CFD Applications in Energy Engineering Research and Simulation: An Introduction to Published Reviews

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been firmly established as a fundamental discipline to advancing research on energy engineering. The major progresses achieved during the last two decades both on software modelling capabilities and hardware computing power have resulted in considerable and widespread CFD interest among scientist and engineers. Numerical modelling and simulation developments are increasingly contributing to the current state of the art in many energy engineering aspects, such as power generation, combustion, wind energy, concentrated solar power, hydro power, gas and steam turbines, fuel cells, and many others. This review intends to provide an overview of the CFD applications in energy and thermal engineering, as a presentation and background for the Special Issue “CFD Applications in Energy Engineering Research and Simulation” published by Processes in 2020. A brief introduction to the most significant reviews that have been published on the particular topics is provided. The objective is to provide an overview of the CFD applications in energy and thermal engineering, highlighting the review papers published on the different topics, so that readers can refer to the different review papers for a thorough revision of the state of the art and contributions into the particular field of interest

Schooling Externalities, Technology and Productivity: Theory and Evidence from U.S. States

The recent literature on local schooling externalities in the U.S. is rather mixed: positive external effects of average education levels are hardly to be found but, in contrast, positive externalities from the share of college graduates can often be identified. This paper proposes a simple model to reconcile this mixed evidence. The key idea is that advanced technologies are complementary to highly educated workers, as opposed to traditional technologies which are complementary to less educated workers. Our calibrated model predicts that workers with high school education or less are employed in the traditional sector, while more educated workers are employed in the advanced sector. As the advanced sector is associated with the production of differentiated goods and services this generates a positive pecuniary externality (positive TFP effect) of college educated workers. By contrast, as no externalities are associated with the traditional technology, high school education only increases private returns. The model predictions are tested using data on U.S. states. We use compulsory attendance and child labor laws, push-driven immigration of highly educated workers and the location of Land Grant colleges as instruments for schooling attainments of workers in different states. The empirical estimates confirm that an increase in college education, but not an increase in high school education, had significant positive production externalities in U.S. states during the period 1960-2000.

Migration and Trade: Theory with an Application to the Eastern-Western European Integration

The remarkable increase in trade flows and in migratory flows of highly educated people are two important features of globalization of the last decades. This paper extends a two-country model of inter- and intra-industry trade to a rich environment featuring technological differences, skill differences and the possibility of international labor mobility. The model is used to explain the patterns of trade and migration as countries remove barriers to trade and to labor mobility. We parameterize the model to match the features of the Western and Eastern European members of the EU and analyze first the effects of the trade liberalization which occured between 1989 and 2004, and then the gains and losses from migration which are expected to occur if legal barriers to labor mobility are substantially reduced. The lower barriers to migration would result in significant migration of skilled workers from Eastern European countries. Interestingly, this would not only benefit the migrants and most Western European workers but, via trade, it would also benefit the workers remaining in Eastern Europe.Skilled Migration, Gains from Variety, Real Wages, Eastern-Western Europe.

Prensa y poder. Las Provincias, actor político central de la Transición valenciana

Las Provincias daily was a main political actor during the Valencian Transition. Before Franco’s death, it supported the opposition movements againts the dictatorship. From 1978, however, the newspaper recovered its traditional conservadurism and started to use an anticatalanism discourse. Its shared strategy with UCD placed the identity simbols of Valencian people on the political arena. This topic divided the people and left its mark in the Statute of Autonomy.El diario Las Provincias fue un actor político clave durante la Transición valenciana. Antes de la muerte de Franco, favoreció los movimientos de oposición al franquismo. A partir de 1978, sin embargo, recuperó su tradicional conservadurismo y empezó a utilizar un discurso anticatalanista. Su estrategia común con UCD situó en el centro del debate político los símbolos de identidad de los valencianos, una cuestión que dividió la sociedad y dejó su huella en el Estatuto de Autonomía