Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between workplace social capital and health and job related outcomes in a large Danish municipality.

Data used in this cross-sectional study are based on an electronic employee survey conducted in 2012 in a large municipality. Of the total population of 5,672 individuals, the number of participants amounted to 4,162, leading to a response rate of 73.4 percent. Binary logistic regression analysis is used as a statistical method, and odds ratios and their corresponding 95 percent confidence intervals have been estimated.

The level of social capital is fairly high in the municipality (3.75 on a five-point scale). Social capital is related to health (OR=0.420) and psychological distress (OR=0.282) but has an even stronger relationship to job satisfaction and commitment (OR is 9.889 and 7.800, respectively). The study contributes with the conclusion that different sub-dimensions of social capital are related to health and job related outcomes. Therefore, managers need to be specific about what exactly they want to achieve with the implementation of social capital in municipalities.

Research of the relationship between social capital and health and job related outcomes based on a case study approach of a municipality are limited. This paper makes an original contribution in providing evidence of the importance of social capital for Danish municipal sector employees’ health, job satisfaction, and commitment in a work context.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of a computational grid in computational fluid dynamics‐based mathematical modeling, focusing on but not limiting the attention to industrial‐scale boilers.

A full boiler model is used to show the difficulties related to judging iteration and discretization errors in boiler modeling. Then, a single jet is studied in detail to determine the proper degree of local grid refinement required in the vicinity of jets in the full boiler model. Both a nonreactive axisymmetric jet exhausting into a quiescent atmosphere and a reactive jet exhausting into a crossfiow are studied.

Over two million computational cells are required for the grid‐independent solution for a single jet. Local grid refinement is shown to be a good option for improving the results consistently without an excessive increase in the number of computational cells. Using relatively coarse grids of tetrahedral cells with a finite‐volume‐based solver may cause serious errors in results, typically by overpredicting the jet spreading rate and underpredicting the mean axial centerline velocity. Relatively coarse grids of hexahedral cells are less prone to error in a case where a jet exhausts into a quiescent atmosphere. However, their performance deteriorates when a crossfiow is introduced. As assumed, the differences in the predicted reaction rate and species concentrations are significant in the reactive case. It is confirmed that the standard k‐ε model tends to overpredict the axisymmetric jet spreading rate. The estimated inlet turbulence intensity is not among the most critical factors in modeling. Estimations of the axisymmetric jet centerline velocity from the analytical correlation may not coincide with the modeling results.

The error caused by the computational grid may easily dominate the errors caused by simplifying models used in industrial‐scale boiler modeling (turbulence, combustion, radiative heat transfer, etc.).

The present study deals with grid independency issues in industrial‐scale boiler modeling in a systematic and profound manner.

Global environmental and social threats challenge humans’ well-being and the survival of posterity. Industry 4.0 (I4.0) transformed the industry sector, enabling process automation and scalability, increasing manufacturers’ productivity, efficiency, and profitability, and supporting manufacturing innovation and firms’ competitive advantage. Despite this, the I4.0 paradigm, as currently conceived, does not fit for purpose in the context of the climate crisis and planetary emergency, nor does it address deep social tensions.

Therefore, a new revolution focusing on human and environmental needs is strongly required to address society’s economic and social problems. Combining digitalization and social purposes may address local, national, and international issues by involving a human-centered perspective in traditional business-oriented entrepreneurship.

Depending on the above, this chapter provides an in-depth understanding of Digital Entrepreneurship (DE), Digital Social Entrepreneurship (DSE), and how entrepreneurs may employ digital technologies to reach business and social aims.

The concluding chapter uses insights from the previous chapters to derive recommendations for how to cope with the next pandemic or other crisis. We note the necessity for properly preparing for the next crisis and how such preparation has numerous benefits. Building on the fundamental insight that social solidarity and confidence in those running major institutions was a primary factor in predicting COVID-19 outcomes, we offer a variety of suggestions for building solidarity and confidence prior to the next crisis. Many of these suggestions are related to the dangers of political polarization during crises, and we provide several suggestions for addressing the growing political divide that is evident in many liberal democracies in the early 21st century. We then consider several strategies for maintaining solidarity and confidence during the next crisis. Many of these suggestions focus on how governmental leaders and experts should frame their messages about the crisis and how to best mitigate its effects. Many of these lessons are drawn from the several mistakes that were made during the COVID-19 crisis that have now become visible with hindsight.

The project “Public schools in change – collaboration as a resource” was aimed to strengthen professional capital (social- human- and decision-capital) in public schools and as a part of this to strengthen collaboration within teams. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the approach of linking development of professional capital to the development of team competence through facilitating and discuss the adequacy of the methods used to fulfil the purpose.

This study was designed as a multiple case intervention implemented at four worksites. It was organized as a course consisting of four sessions among 15–20 team coordinators from each school unit. The research group provided insights and methods to increase the team’s ability to manage tasks and cooperate.

Based on observations of team meetings, the study provides a discussion on the usefulness of the approach of linking team competence and professional capital. Both at theoretical and practical levels, the study finds it is meaningful to combine facilitating as methods to ensure the creation of value in organizational teamwork, in general, with the concept of professional capital pointing on the quality of the core task and particularly developed within an educational context.

The study provide a presentation of two theoretical frameworks and a discussion of the adequacy of linking these frameworks to the development of team competences in a school context.

The study suggests that organizations and educational institutions (of teachers, physicians, and social workers) may benefit from linking professional capital and facilitating and thereby provide employees and students training in professional collaboration.

In a still more complex society, collaboration is crucial. The study suggests ways to improve collaboration, quality of the core task along with the relational dimensions in the psychosocial work environment.

Development of professional capital through increased team competences and facilitating skills represents a new and promising approach with theoretical as well as practical implications within a school context. Indeed, not only school teams but also teams in other organizations dealing with social- task- and contextual complexity can benefit from the insights and experiences of this study.

Global evidence suggests that youth offending has reduced; however, this study aims to suggest a more complex picture, with youth crime potentially being displaced to the digital space. Historically, young people and crime have been synonymous with public spaces and being visible. A shift or expansion to online offending requires revision of how the justice and educational systems respond to youth offending.

A systematic literature review explored keywords related to age, digital offence or harm and criminal or harmful nature, using a search, appraisal, synthesis and analysis framework.

Three emergent areas of digital youth crime are discussed: digitally assisted crime, digitally dependent crime and digital harm.

The shift in youth offending requires response adjustment from prevention to detection. Opportunities may exist to disrupt or redirect youth before they offend. Further data specific to digital offending is needed. These findings seek to provide a possible direction for future research.

The concept of digital displacement of youth offending is progressively emerging. This paper examines types of offending categorised into three areas of interest.

In the recent years the interest toward the use of biomass as a fuel for energy conversion, along with the continuous tightening of regulations, has driven the improvement of accurate design techniques which are required to optimize the combustion process and simultaneously control pollutant emissions. In this paper the use of a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics approach is analyzed to that aim by means of an application to an existing 50 MW biomass fixed-bed combustion furnace fueled by grape marc. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The studied furnace is an interesting example of biomass utilization as it may integrate biomass with organic residual by an industrial process. The numerical model has been implemented into an OpenFOAM solver, with an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. In particular, the fully 3D approach here presented, directly solves for the gas and solid evolution in both the combustion bed and the freeboard. Special care has also been devoted to the treatment of radiating fluxes, having a remarkable influence, again, on the bed evolution.

Results have been compared to experimental data in terms of temperature showing a good agreement. Further comparisons have been done with literature available data for a similar power size biomass furnace showing reasonable similarities.

Emission formation processes in a biomass furnace are dealt with in this paper. The innovation lies in the use of a fully 3D numerical approach, that is validated with regard to temperature measurements gathered in a multi-MW experimental furnace.

Thermochemical conversion processes are one of the possible solutions for the flexible production of electric and thermal power from biomass. The pyrolysis degradation process presents, among the others, the interesting features of biofuels and high energy density bio-oil production potential high conversion rate. In this paper, numerical results of a slow batch and continuous fast pyrolyzers, are presented, aiming at validating both a tridimensional computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method (CFD–DEM) and a monodimensional distributed activation energy model (DAEM) represents with data collected in dedicated experiments. The purpose of this paper is then to provide reliable models for industrial scale-up and direct design purposes.

The slow pyrolysis experimental system, a batch of small-scale constant-pressure bomb for allothermic conversion processes, is presented. A DEM numerical model has been implemented by means of a modified OpenFOAM solver. The fast pyrolysis experimental system and a lab scale screw reactor designed for biomass fast pyrolysis conversion are also presented along with a 1D numerical model to represent its operation. The model which is developed for continuous stationary feeding conditions and based on a four-parallel reaction chemical framework is presented in detail.

The slow pyrolysis numerical results are compared with experimental data in terms of both gaseous species production and reduction of the bed height showing good predictive capabilities. Fast pyrolysis numerical results have been compared to the experimental data obtained from the fast pyrolysis process of spruce wood pellet. The comparison shows that the chemical reaction modeling based on a Gaussian DAEM is capable of giving results in very good agreement with the bio-oil yield evaluated experimentally.

As general results of the proposed activities, a mixed experimental and numerical approach has demonstrated a very good potential in developing design tools for pyrolysis development.