Breaking the Energy Coefficient: Cross-Country Analysis of the Pulp and Paper Industry

Our research concentrates primarily on the empirical analysis of interregional and intertemporal economic structural change, on the sources of and constraints on economic growth, on problems of adaptation to sudden changes, and especially on problems arising from changing patterns of international trade, resource availability, and technology. In this paper one of the long-standing industries and the impact of its technological changes on energy consumption are considered. Econometric analysis of cross-country and time-series data helps to reveal the impact which is widely discussed in detailed engineering reports

Breaking the Energy Coefficient: Cross-Country Analysis for the Chemical Industry

In this paper one of the long-standing industries and the impact of its technological changes on energy consumption are considered. Econometric analysis of cross-country and time-series data helps to reveal the impact which is widely discussed in detailed engineering reports

Breaking the Energy Coefficient: Cross-Country Analysis for the Iron and Steel Industry

In this paper one of the most long-standing industries and the impact of its technological changes on energy consumption are considered. Econometric analysis of cross-country and time-series data helps to reveal the impact which is widely discussed in detailed engineering reports

Strained premixed laminar flames with nonunity Lewis numbers

The method of activation energy asymptotics is used to study the effects of Lewis numbers different from unity on nonadiabatic flamelets in counterflowing streams of reactants and products. A sequence of analyses parallels those reported earlier for such flamelets having Lewis number unity. Thus initial results relate to nearly adiabatic flows with Lewis numbers close to unity. It is found that the effect of nonunity Lewis numbers is accentuated in flamelets subjected to low rates of strain and that Lewis numbers greater than unity tend to promote extinction. Thus abrupt extinction and ignition events can occur even under adiabatic conditions. Next fully nonadiabatic flamelets with Lewis numbers near unity are treated in order to consider cases involving relatively large degrees of product heating and cooling. These results relate to reaction zones as they arise under conditions of low-to-moderate rates of strain with the customary diffusive-reactive balance. We also treat flamelets subjected to such high rates of strain that the reaction zone is extended and located far into the product stream. In this case a diffusive-convective-reactive balance prevails. Realistic density variations are considered in the numerical examples and are shown to tend to retard extinction

Data Set on the Use of Continuous Improvement Programs in Companies From Open-Ended Questions

Juarez-Tarraga, A.; Santandreu Mascarell, C.; Marin-Garcia, JA. (2021). Data Set on the Use of Continuous Improvement Programs in Companies From Open-Ended Questions. Frontiers in Psychology. 12:1-10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.693727S1101

What are the main concerns of human resource managers in organizations?

[EN] Purpose: This study examines whether high involvement work programs (HIWP) are included in, and respond to, the priorities of HR managers in organizations. We analyze reports to identify the main concerns for managers, and compare the solutions implemented to address them, to evaluate the extent to which HIWP are adopted to meet these challenges. Design/methodology: To conduct this study we carried out a systematic literature review, selecting reports by consulting firms and human resource management associations. Findings: Our key findings from this research suggest that HIWP are used as a lever for change to meet the challenges faced by HR managers in organizations, the most urgent of which are talent management and improving leadership. Research limitations/implications: The paper identifies possible lines of research that respond specifically to the interests of the professional ambit and would be better appreciated by HR managers in companies. Practical implications: The issues raised are relevant to HR professionals, allowing them to compare their priorities against those of managers occupying similar positions, and to view a selection of the most commonly used programs to solve priority problems. This enables HRMs to plan ahead and prepare by providing them with an overview of the most important challenges they have to face. Originality/value: On the one hand in the professional arena, as they provide professionals with an overview of the challenges they face, so they can plan optimal HR management programs, work methods geared and identify improvement opportunities. And on the other hand, in the academic sphere, our study opens possible future research lines that may contribute to the development of the profession, identify research lines that genuinely address the concerns of professionals and could help reduce the gap that some researchers have identified between the academic and professional spheres.Juarez-Tarraga, A.; Santandreu Mascarell, C.; Marin-Garcia, JA. (2019). What are the main concerns of human resource managers in organizations?. Intangible Capital. 15(1):72-95. https://doi.org/10.3926/ic.1342S729515

Flammability conditions for ultra-lean hydrogen premixed combustion based on flame-ball analyses

Proceeding of: 10th International Conference on Clean Energy 2010, 15-17 September 2010, Famagusta, North CyprusIt has been reasoned that the structures of strongly cellular flames in very lean mixtures approach an array of flame balls, each burning as if it were isolated, thereby indicating a connection between the critical conditions required for existence of steady flame balls and those necessary for occurrence of self-sustained premixed combustion. This is the starting assumption of the present study, in which structures of near-limit steady sphericosymmetrical flame balls are investigated with the objective of providing analytic expressions for critical combustion conditions in ultra-lean hydrogen-oxygen mixtures diluted with N2 and water vapor. If attention were restricted to planar premixed flames, then the lean-limit mole fraction of H2 would be found to be roughly ten percent, more than twice the observed flammability limits, thereby emphasizing the relevance of the flame-ball phenomena. Numerical integrations using detailed models for chemistry and radiation show that a onestep chemical-kinetic reduced mechanism based on steady-state assumptions for all chemical intermediates, together with a simple, optically thin approximation for water-vapor radiation, can be used to compute near-limit fuel-lean flame balls with excellent accuracy. The previously developed one-step reaction rate includes a crossover temperature that determines in the first approximation a chemical-kinetic lean limit below which combustion cannot occur, with critical conditions achieved when the diffusion-controlled radiation-free peak temperature, computed with account taken of hydrogen Soret diffusion, is equal to the crossover temperature. First-order corrections are found by activation-energy asymptotics in a solution that involves a near-field radiation-free zone surrounding a spherical flame sheet, together with a far-field radiation-conduction balance for the temperature profile. Different scalings are found depending on whether or not the surrounding atmosphere contains water vapor, leading to different analytic expressions for the critical conditions for flame-ball existence, which give results in very good agreement with those obtained by detailed numerical computations. The one-step chemistry employed in the present work, which involves a non-Arrhenius rate having a cutoff at the crossover temperature, applies with excellent accuracy to the description of lean premixed hydrogen-air combustion, i.e, for f(0:5 at atmospheric pressure, and could be used for instance in the numerical simulation of the propagation of curved or cellularflames in ultra-lean reactive atmospheres, of interest for safety analyses related to the storage, transport, and handling of hydrogen.This work was supported by the Comunidad de Madrid through project #P2009/ENE-1597. The first three authors also acknowledge support from the Spanish MCINN through projects # ENE2008-06515 and CSD2010-00011

Laminar Craya-Curtet jets

This Brief Communication investigates laminar Craya-Curtet flows, formed when a jet with moderately large Reynolds number discharges into a coaxial ducted flow of much larger radius. It is seen that the Craya-Curtet number, C=(J/sub c//J/sub j/)/sup 1/2/, defined as the square root of the ratio of the momentum flux of the coflowing stream to that of the central jet, arises as the single governing parameter when the boundary-layer approximation is used to describe the resulting steady slender jet. The numerical integrations show that for C above a critical value C/sub c/ the resulting streamlines remain aligned with the axis, while for C<C/sub c/ the entrainment demands of the jet cannot be satisfied by the coflow, and a toroidal recirculation region forms. The critical Craya-Curtet number is determined for both uniform and parabolic coflow, yielding C/sub c/=0.65 and C/sub c/=0.77, respectively. The streamlines determined numerically are compared with those obtained experimentally by flow visualizations, yielding good agreement in the resulting flow structure and also in the value of C/sub c

Vorticity dynamics in three-dimensional pulsating co-flowing jet diffusion flames

The vorticity dynamics in the near field of laminar (Re = 103) co-flowing jets subjected to the single or combined effeets of axial and azimuthal forcing is analyzed. It is shown that the interaction of the three-dimensional vortex structure resulting from the growth of the two and three-dimensional instabilities may result in large changes in the entrainment and mixing characteristics of the jet. For each azimuthal forcing, and for a fixed velocity ratio between the inner and outer jet, we show the existence of several instability modes leading to a pattern of lateral ejections of closed vortex loops. These modes and their topological changes are analyzed in view of the three-dimensional inviscid induction of the two concentric array of vortex rings emanating from the j e t s exit nozzle. For the case of methane-air diffusion flames, fiow visualizations revealed the existence of qualitatively similar patterns of closed fíame cells and fingers

Dialogue on 'Institutional complementarity and political economy'

"Martin Höpner's paper was written to structure discussions at a workshop of the 'Complementarity Project', which was held in Paris, 26-27 September 2003. The project was organized by Bruno Amable and Robert Boyer, Colin Crouch, Martin Höpner and Wolfgang Streeck. The subject of the workshop was the complementarity, real or imagined, of financial markets and industrial relations in present-day 'varieties of capitalism'. Apart from the organizers, participants included Patrick Le Gales, Peter Hall, Gregory Jackson, Bruce Kogut, David Marsden and Pascal Petit. In the follwing we document short excerpts from five out of nine 'reaction papers' written by participants in advance of the workshop." (author's abstract