomial representation of the time dependence of the outer flow. Due to lacking experimental or theoretical descriptions of the contact point dynamics no two-way coupling of the boundary layer model and the inviscid runup models is attempted. Instead, the effect of the boundary layer on the maximum runup is estimated through integrated losses of onshore volume transport and found to be consistent with the differences between inviscid theory and experiments.

Abstract Recent advances in drilling technology have resulted in longer horizontal wells being drilled to more efficiently exploit reservoirs. However, these long open hole horizontals are often problematic when using coiled tubing as the well intervention conveyance system during stimulation. Coiled tubing, a commonly used intervention tool for open hole horizontals, is considerably less stiff than jointed drill pipe and cannot reach TD on many wells due to friction. Assistance from friction reducers, well tractors or other devices have helped, but can be potentially damaging, expensive and/or high risk. This poster details the use of a simple agitation tool placed in the coiled tubing bottom hole assembly during the stimulation. This results in decreased friction which in turn increases reach for coiled tubing thereby allowing full horizontal open hole stimulation treatment. The case study that is presented on the performance of the agitation tool used in coiled tubing stimulations in long horizontal open hole sections of a hot, sour reservoir with a total measured depth up to 7 kilometers. Suncor Energy has utilized this process in the development of its Panther River reservoirs in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin with excellent results. Benefits discussed include reduced completion cost and reduced environmental impact.

A commonly voiced justification for preserving a particular obscure and apparently insignificant species is that species are interconnected in subtle ways, and we are likely to precipitate a cascade of extinction. The focus primarily on minimum viable populations (MVP) of single species carries the potential for suggesting conflicting research programs. If the focus is too heavily on «magic numbers» and rules, this conflict will become intense. Because many species are linked together, there are many cases in which conservation of one species will automatically entail conservation of many others. An understanding of the habitat and biology of the interacting species should allow conservation scientists to make a good estimate of what must be done to save the system, but simply focusing on the numbers that would constitute an MVP of any one interactant would be at best an inefficient approach, at worst extinction would ensure. To derive statistically reliable estimates for MVP is clearly a difficult if not impossible task. But it can be an even tougher task to extrapolate from the MVP into estimating the area of habitat necessary to support such a population, which requires a detailed understanding of a species habitat requirements. Patches of habitat must not only be larger than some critical size, they must also be in a suitable geometric configuration to ensure dispersal among habitat units.